So a few things:

1) gas tax holidays are bread and circuses for the proletariat, but it's the proletariat who are most impacted by staple prices. I drive a 911. The manual calls for an octane of gasoline not readily available in my state. I fill it up and go "well that sucks." My receptionist drives an '09 Honda Fit that she has to drive 16 miles a day. She fills it up and every 50 cent per gallon increase is $2.50 out of her pocket that week. Suppose she was commuting 90 minutes? Suppose she lived in the flyover states and it took her a 45 minute round trip to get groceries? It's the poor who eat it at the pump, not the rich, and "do something about gas prices" is more than philosophical to them.

2) And the whole point is geopolitical mayhem. NYMag may think that 11 billion barrels are off the table, but the fact of the matter is Russia's oil is only about 25% cheaper. They're still selling it just fine to China, India and a whole slough of other countries. Hell, they're still selling it to Germany and France! Russia is, however, a petro-state and causing instability within Russia is the entire point of the exercise. This is why stockpiles are down - they're always down whenever we're attempting geopolitical mayhem. Last time they were down? It's because Russia and Saudi Arabia were in a pissing match where both countries were trying to break the other. It goes the other way, too - OPEC increased the fuck out of production in 2012-2013 in an attempt to destroy the US shale industry (which only profits when oil is above $60/bbl). "Price at the pump" is a local geopolitical consideration, "price at the refinery" is a global geopolitical consideration, and depending on the policy focus one will always be sacrificed for the other.

3) This is just stupid:

Hochul’s plan is probably worse than just cosmetic, since it can only feed demand for more and more driving, giving people an excuse to get on the road when they might not have because they’re now saving a few cents per gallon.

You can't say "ZOMG gas is $8 a gallon in LA" and then argue that knocking 48 cents off the pump is going to encourage driving. What it does is keep the people who commute from desiring your ouster. This is supply/demand Econ 101 shit: IF prices are up a buck or more AND you reduce prices 48 cents THEN you have made a half-step. We're not talking about elective driving here, we're talking about compulsory driving - and with 60% of NY office space still empty as everyone works from home, we're not talking about the managerial class.

4) Let's talk about that gas station by the way.

There are certain gas stations that get featured by LA news on the reg. One of 'em is down by LAX - it's the one that you will pay through the nose for because you forgot to top up your rental car and you have a rental agreement that says Avis gets to charge you $15 a gallon to top it up. That one gets used a lot because any time you have to do anything about travel or the government or whatever you have to roll a truck to LAX to do a pointless standup by the In'n'Out that everyone always uses to shoot airport landings "to establish" for your shitty romcom. So you've decisively not filled up at that station a whole bunch because why would you.

The other is in the heart of "what the fuck did I do wrong" while Google gets you lost.

This is where the 101, the 110, the 10 and the 5 all come together to fuck you over. where citizens take the law in their own hands to keep you from being lost, where within a half mile you have five exits that take you to Staples Center, LA Live, the district court, the art museum, Chinatown, Union Station, the LAPD headquarters and the Disney Concert Hall and where you might need to be in the far right, the second right, the far left or the second left depending on where you're going. If you're news, you're also there all the time, and you're also not about to fill up your gas tank. That gas station subsists entirely on your friends who come to visit you from out of state, who are trying to get to your apartment but have been led by Google into the freeway equivalent of a malignant tumor and are now calling you, utterly and completely lost, and without any real sense of how to escape, but in desperate need of peeing in a place where most people do it on the street, of topping up because they thought they'd make it but instead they've been orbiting what they're certain is Nakatomi Plaza for twenty unnecessary minutes.

Gas is expensive. Highlighting either of these two stations, however, makes as much sense as holding Princeville and Topeka equivalent.