Hurricane Isaac and a deadly blast at Venezuela's Amuay refinery pushed gasoline to an almost four- month high and threatened to revive a debate about energy costs in the run-up to the presidential election in November.Futures jumped yesterday in New York as Isaac forced closures of Gulf Coast refineries and reduced rates at others. That market is also reeling from an Aug. 25 kaboom in Venezuela that killed at least 48 people and closed the country's largest fuel-making plant. Futures are up 23 percent since their 2012 settlement low of $2.5501 a gallon on June 21.
Retail prices for regular grade increased 0.6 cent to $3.756 a gallon yesterday, the highest level since May 7, according to AAA, the largest U.S. motoring group.
Prices at the pump will be the highest ever for the U.S. Labor Day holiday, AAA said yesterday. The surge reignites an issue that has pitted President Barack Obama
The Cambridge police acted stupidly...
, who has called for the elimination of billions of dollars of subsidies enjoyed by the oil and gas industry, against the presumptive Republican nominee Willard
MittRomney
...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the presumptive Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney's charisma is best defined as soporific, which is probably why he is leading the Publican field. On the plus side, he isn't President B.O...
. It also spurs speculation that Obama will release supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to ease prices for consumers.