Gallon

The state needs money; L.A. County needs money--for health care, for emergency rooms, for education. Vehicle registration or tobacco taxes are insufficient. We must tax gasoline, at least $1 per gallon. In 1932 gas was 18 cents per gallon. If inflation has increased about twentyfold, gasoline should cost $3.60 per gallon by 1932 standards. This revenue could be shared with the counties where the gasoline was sold. This tax would decrease traffic, penalize the SUV gas gulpers, help clean up the air and fight global warming.

I'd rather pay $3 a gallon for gasoline than have tens of thousands of young men lie dead in the sands of the Middle East. I'd rather pay $3 a gallon for gasoline than have tens of thousands of old people, women and children lie dead in their gassed and bombed-out cities and villages. If we stopped getting cheap gasoline, we may finally start walking, biking and using transportation powered with batteries charged by solar, hydro, wind and geothermal energy. Many of us have sons of military age. I'd rather we pay $3 a gallon for gas or drive an electric car than spend the remainder of our days visiting their graves.

With the debut of the summer driving season only six weeks away, America's refining industry may not be able to produce enough gasoline to meet demand, oil industry analysts said today. The Alaskan oil spill and a fire at a major West Coast refiner have already cut supplies and boosted prices, setting the stage for higher prices by the time the Memorial Day weekend arrives. Nationwide, average U.S. gasoline retail prices jumped more than 10 cents a gallon in the three-week period ended last Friday to $1.1063 a gallon, according to Lundberg Survey Inc., a Los Angeles-based consulting firm that tracks gasoline prices at 12,000 retail locations.

The average U.S. pump price for self-serve regular gasoline rose 8.4 cents to $2.046 a gallon in the week that ended Monday, a government report showed. Gasoline was 38% lower than the $3.29 posted a year ago, according to a weekly survey of about 800 filling stations by the Energy Department. Prices were highest in California, where the average price jumped 9.4 cents to $2.248 a gallon. The average was lowest in the Rocky Mountain region at $1.937 a gallon, up 0.3 of a cent.

The price of gasoline in California and nationwide ticked up in the last week. Four states, including California, are back over the $4-a-gallon threshold. Across the country, the price of a gallon of regular gas was at $3.75 on Monday, up from $3.72 a week earlier. Last month, a gallon cost $3.48, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report . California's average gas price is $4.13 a gallon, up from the week-ago price of nearly $4.12. The only state with more expensive gas was Hawaii, where a gallon hit $4.28 on Monday.

If oil prices have indeed "surged" to what they were right after Sept. 11 ["Surging Crude Oil Prices Could Dampen Recovery," April 3], then when are gasoline prices going to be lowered to the prices they were at that time? I do not remember gasoline being around $1.60 a gallon for regular at that time. In fact, since Sept. 11, I remember paying as little as 96 cents a gallon. So why are the prices so high now? John Darling Ventura

The Polish government raised the prices of gasoline and diesel fuel by between 20% and 31% Sunday in an effor to discourage consumption, the official news agency PAP reported. Although gasoline has been rationed since 1982, more conservation is necessary, it said. The price of 94-octane gasoline rose by 20% to about $1.60 a gallon. The price of diesel fuel, which is not rationed, rose by 31% to about $1.12 a gallon.

Gasoline prices kept rising in the past two weeks, as refineries and retailers recouped losses in revenue, but stayed 24 cents a gallon cheaper than at the start of the year, an oil industry analyst said. The average price of gasoline nationwide jumped 1.54 cents a gallon to 97.08 cents in the two-week period ending June 7, analyst Dan Lundberg said over the weekend.