Fueling Your Wallet

In a world where there is war, poverty, and hunger, the United States’ citizens are worried about the rising gas prices. I know if you haven’t been keeping track, your wallet sure has been. Many people around the world are experiencing a rise in gas prices. People blame “it on Biden or the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Ethan Ryan, a cashier at Wawa said. So, is there anything that can be done to stop it?

In short, there isn’t really anything that can be done. Even though gasoline prices have risen 25 percent in the past two months, there is very little a sitting president can do to change or influence the price Americans pay at the pump. However, short-term and long-term policies can affect the prices of gas. Some of the short and long-term policies that have had an effect due to rising prices were putting sanctions on the Russian government. President Joe Biden said he wanted to attack Russia’s main economic artery. The United States wasn’t the only country to impose sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas imports. The U.K. plans to phase out Russian oil by the end of 2022 and the E.U., which gets a quarter of its oil and 40 percent of its gas from Russia, says it will switch to alternative supplies well before 2030.

To help the prices go down, the Biden administration has already released tens of millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but it has not been enough to have an impact. Though it had little impact, the price of oil did dip 1.9 percent to a session low of $75.30 per barrel following the announcement. Pumping more oil to ease demand will help with the rising gas prices, however, it is not a quick fix. Production of oil has been increasing for months, and U.S. production is foreseen to break records either by the end of this year or early next year, 2023.

With the onset of record-breaking production, there are also record-breaking gas prices in our home state, Pennsylvania. Many Pennsylvanians have felt the rise in prices. Michelle Schwendeman, a Pennridge High School teacher, says that it feels that the price of her tank “has doubled.” The Pennsylvania gas price average reached $4.316 per gallon just last week, setting a new record-high price for the region after breaking a 14-year record-high a few weeks ago. The old record for the five-county Philadelphia area was $4.15 set on June 20, 2008. Across the nation, the average retail price for a gallon of regular, self-service gasoline topped $4.24 per gallon for the first time since July 25, 2008. That is almost $1.24 higher than one year ago.

There are some things you can do to save some money at the pump. The first is to use your phone to use gas apps to find cheap gas near you. One app that tells you the price of gas in real-time is GasBuddy. This will at least save a few dollars. Another way to save on gas is going to stores like Giant or Weis and swiping your rewards card. People will always need food, so as long as you put your phone number in, you will get points that can be used for gas.

With the United States cutting off Russia completely, the gas prices will continue to leave a bigger dent in your wallet. The prices over the next few months will be determined by how much oil is released and how quickly U.S. producers continue to ramp up. Though Americans are concerned for their wallets now, unless the oil is replenished, they increase our risks of having insufficient supplies in the event of a true emergency.