Gas+Prices

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**Overview**
Many people in the United States are affected by gas prices. Right now the national average is $4 a gallon at almost every gas station ("Gas prices and"). There are many ways that gas prices affect everyone in our country. While people are struggling, to find and maintain jobs, it is becoming more and more difficult to save money with the ever increasing goods needed to live, including gasoline. In the meantime, gas prices are going up and people are struggling to keep their gas tanks full while commuting to work and family activities.

Gas prices are rising, but are your pay checks?

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**Schools Budgets**
There are many effects of gas prices, many of which schools are affected a lot by them. High gas prices are straining already tight school district budgets ("Crossroads"). From all the kids that ride the bus to school, the school district has to pay for all the gas that the buses use. The school districts pay for all the gas with their money. The extra money that they could save if gas prices were low, could be spent on upgrading the school or getting supplies for the students. Schools around the country are affected by this and families are affected too.

**Families**
Families are affected the most from the high gas prices. Some families are forced to drive one car around, because they can not afford the high gas prices ("Gas prices keep"). Also when families are grocery shopping, they are cutting down on their spending on food because they need to save money to fill up their gas tank ("Crossroads"). Over the summer when families are suppose to go on vacation, families are canceling their trip because they can not afford to drive a long way and spend hundreds of dollars on their gas ("Gas prices keep"). When will these ever increasing gas prices ever end?

**Businesses**
From the high gas prices, businesses are losing a lot of money to the pump. Home food delivery businesses are not seeing a profit from new customers and their additional business because that added revenue is just helping to pay for all of the gas the trucks use ("Rising"). Companies are going to increase the shipping prices because it costs more for the company to get the product to you (Folger). Since shipping prices have gone up, food prices have gone up too, because of the high gas prices ("Gas prices and"). Over all, businesses are spending a lot money on gas for different reasons and it is affecting everyone.

**Keystone XL Pipeline**
What is the [|Keystone XL Pipeline]? The Keystone XL Pipeline is a huge project that TransCanada hopes to achieve. TransCanada hopes to build this 2,000 mile oil pipeline from Alberta Canada, to Texas. This pipeline will transfer a very dirty oil, which is tar sands oil. The pipeline would double the imports of dirty sand oil into the United States. Before TransCanada starts building they need President Obama's permission, but he rejected it on January 18, 2012. TransCanada came up with an idea to split the pipeline into two segments which would move the oil to the gulf coast to sell at global oil markets. President Obama finally made a decision, and said to "get it done" ("Friends"). There are many advantages to this pipeline plan and they can benefit Americans greatly.

**Drilling for oil in our country**
In the western United States there are vast fields of perivisoly out-of-reached [|oil] that we can drill for. This drilling is expected to raise U.S. production of oil by 20 percent. Also over the next 10 years is could reduce oil imports by 50 percent. These new fields that were found are expected to make 1-2 million barrels of oil a day ("New")! Since we are buying oil from other countries, how about slashing imports so it could help our economy.

Alternative Energy
There are many types of alternative energy someof hybrid cars. This new technology allows the car to get better gas mileage than a regular gasoline cars. When looking at a Civic sedan, it gets an estimated 25 miles per gallon in the city. A [|Civic hybrid] is estimated to get 45 miles per gallon (Teahupoo). This technology is great for advancing the concept of green energy