Drivers do U-turn on use of gasoline

For years, gasoline consumption in the U.S. had been on a steady decline, driven by high fuel prices and increasingly efficient vehicles.

But since the collapse of oil prices in late 2014, that trend has stalled and now reversed as gasoline consumption hit a record high this summer. Since climbing to a national average of just under $3.80 a gallon in the summer of 2014, average retail gasoline prices have fallen as low as $1.84 a gallon, according to the Energy Department. The average U.S. price was $2.34 a gallon at the beginning of last week.

The Energy Department said last week that on an average day in June, U.S. motorists consumed 9.7 million barrels of gasoline, breaking the previous record of 9.6 million barrels set in July 2007.

That might be good news for U.S. refineries and oil fields. But it creates new headaches for policymakers trying to address climate change.

Transportation represents 26 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. From 2007 to 2012, those emissions fell 10 percent, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

But cheap gasoline has put more people on the road. This summer, Americans drove 6.4 percent more miles than they did in the summer of 2007.

Still, with more efficient cars, that did not translate to a parallel uptick in gasoline sales. The record sales this summer represented just a half percent increase over the summer of 2007.

In the Houston area, the average retail gasoline price per gallon a week ago was $2.01 on Sunday, according to GasBuddy. com, a website that tracks gasoline prices and refining activity. The price was about a cent lower than the previous week but 6 cents higher than a month earlier, and 11 cents more than the same period in 2015.