CRESTVIEW, Fla. – Gas prices reached a new record high on Wednesday with the price of gas nationwide reaching $4.56 per gallon, according to AAA.
AAA reported the national average as of Wednesday was $4.56 per gallon. That’s up four cents from the day before. Florida’s average is six cents shy of that number with an average of $4.50.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke about inflation and the rising gas prices in a press conference Wednesday in the Panhandle.
He criticized the Biden administration and referred to the surge in gas prices as a “huge failure.”
“It’s really difficult for a lot of people and we have not even hit summer driving season yet,” DeSantis said. “You’re gonna, you know, unless they reverse course, you’re gonna see it over $5 a gallon for unleaded and in places like California, it’ll probably be like seven or $8 because all the taxes they have that is going to be a huge, huge to a lot of working people.”
DeSantis added that the rising prices of gas will have a trickle-down effect on other goods and services and called on the Biden administration to be more energy independent.
Americans are struggling with record gas prices – up over 50% since Biden took office – but he doesn’t care. Rather than expand domestic energy production, he continues to reduce U.S. production capacity (increasing our reliance on foreign oil) by canceling our oil & gas leases.
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) May 12, 2022
Republicans argue the Biden administration flooded the economy with too much money -- which lead to these high numbers. But Biden said that there are other causes.
“There are two leading causes of inflation today. The first cause is a once-in-a-century pandemic,” Biden said. “And this year, we have a second cause: Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine.”
An expert pointed out that during the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for oil was down, but it rebounded faster than oil producers expected, which was a factor in the spike in prices.
“There’s a lot of factors at play here. And, definitely, the invasion of Ukraine was a factor. It’s created chaos in pricing. And for a little while, every time Putin made a headline statement, it made the price of oil bounce up or down. But really, this is more about production and production either coming back online or being delayed for various reasons,” financial advisor Joe Krier, with IIWII Trading, told News4JAX.
In the past week, Florida’s gas made a 24-cent jump from last week’s national average of $4.32.
This time last year, Floridians were enjoying gas prices at $2.88 for regular and 3.01 for diesel. As of Wednesday, Duval county’s average gas price falls at $4.47 per gallon, according to AAA.
Georgia is still leading as the only state with prices significantly lower than the national average with regular gas coming in around $4.11.