Expect $4 Gas

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters said Americans can expect already-record gas prices to rise another 33 percent or more. That's right. Expect to pay $4 a gallon in more areas across the country within years. If there's a silver lining here, it's that some environmentalists hope that as the price of gas rises, there will be more incentive to invest in alternative fuels and cleaner-burning, more efficient vehicles. Some have also proposed new taxes, or fewer corporate oil subsidies, that would drive up the price at the pump. The rise in price won't be due to new taxes, despite the impending bankruptcy of the Federal Highway Trust Fund, Peters told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in the May 16 story. On Monday, the U.S. average for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.103 - about three cents higher than in September 2005, when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ripped apart Gulf pipelines and refineries.