Jospeh Zweifel, Democratic candidate for District 12 Senate, seconds Farmers Union president Doug Sombke’s call for a Special Session to enact a fuel-tax holiday… and makes a little political hay in the process:
Our farmers and ranchers don’t have the luxury of waiting, and neither should their legislators…. They’re out in the field right now, paying more for fuel than they ever have. The Farmer’s Union has made a clear, reasonable ask, and I’m proud to stand with them. Relief needs to come while the crop is still coming out of the field, not after.
…This is exactly the kind of moment when the people we send to Pierre need to show up…. If I’m elected to the Senate, I’ll be the kind of legislator who acts when South Dakotans need it, not one who waits for the next regular session [Zweifel for SD Senate, campaign press release, 2026.10.10].
I like a candidate who knows how to campaign on real policy. It’s just too bad that fuel-tax holidays are bad policy. Potholes don’t go away just because fuel prices go up. A fuel-tax holiday at a time of high demand deprives the state of funds it needs to maintain the roads we all use. And a good chunk of that money goes to the oil barons, who turn some of that tax pause into pure profit:
By reducing the tax, demand may expand, resulting in slightly higher pre-tax prices, causing the benefits to accrue to producers, not consumers. Back in 2022, several states introduced gas tax holidays in response to high gas prices. Those experiments show producers captured a slice of the benefits—around 20 percent, according to a recent paper in Energy Economics [Alex Muresianu, “Federal Gas Tax Holiday? Suspending the Gas Tax Is a Mistake,” Tax Foundation, 2026.05.13].
Other research shows the fuel producers soaking up even more of the meager savings intended for consumers:
If the full savings from the gas tax holiday were passed on to consumers, the average licensed driver would only save approximately $8.90 per month, according to PGPF calculations based on the most recent data from AAA and USEIA. However, economists have cast doubt on whether fuel prices would decrease by an amount equal to the tax. An analysis from the American Action Forum stated that “the decline in the purchase price should be about half the gas tax,” while PWBM found “the expected pass-through rates are 0.72 for gasoline and 0.60 for diesel.” That means the cost savings for consumers could be even less [“A Gas Tax Holiday Costs Billions, But Consumers See Only Marginal Savings,” Peter G. Peterson Foundation, 2026.05.15].
The chances that Governor Larry Rhoden or two-thirds of each chamber will call a Special Session at the height of campaign season are pretty slim. Governors have called three Special Sessions within two months of a statewide midterm election for the purpose of shoring up state revenues, but the Legislature has never convened this close to an election to blow a hole in the state budget.
Zweifel may be making a good political move, raising the issue of affordability against a ruling Republican party that is unlikely to take action. He’s just advocating bad policy that doesn’t help consumers much, transfers wealth from the tax base to corporate coffers, and avoids long-term solutions like boosting fuel supply with alternative energy and efficiency.