U.S. drivers paid more at the gasoline pump for the third week in a row, as crude oil costs climbed to a new record high, the government said on Monday.
The nationwide average price for regular unleaded gasoline jumped 3.1 cents over the past week to $2.16 a gallon, up 22 cents from a year ago, according to a weekly survey of service stations by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The price for crude oil, which accounts for about half the cost of making gasoline, hit a new record of $59.52 a barrel in trading on Monday at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Two Democratic senators sought to ease some of the price pressure at the pump with a plan requiring the government to suspend putting crude in the nation’s emergency oil stockpile when oil stayed above the old NYMEX record of $58.28 a barrel for 10 consecutive trading days.
Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota offered their proposal as an amendment to a pending energy bill.
Under their plan, crude deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve could resume after the oil price dropped below $40 a barrel for 10 trading days in a row.
The emergency reserve, created by Congress in the mid 1970s after the Arab oil embargo, is just 4.4 million barrels short of the Bush administration’s goal to fill the stockpile to 700 million barrels.
In the weekly survey, the West Coast had the most expensive regular unleaded gasoline, with the price up 1.4 cents to $2.32 a gallon. Los Angeles topped the EIA’s survey of cities, with the price of gasoline up 3.4 cents at $2.37.
Gulf Coast states had the cheapest fuel, with the price up 3.4 cents at $2.08 per gallon. Among major cities, Houston had the cheapest pump price, with fuel up 3.3 cents to $2.04.
The EIA report also showed prices, rounded to the nearest penny, were down 1.1 cents at $2.25 in Seattle; up 0.8 cent at $2.24 in Miami; up 3.8 cents at $2.20 in New York City; up 4.5 cents at $2.19 in Chicago; up 5.2 cents at $2.19 in Boston; and down 0.7 cent at $2.07 in Denver.
The national average price for diesel fuel rose 3.7 cents to $2.31 a gallon, less than half a penny from the record high and up 37 cents from a year earlier, the EIA said.
