Bonzo, I can see that you slept through Econ 101.
Let's put some facts on the table.
1. Supply and demand: Currently, even with the refinery fire in Texas, the supply of gasoline is just fine. Anybody who tries to intimate that the supply side is low because of environmental regulations, lack of refining capacity, greedy state and federal tax collectors, or lack of drilling in ANWR is lazy and not doing their homework. When was the last time that you went to your local filling station and found it closed due to lack of product? When was the last time you heard of such a thing happening?
2. The declining dollar: This is a significant part of the recent rise in gasoline prices. It is important, however, to understand why the value of the dollar is going down.
a. The federal deficit has soared and not just the published deficit. This administration has financed George's adventure in Iraq "off the books". That doesn't make much difference to the deficit except that it is much worse than reported. Regardless, it is real money and that debt needs to be financed.
b. As we are either heading into recession or we are already there, the Fed has lowered rates and increased the money supply.
c. That lowered rate is the basis for how we finance the debt.
So, to attract investors (mainly foreign) to finance our debt, we must lower the value of the dollar so that each unit of their currency buys more US $'s. Voila, declining dollar and for a global commodity like oil, we see a dizzying rise that is tied very closely to the fall of the $. On the plus side, our exports of manufactured goods and commodities are enjoying a competitive advantage.
3. Speculation - Unfortunately for the majority of us on this site, we don't play in the futures market. For those that do however, this is the good old days. Lots of money being made on oil future speculation and us poor saps that are consumers get nailed.
4. Oil company profits - Yup, they are very high, I wish I had investments that would allow me to share in the windfall. I always hear about the miniscule percentage margin that the oil companies make on a gallon of gas and I cry crocodile tears. A wise man once told me "You don't bank percentages, you bank dollars". The oil companies are finding a fair number of dollars to bank.
I get so tired of both ideologies (right and left) blaming the environmentalists or the oil companies. The reality is that our consumption deserves a huge part of the blame and the factors above carry the rest.