Going somewhere? It’ll cost you even more this week, with the national average price of a gallon of regular fuel now up to nearly $3.70 and rising 26 cents to $4.29 in California.
That’s up 14 cents a gallon from a week ago and a 29-cent increase from a month ago. A gallon is now more than 10% more expensive than the $3.35 it cost this time last year, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report.
But in California, drivers are wishing prices were still that low. The state’s average cost for a gallon is $4.29, compared to $4.03 a week ago. That’s nearly 15% more than the year-ago cost of $3.74 a gallon.
When the price at the pump goes up ten cents per gallon in the morning and another ten cents by three in the afternoon, that’s inflation, but when it continues to rise for another week, that’s called extortion, and I put the blame squarely where it belongs: on the oil market speculators, who don’t seem to care. Maybe it’s time for the states to seriously think about eliminating gasoline taxes until the Bakken oilfields in the Great Plains are in full production.
This is the one thing that I think is making the Obama campaign sweat like a pig. This is the one thing they can’t control and cannot effectively spin because most people have to put gas in their car regularly. And you simply can’t tell people this isn’t bad when they are paying out the nose every time they pony up to the pump.
#1, we could be energy independant within a few years if we continue to expand drilling using fracking. However, the “green” are all in a tizzy about fracking. According to many on our HOB/D Listserve, fracking in the east will result in the entire water supply and rivers of the east coast being contaminated. Its “evil” and TEC must draft a resolution speaking out prophetically on this at the upcoming General Convention. Strange, they don’t seem willing to cancel the GC to conserve energy, lower their carbon footprint, etc. Also, the still want their cars, the carpeting in the house, their ipads and iphones, …
2. Archer, what you say is so [i]true[/i], and right now, there seems to be no end to what’s happening at the gas pump. To be quite honest, I am sick and tired of being held hostage by the oil industry, and in particular, by the strategists controlling the price at the pump. Every time somebody [i]SNEEZES,[/i] it seems like they get overly concerned about what’s happening in the Middle East, and the price of a barrel of crude oil spikes upward.
In this country, we have a president who sneered at the Canadians’ plan to build the pipeline from the oil shale fields to Oklahoma, which would guarantee us the oil that we need, while at the same time, he cut a deal with the dictator of Venezuela to continue importing oil from that country……while Chavez himself gets a cut of the oil profits.
Reading further, Jerry Brown’s remark about “the Republicans stimulating a war in Iran” and affecting the price of oil, and therefore gas at the pump disgusts me no end. Nobody wants war, and these Nervous Nellies need to get a grip on reality of what they’re doing to the American consumer……not that they care.