Republican efforts to reduce national gas prices in the weeks before Election Day were derailed in the Senate by infighting among GOP lawmakers and members of the administration who could not agree on how to ease consumers’ pain at the pump.
The divisions within the Senate Republican conference over how to lower gas and diesel prices — even if temporarily — were driven primarily by geographic differences.
Senators from oil-refining states shot down proposals from farm-state senators to ban the export of diesel or to loosen restrictions on the sale of E15 gasoline with higher ethanol content.
“You’re talking about regional politics, and it gets bogged down in the politics of energy, and the fiefdoms around it,” said Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist and former Senate leadership aide.
There were divisions that went beyond geography, too.

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