While Californians are paying close to $8 a gallon for gasoline because of excessive red tape and refinery problems, Texas gasoline prices have for weeks been dipping down toward $2, and political breakthroughs by President Donald Trump and his allies could bring prices even lower.
For years the price of crude oil, the stuff from which gasoline is made, has been bouncing up and down because of the pandemic, then Russia's attack on Ukraine, then various attacks in the Middle East.
President Trump's breakthrough peace initiative this week to calm the two-year war between Gaza and Israel, now apparently pivoting to a broader Middle East peace plan, has helped to settle the price of oil and therefore the price of gas.
"What this agreement has significantly reduced is the geopolitical risk premium baked into oil and gas prices," Rey "R.T." Trevino, an oil and gas expert, says.
And it's been a real risk for oil transportation, between concerns that Iran might close the vital Strait of Horuz route that brings oil from the Middle East to other nations, or attacks exchanged between Russia and Ukraine on pipelines and refineries, insurance prices for oil transportation have been higher than ever.
Insurance costs are then added into the overall price of oil as what's known as a "premium" that ends in pumping up the overall price of gas.
Less volatility in the Mideast means fewer added premium costs in gas prices, Trevino points out.
"We could even see gasoline as low as $2.25 this year, or dare I say even $1.99!"
That leaves two lesser but still significant problems for gas prices.
A popup of violence in the Middle East again, such as fighting between Israel and Iran, would return insurance and other premiums into the price of gasoline.
And gas prices are already set to rise as early as next year because of the lack of Wall Street money going into exploring for new oil or to pay for the drilling of new wells in existing fields.
"Since the Biden administration we have lost trillions -- that's trillions with a 'T' -- trillions in investment dollars into new oil and gas exploration and production," Trevino says.
The number of oil wells that are pumping out petroleum and related materials has been shrinking for years, and Trevino says when that number reaches the point where it doesn't meet the demand for oil products like gasoline, the price of those oil products will be on the way up -- and that could be as soon as next year.