Gas Prices in the U.S. Fall Below $4 a Gallon - The New York Times

After peaking in mid-June, they have tracked a global decline in oil prices and are back where they were in March.

Energy costs feed into broad measures of inflation, so the drop is also good news for policymakers who have struggled to contain the price increases and for President Biden, who has pledged to lower gas costs.

But, broadly speaking, the drop reflects a number of factors: weaker demand, because high costs have kept some drivers off the roads; a sharp decline in global oil prices in recent months; and the fact that a handful of states have suspended taxes on gasoline.

The government reported this week that consumer price inflation slowed in July to an annual rate of 8.5 percent, down from 9.1 percent in June, thanks largely to the drop in gasoline prices.

Biden, who has spent recent weeks trumpeting the drop in gasoline prices, even as he says he expects to do more to bring costs down.

Biden has criticized oil companies for their record profits from high oil and gas prices, and this year he released some of the nation’s stockpile of oil in an effort to keep prices from jumping too fast.

More than half the cost of gasoline at the pump is determined by global oil prices, and those are volatile and subject to myriad forces, many of which are hard to predict.

Oil prices have tumbled to their lowest point since the war in Ukraine began in February, a drop that reflects the growing concern of a global recession that will hit demand for crude

There are several reasons that prices could rise again: The course of the war could further hamper global oil supplies, energy investors’ views on the economy could change and hurricanes later this year could damage Gulf Coast refineries and pipelines, choking off supplies