$4 A Gallon: National Gas Price Average Reaches Record

NEW YORK — Drivers are paying an average of $4 for a gallon of gasoline for the first time. AAA and the Oil Price Information Service say the national average price for a gallon of regular gas rose to $4.005 overnight from $3.988. But consumers in many parts of the country have already been paying well above that price for some time.

Gas is expected to keep climbing, putting greater pressure on consumers and businesses, because the price of oil is soaring in futures markets. Light, sweet crude shot up nearly $11 a barrel Friday and approached $140 for the first time.

Along with higher fuel costs, consumers are also contending with higher prices for food and other goods because of rising transportation costs.

Comments

[research]

1 trillion dollars over 10 years, would replace all imported oil, all nukes and all coal power with wind and solar.

sustainable forever.

Cheaper then war crimes.

See my profile for detailed calculations and links.

[booker52]

There are three steps that could be taken today. I ask why aren't they being taken today?
Here is the link http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/40360.html

[booker52]

I read this yesterday. Three steps that could drop the price of gas. Why aren't they being done???
Here is the link. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/40360.html

[Opus007]

Part of the problem that since oil men Bush and Cheney have been in office the federal goverment has greatly relaxed it's oversight of futures trading. So every time Bernake or Bush make a dumb comment, or violence ticks up in Iraq or bad weather is forecast the prices go up; I read that about 30% of the current oil price is due to fear mongering. Jim Webb addressed this Saturday night in an interview on "The Tim Russert Show" on CNBC.

We hadn't raised the CAFE standards for 30 YEARS! I think it is a conflict of interest to have the govement controlling CAFE standards while a big part of their revenue on state and federal level comes from gas tax on every gallon of gas.

[KillTheMessenger]

"We hadn't raised the CAFE standards for 30 YEARS! I think it is a conflict of interest to have the govement controlling CAFE standards while a big part of their revenue on state and federal level comes from gas tax on every gallon of gas."

A big part? Now that would be total nonsense. I pay thousands of dollars every year in income tax, I buy a couple thousand dollars worth of gas of which 11% are tax, i.e. the total amount of my tax payment that is gasoline tax amounts to a couple hundred bucks, at most. Do the calculation for yourself.

If the government wanted to do the right thing, it would lower income taxes for the poor and raise the gasoline tax to 100%. Now that would work. Everything else is wishful thinking.

[CrazyDemocrat]

Let me see if I have this in perspective...it's OK to pay $4 for a cup of coffee, but it's not OK to pay $4 for a gallon of gas.....Hmmmmmmm

[MajorKong]

“The greatest thing to come out of (the Iraq war) for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That’s bigger than any tax cut in the any country.”
–Rupert Murdoch, February 2003.

[graffen48]

Hey , nothing against the John Deere company, but when I see a television commercial showing them unloading this huge lawn tractor off the back of a semi into this guys yard thats no bigger than my front porch, isn't that promoting just the kind of overkill and waste this country doesn't need right now?? All these gasoline "toys" add up. Now is not the time to be pushing these kinds of products.

[michelv]

It is called humor.

[jpcline004]

thats probably why you are seeing so many ads! No one is buying them so they are adopting a more aggressive advertising plan.

[pbfishtaco]

Hey where can I get that 4.09/gal. gas on the headline page?

Oh. That was yesterday's price.

[peaceandfreedom]

Here's an idea: Let's get the execs from big tobacco to sit down in Congressional inquiry right next to the execs from big oil and see who lies the most.

I swear before god that tobacco is not addictive!

I swear before god that the price of gasoline is totally driven by "peak Oil!"

And other assorted fairy tales.

[KillTheMessenger]

The weird thing is... oil execs never talk about peak oil. They stay away from that topic like from no other. It's not good for your stock prices if you admit that your business model is not sustainable.

[Rule Of Law]

In an unusual public statement, Sadad al-Husseini, Saudi Aramco's second-ranking executive and its leading geologist, warned at an oil conference in Jakarta in 2002 that global "natural declines in existing capacity are real and must be replaced."

[Rule Of Law]

For more than two years now Chevron took out a series of “easy oil is over” adverts and willyoujoinus.com campaign, which can be seen in nearly all the leading journals and newspapers. The adverts are signed "Dave" - David O'Reilly, the company's chairman. These adverts contained following sentences: “one thing is clear: the era of easy oil is over ...Many of the world's oil and gas fields are maturing. And new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to extract - physically, technically, economically, and politically….The world is currently burning 2 barrels of oil for every barrel of new oil discovered.”

“Oil will peak - that is a geologic fact. But the new energy equation is not static. It is dynamic and variable.” - David J. O'Reilly, Chairman and CEO. 21 September 2005.

[Rule Of Law]

“We’ve embarked on the beginning of the Last Days of the Age of Oil. Nations of the world that are striving to modernize will make choices different from the ones we have made.” - Mike Bowlin, Chairman and CEO, ARCO. 9 February 1999.

"[The] history of cheap oil may have ended." - Rafael Ramirez, President, PDVSA. 24 May 2004.

“The era of oil is coming to an end. The world is thirsty for more energy and the demand for gas is growing steadily” - Helge Lund, President and CEO, Statoil. 24-26 April 2005.

[Rule Of Law]

P&F, I've posted quotes from industry insiders re peak oil, in their view, and not one response in rebuttal...Why is it always to hard to find one "peak oil" conspiracy theorist when you need one? LOL

[NotPC]

Where do Bill Clinton and ALGORE fit into this problem?? Let's see, they lead the nation for 8 years, claiming record employment, a great economy, no wars.........yet they did NOTHING to bring about a decent energy policy for this country. That would have been the time to invest not only in new technology, but also drilling for oil here at home as well. If we had acted then, we wouldn't be in this crisis now. Instead they spent their time appeasing the far left environmentalist, and chose to do nothing.......especially the NO DRILLING for oil. Lets give these guys a big round of applause, we can thank them for the $4 (almost $5) per gallon fuel we are paying for today! We had a perfect opportunity to become "independent" of foreign oil, and we chose not to.

[insanityfollows]

Ummm, look this up, but Gore had goal for a major agenda to increase mpg requirements substantially among other initiatives, with the full support of Clinton. However, they were up against a Republican Congress that cried foul ball and swore that the auto industry and big business would utterly fail because the cost would be so extreme. I remember this well. Granted, I think they could have pushed the Republican congress and big business harder, but oil was so cheap, Clinton and Gore didn't have much leverage to beef up their argument, more's the pity.

[michelv]

>> "Republican Congress that cried foul ball and swore that the auto industry and big
>> business would utterly fail because the cost would be so extreme"

And now they are failing because they didn't make that much smaller investment to make their cars more efficient. I guess republicans were right about the possibility of business failure, but for completely the opposite reason they expected.

[Kassandra]

You might as well go back to the Carter administration and badger HIM; except, OH! you might have to criticize Ronny Reagan for pulling down all those solar panels off the White House.

If we'd followed Carter's initiatives, we'd NEVER HAVE GOTTEN INTO THIS MESS in the first place. But Carter was such a bad, bad, president...it MUST be true, the Republicans all say it. ;>}

Carter is a visionary.

You prolly don't remember him or maybe you weren't born yet.........?

[TxAggie]

Here's a couple of random thoughts as my 15 year old would say.. i read a bit on diesel the other day. The mandated lower sulphur diesel is more expensive to refine. The mandated ethanol put into gasoline results in less gasoline being refined wich create less hydrogen- a by product needed to refine diesel. A bit of an unintended consequence. Sort of like introducing the nutria to Avery Island, now the south is getting overrun by the water rats.
i listened to that fine Senator from California Ms. Feinstein debate with my Senator Hutchinson the merits of drilling for domestic oil & gas. The do nothing Senator from California remarked that we "couldn't drill our way out of our energy crisis". How the hell would we know? We haven't tried (at least during my 27 years in the industry). A senator with billions of barrels of proven reserves lying off her state's coastline has no business to bitch about energy prices- she needs to take credit for it!!!!

[yappnmutt]

the silver lining in high gas prices is a break from flat landers and their ridiculous urban ways polluting the scenery.

[graffen48]

Or better yet, put the Hummers back in the military where they belong. I'm tired of all these Joe wannabe's clogging up the roads

[Gasparilla]

A lot of the conservative commentators are now big talkers about alternate energy. Of course, back when oil was a lot cheaper, guys like Limbaugh mocked any effort to increase mileage standards. You have a right to own that big SUV, he said. Now that we're in this position, he wants everyone to forget the hand he had in it. Look at any vote in the last 30 years to increase mileage standards, and a majority of Democrats voted for, and a majority of Republicans against.

[EvSmith]

Buy a fuel efficient new Hyundai, they are excellent, excellent cars. There are great deals to be found on a nice, new V W with a diesel engine. Use refined, recycled cooking oil to drive cheap. This is one of the areas where Biodiesel is an excellent alternative fuel.

We could also use domestically and RESPONSIBLY produced Biodiesel as the exclusive fuel resource for transport. To take the emissions of material transport vehicles out of the atmosphere and to control the fuel costs. Ultimately benefitting businesses and consumers.

Why can't we move forward with this? Do you think it could be due to the corruption and cronyism of the White House of G. W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney, The Republican party, The Oil Cartels, Exxon Mobile and others in the Energy Industry, The Saudi's, The U.S. Military, Russian interests, China and the People's Liberation Army ? I think it could.

These are the people that would rather see our civilizations fall into another world war and see many millions of poor people starve to death than allow us to move sainly towards true energy independence.
We as consumers can force the issue however and adapt our societal consumption habits to make the changes necessary to ensure our survival

[josephjsalas]

DJIA is based upon banking & oil. Banking and oil are monopolies. The complete deregulation
of these monopolies is no accident. Just ask the Bilderbergers---who had Hillary as their
honey-bunney a year ago. What say we get back to the Constitution?
Or has the truth become "evil"?

[Meggie]

THANKS GEORGE. THANKS REPUBLICANS. I say it every time I fill up!

[ErnestineBass]

Good for you.

I cuss 'em like a sailor with a sore toe.

[Kassandra]

I think this is a GOOD thing. Since Americans ONLY respond/pay attention when our pockets are pinched, it's waking most people up who've had their heads in the sand 'til now.

"Increasing supply is a knee-jerk reaction you would expect from politicians. It's politically expedient to say we have to produce more ... it's intellectually lazy," Nair said.

"But look at long-term issues facing the world ... it doesn't take a genius to understand we have to reduce the amount of oil we consume."

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4C9C8DC4-BEB8-4404-BEB9-81D0ECF931DD.htm

The problem is not lack of oil. The problem is that everyone who has it is sitting on it. We went into Iraq NOT to steal the oil, but keep it on the ground. There's plenty of oil. this is just another conspiracy to enrich the fat cats. They won't be happy until they've stripped the last $ out of our wallets and wrecked the planet.

AND they don't care about America because they aren't Americans. Most of the corporations doing "business" in the USA are now owned by foreign countries. In fact, most of America is now owned by foreign governments. Your foreclosed house is probably owned by the Saudis or the Italians or who knows?

I can't be upset about the price of gas if it helps get us off the damn stuff. We've nearly ruined the planet from using it over just the last 150 years.

[KillTheMessenger]

They are sitting on it? They don't want to give it to us? Oh my goodness! That takes the discussion to a whole new level! It's like the kid in the play yard that does not want to let you play with his toys.

Anyway, if you are interested in the environment, an oil shock is the last thing you want. It will lead to a knee-jerk reaction of firing up the coal to liquid plants all over the world. And that would put the warming into "global warming".