Up, up and away; oil costs soaring
5/8/2008 12:32 AM   1 comments on this story E-mail this story to a friend


Gasoline prices are at their highest level ever. It is common for people to pump $30, $40, $50 or more at a time when they fill up their vehicles. There seems to be no end in sight as the cost of a barrel of oil has climbed past the $120 mark and continues to rise.
The cost of gasoline for individuals' vehicles, however, is far from the whole economic story when it comes to petroleum prices. The cost of the goods and services we purchase are also climbing because of oil prices. Transportation to bring goods to grocery store costs more because those people have to pay more for their fuel as well.
Add the higher cost of fertilizer, greater production costs for farmers who run their tractors on oil products, and even the cost of plastic packaging, and our cost for just about everything is rising to unheard of levels.
This jolt to the family budget is not the only impact our communities are feeling. Take for instance our schools. Budgets were created a year ago which did not take into effect $4 for a gallon of diesel fuel. School buses have to run the same number of miles as last year to get children to and from school safely, yet the cost of fuel has gone up dramatically. With higher electricity costs, even turning on the lights is a budgetary consideration.
The fleets of vehicles for other government services - city garbage trucks, patrol cars for law enforcement, bookmobiles, EMS vehicles and fire trucks - are also being affected by the higher costs as budgets stretch to fill fuel tanks.
As more of our money goes to meet the costs of energy, hard decisions will have to be made in homes as well as in business and government.
With the passing of each day and the pessimistic economic news, it becomes more evident that our country must regard this crisis as much of a threat as the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Energy independence and stability are essential for our country to continue to flourish.

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