Why Are Gas Prices Climbing and, Are Politicians To Blame?

If there were such thing as Murphy's Law about traveling in the middle of a declining pandemic I have no doubt that it would state something along the lines of as our world begins to open, gas prices will be so astronomically high that nobody will want to travel.

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A fact that you and I are quite aware of is that gas prices are steadily climbing. When I visited my parents in Albany last weekend, I filled up for $2.81 a gallon. The same gas in Binghamton set me back $2.97 a gallon. So, what does the rest of the country look like? The United States average for a gallon of gas, per AAA, is $2.88 (don't tell your PA friends who are paying over $3 a gallon).

The price of a gallon of gas has jumped about 37 percent from this time last year.  So, who are we going to blame for the increase? I suppose it depends on who you ask because everyone seems to have their very own (and very definite) theory.

Those who know more about the flow of gas and the cost of gas than I do claim that there are two really big factors to the price increase. The first theory is that so many people hunkered down for the last year and have lept out of the gate to go adventuring once their local government gave them the clear and have, in turn, led to the increase in demand for gas. The second reason according to industry experts is that oil refiners are not back to refining at full speed thanks to the big freeze in Texas (the largest natural gas producers) which has put gas production way behind time.

If you hate how expensive gas prices are right now, hold on to your seatbelt because insiders predict that they're only going to go higher with the national average sitting above $3 a gallon in the not-so-distant future.

Believe who you want and what you want but the bottom line is that it looks like high gas prices are here to stay for a while and not being happy about that is something that we can all agree on.