Jaclyn Brenning
Daily Egyptian
The Saluki Express is feeling the squeeze of high fuel prices.
Last year, the service overshot its fuel budget by $20,000 and may call
for a $1 increase in each person's student fee by 2007 to cover the
costs, said Jeffrey Duke, deputy director of the Student Center.
"I don't like to raise student fees, but I can't help it," Duke said.
Prices continue to escalate. Gasoline prices have gone up 8 cents in
just two weeks, and Monday saw a record high of $59.18 per barrel in
crude oil. The Illinois state average for gasoline on Wednesday was
$2.26 a gallon, said Mike Wright, American Automobile Association
employee. A year ago, it was $1.91 a gallon.
Some people are optimistic, but the U.S. Department of Energy predicts
a national average of $2.27 a gallon for the summer. The national
average Wednesday was $2.21 a gallon.
"It's crazy," said Stephanie Watkins, a sophomore in paralegal studies
at SIUC. "We don't go anywhere we don't have to go. No more joyriding
for us."
Watkins said she doesn't visit family in Tennessee and Chicago as often as she used to because of the high gasoline prices.
Erik Philips served nine months as a marine in the Iraq war and is now a senior studying agriculture business at SIUC.
"I'm not happy about it," he said. "Instead of spending all that money
in Iraq, we should be researching new technology. We're running out of
oil."
He said he wishes people would acknowledge the crisis and do something about it.
For most people, dealing with rising gasoline prices is just another fact of life.
"Gas is going up like everything else," said Shawn Curry, who works at
the Shell gas station on Wall Street in Murphysboro. "They know we're
going to buy it."
People have different theories on why gasoline prices are rising.
"I think the only reason we got into this Iraq business is because of gas," Murphysboro resident Richard Will said.
SIUC economics professor Richard Grabowski said there are several reasons gasoline prices are rising.
"We have limited refinery capacity," he said. "There is a growing
demand for gas, and it's slowing the process, jacking up prices."
Grabowski said a second reason is the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries, which is made up of 11 countries, most of which
are in the Middle East. OPEC seeks to manage oil prices by coordinating
production schedules.
A third reason is that as China's and India's populations grow, their
need for gasoline and oil has risen dramatically. He does not attribute
the rise in prices to the Iraq war, but he doubts prices will fall this
summer, he said.
