US gasoline prices hit new high

US gas prices hit another record high as the European Union (EU) is planning to phase out imports of Russian oil, and the peak summer travel season is approaching.

The national average price was $4.37 on Tuesday, surpassing the March 11 record by 4 cents, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). That represents a 25-cent jump in the past two weeks alone and is $1.41 more than a year ago. Then the gas price was just under $3; it was below $2 a gallon two years ago.

California drivers are paying the highest price at $5.84 per gallon while the cheapest gas is in Georgia at $3.90.

The AAA attributes the recent price jump to the high cost of crude oil, which has been hovering around $100 a barrel since the state of the Russian-Ukraine conflict in late February. Demand for gas has increased since the improvement in the pandemic situation, which has led to more travel. Gas prices typically rise during the summer months.

To cut a major revenue source to Russia, the EU proposed phasing out Russian oil imports last week. Under the plan, it would ban oil imports after six months and refined petroleum products by the end of 2022.

Inflation and high prices have hit President Joe Biden's poll numbers, and energy experts said that there isn't much the government can do about it. Biden ordered the release of 1 million barrels a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at the end of March.

"The tools the federal government can use to influence prices are limited," Devin Gladden, manager for federal affairs at AAA National, told The Washington Post. "They are already using almost the whole toolbox."

Oil industry experts said the price might not drop for quite some time.

"No one has any idea'' how long the Ukraine conflict will last or how long and deep its global energy impact will be, Edward Chow, an energy security scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Post.

"It may well be bigger and longer lasting," he said. "You simply cannot take the country that was the world's largest combined exporter of oil and gas off the board without major impact."

In addition, oil and gas production haven't been ramped up in the US despite the high demand. In fact, Fortune reported that natural gas production actually fell in the first couple of months of 2022, dropping by 2.5 percent in January and 10 percent in February year-over-year due to bad weather and power outages.

The US capacity for gas has been reduced in an effort to reduce emissions to combat climate change.

Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a policy research firm, told The Washington Post: "It takes years to build new refineries, and years to expand existing ones. We will see more capacity in the world. Just not right here, right now."