Gas prices have been drifting lower over the past few weeks, which is welcome news for drivers who are gearing up to hit the road for Memorial Day weekend.

Gas prices have fallen about 6% in the last 22 days. The average price for unleaded gas sits at about $2.75 a gallon, according to motorist group AAA, down 18 cents from $2.93 a gallon. And prices are nearly a third cheaper than the record highs hit in the summer of 2008.

The reason for this reprieve at the pump, analysts say, is a stubbornly high level of oil inventory, which has helped to drive down crude prices, making gasoline cheaper for refiners to produce and thus, cheaper for consumers. Worries about the strength of the global economic recovery, fueled by Europe’s debt woes, have also pushed down crude prices in recent weeks.

The Energy Information Administration said Wednesday that crude inventories had risen for 16 of the last 17 weeks. Crude prices, though up 17% over last year, are now down to $74.55 a barrel, well off highs of about $87 a barrel seen in early April.

CNN

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To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.

To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010.

In their study, the researchers devised several combinations of steps that United States policymakers might take in trying to address the heat-trapping emissions by the nation’s transportation sector, which consume 70 percent of the oil used in the United States.

Most of their models assumed an economy-wide carbon dioxide tax starting at $30 a ton in 2010 and escalating to $60 a ton in 2030. In some cases researchers also factored in tax credits for electric and hybrid vehicles, taxes on fuel or both.

Source – The New York Times

I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.
- Barack Obama

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It may not make much sense, given that the economy remains weak, but the cost of filling up your car is about to go higher.

Seasonal influences are strong this time of year and account for much of the expected increase that many analysts say will push gasoline to a nationwide average of at least $3 per gallon this spring.

“There is no legitimate fundamental reason for higher prices, but it is March 1st, so we have to expect to see them,” Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover said Monday in his report. “Reasons have a way of materializing at this time of year.”

Wholesale prices for the April gasoline contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange are about 10 to 12 cents higher than the March contract that expired Friday. Much of the rise comes from refiners switching to more expensive summer blends of gasoline designed to meet tougher pollution standards in effect between April and September. The higher prices should make their way to the pump over the next few weeks.

Source – Yahoo! Finance

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Let’s Break OPEC’s Monopoly!

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The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose 14 cents in the last three weeks to their highest level in more than a year, reversing a decline that began in November, an industry analyst said on Sunday.

The national average for self-serve, regular unleaded gasoline was nearly $2.74 a gallon on Jan. 8, up from nearly $2.60 on Dec. 18, according to the nationwide Lundberg survey of some 5,000 gas stations.

The latest gasoline price increase tracked a corresponding 22 cent-per-gallon rise in crude oil, said survey editor Trilby Lundberg. She added that the newest national average was nearly 96 cents per gallon higher than a year ago, and the highest since late October 2008.

She said the increase in crude prices was due more to investors’ fear of inflation and a flight to safe havens, rather than an increase in demand.

Reuters

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