Cents A Gallon

SUDDENLY, THE gas station is starting to look like a Wal-Mart commercial -- the prices just keep falling.A survey of pump prices last month showed that it's cheaper to drive again. The cost of regular, self-serve gasoline has dropped an average of 7 cents a gallon since June to $1.27 a gallon, according to the Mid-Atlantic Automobile Association of America.That makes midgrade gas -- always higher in octane and price -- about 2 cents cheaper than June's prices at $1.36 per gallon. Diesel fuel -- always the wild card -- rose a penny to $1.35 per gallon.

Gov. Martin O'Malley and the Democratic leaders of the General Assembly are proposing to raise taxes on gasoline by $2 billion over five years to pay for highways, transit and other transportation projects. The legislation endorsed by the governor, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch is a complex plan that would add 2 cents to the cost of a gallon of gas July 1 and another 7 cents a year later. In 2015, it would rise by another 7 cents unless Congress passes a bill to allow states to impose the sales tax on Internet purchases.

In some surrounding counties, it's like the good old days with cheap gas never ended.In Anne Arundel County, for example, the school system is in the final few months of a one-year contract for unleaded gasoline at about 59 cents a gallon and heating oil at 63 cents a gallon.The Baltimore County Public School system and government is running buses, cars and gasoline-powered trucks on fuel costing as little as 85 cents a gallon, thanks to some contracts it signed just before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

Gov. Martin O'Malley wants to apply Maryland's 6 percent sales tax to gasoline, a change that at current prices would add 18 cents a gallon to the cost at the pump. The increase — to be phased in over three years —would be on top of the 23.5 cents per gallon gas tax the state has been charging since 1992. The change would require the approval of the Maryland General Assembly, where its prospects are uncertain. O'Malley's proposal — which comes as he also is calling for higher income taxes and sewage treatment fees — drew cries of protest from the service station industry and Annapolis Republicans, among others.

WHAT HAS BEEN the fastest-growing federal tax imposed on middle-income Americans over the past 20 years?No, it's not the income tax. And it's not the payroll tax. It's the federal gasoline tax. The federal penalty for driving in 1980 was a tax of 4 cents a gallon. But the tax climbed by 5 cents a gallon under President Reagan in 1982; by another 5 cents a gallon under President Bush in 1989; and, most recently, by an additional 4.3 cents a gallon under President Clinton in 1993.Steep climbFor those who are counting, that's more than a four fold increase in 16 years.

NEW YORK -- Gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange tumbled to their lowest price in more than five months, dragging crude prices lower, as refiners shed supplies that soon won't meet environmental regulations.On Dec. 1, the Nymex will require gasoline destined for certain regions to meet specifications set by the Clean Air Act of 1990. The Environmental Protection Agency's regulations for so-called reformulated gasoline are intended to get refiners to make cleaner gasoline.To make space for the new grades, refiners are selling as much gasoline that won't pass muster as possible.

Carroll homeowners using private septic systems will soon pay three times more to have them pumped out and cleaned than do residents in surrounding counties.The county's first septic waste treatment facility is set to open in Westminster at the end of this year. At that time, the millions of gallons of waste routinely pumped from the county's nearly 21,000 private septic tanks will no longer be allowed to be sprayed on farmers' crops.Instead, it will have to be dumped into the new facility, at a cost of $740,000 a year -- or 9 cents a gallon.

The federal gas tax increase of 4.3 cents a gallon went into effect yesterday, and all Rose McHoul had to do in the morning was look up and down the street to make her decision: She raised prices at her South Baltimore service station by a nickel a gallon.You can't charge three-tenths of a cent, after all. Only nine-tenths."There's really nothing to do about it, you have to pass it on," said Ms. McHoul, who owns the Shell station on Russell Street, just north of the entrance to Interstate 95."

For Timonium housewife Pam Baker -- who car pools four times each day -- it's more money to spend on groceries.For Andy Hoeckel, a 24-year-old carpet installer who logs 500 miles weekly to jobs in Philadelphia and Washington, it's lower expenses.And for commuter Mary Sue Orfuss, the gasoline glut that has pushed prices as low as 69.9 cents a gallon is sweet "comeuppance" for the oil companies."I love the low prices," Orfuss says, while filling up at a Petro discount service station on York Road in Timonium, where fuel is selling for 89.9 cents a gallon.

Few politicians can resist the urge to exploit consumer angst over rising prices at the pump. Here are 10 things the politicians won't tell you about gas prices: 1. At more than $3 a gallon, the U.S. inflation-adjusted price for gasoline is now less than it was in 1981, a remarkable decrease in price over a 25-year period during which real prices in other sectors, such as health and education, have tripled and quadrupled. 2. This decline in the price of gasoline since 1981 is enjoyed almost exclusively in the United States.

Hurricane Ike created a wave of price spikes at gas stations across the country yesterday, including those in the Baltimore area. Fears that the huge storm would cut off supply led to wide disparities in prices state by state, and even block by block. The contrast in prices yesterday evening was stark at Cold Spring Lane and Falls Road. At the Texaco, the price of regular was $3.89 a gallon - an increase of 20 cents yesterday. But at the Exxon across Cold Spring, regular was selling for $3.49.

Few politicians can resist the urge to exploit consumer angst over rising prices at the pump. Here are 10 things the politicians won't tell you about gas prices: 1. At more than $3 a gallon, the U.S. inflation-adjusted price for gasoline is now less than it was in 1981, a remarkable decrease in price over a 25-year period during which real prices in other sectors, such as health and education, have tripled and quadrupled. 2. This decline in the price of gasoline since 1981 is enjoyed almost exclusively in the United States.

If you could save 15 cents a gallon by filling up at a gas station that's a bit out of your way, would you do it? In these days of $2.69-a-gallon gasoline, most people probably would. But how many drivers would cut back their highway speeds by 5 mph to save the same amount? They could, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. For every 5 mph a motorist drives above 60 mph, the gas wasted is the equivalent of shelling out an extra 15 cents a gallon. So streaking along at 75 mph is like spending an extra 45 cents a gallon.

When Jeff Dolch goes out to change the gas price sign at his BP Amoco station, drivers passing by often roll down the window to ask if the numbers are going up or down. Lately, the answer is always the same: Prices are rising. "I wear a bulletproof vest," Dolch joked yesterday. The gas price sign has been around for generations, calling drivers off the road to fill up their tanks for $1, then $2 and now more than $2.50 a gallon. And as the summer's volatile gas prices continue to rise, station owners such as Dolch are changing the signs more often, posting the higher numbers that make many motorists cringe.

Consumers might complain about hefty prices at the gas pump, but they're not letting the cost get in the way of going on vacation. Though gasoline prices are expected to be the highest ever for a Memorial Day holiday, the official start to the summer vacation season, travelers plan to hit the road in record numbers this weekend, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic. Some hotels and resorts are offering gas rebates as incentives, but a number of them say they're doing it more for promotion than from fear of empty hotel rooms.

The U.S. government is paying the Halliburton Co. an average of $2.64 a gallon to import gasoline and other fuel to Iraq from Kuwait, more than twice what others are paying to truck in Kuwaiti fuel, government documents show. Halliburton, which has the exclusive contract to import fuel into Iraq, subcontracts the work to a Kuwaiti firm, government officials said. But Halliburton receives 26 cents a gallon to cover overhead costs and its fee, according to documents from the Army Corps of Engineers.

Hurricane Ike created a wave of price spikes at gas stations across the country yesterday, including those in the Baltimore area. Fears that the huge storm would cut off supply led to wide disparities in prices state by state, and even block by block. The contrast in prices yesterday evening was stark at Cold Spring Lane and Falls Road. At the Texaco, the price of regular was $3.89 a gallon - an increase of 20 cents yesterday. But at the Exxon across Cold Spring, regular was selling for $3.49.

The U.S. government is paying the Halliburton Co. an average of $2.64 a gallon to import gasoline and other fuel to Iraq from Kuwait, more than twice what others are paying to truck in Kuwaiti fuel, government documents show. Halliburton, which has the exclusive contract to import fuel into Iraq, subcontracts the work to a Kuwaiti firm, government officials said. But Halliburton receives 26 cents a gallon to cover overhead costs and its fee, according to documents from the Army Corps of Engineers.

In Washington $15 billion package for global AIDS fight advances in House House lawmakers have agreed on a $15 billion package to fight the global AIDS epidemic, compromising on how the money will be used and sidestepping a divisive abortion issue. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee also prepared a vote for Thursday on a similar anti-AIDS plan, outlined by President Bush in his State of the Union address in January. The House plan, written by International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican, and the panel's top Democrat, Tom Lantos of California, would approve $3 billion a year over five years for international efforts to fight the global threat from HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

Forget Iraq. Forget the economy. Never mind all the reasons why. So far as motorists in Columbia were concerned, paying $2.02 per gallon for premium gasoline is highway robbery. So they didn't. Most of them bought regular gasoline at $1.79 per gallon - which still was 8 cents higher than the national average and about 12 cents higher than the average at Baltimore stations. It's not as if they had a choice, many of them groused. Walking isn't an option. "We are definitely getting gouged," said Kathy McKinley, 43, principal at Bonnie Branch Middle School in Ellicott City.