trying to keep gas prices low. lowering prices that people pay at the pump. i think most folks it s estimated that the administration fell well short. bret: in november 2021, president biden announced the first major release from the strategic petroleum reserves. i will do what needs to be done to reduce the price you pay at the pump. bret: the stockpile at that point held more than 600 millio. the 50 million-barrel drawdown was the largest release in history. the weekly average for regular gasoline at the time was $3.40 per gallon. bret: is there a sense that the spro is something that should be tapped. can be tapped more frequently or only for the ultimate emergency? you don t want to do it for political purely political purposes and president biden didn t do that in this case. here we had the unprovoked war of aggression by vladimir putin on the innocent people of ukraine and i think that was entirely appropriate at that point to tap the spro.
haven t seen since 2018. we ve been talking about this high-impact storm and that could throw a wrench in your travels, especially the roadways, that s why a lot of the travelers we spoke with this morning say they re getting out now, take a listen. we saw them brining in nashville last night. that made us feel better having the camper behind us. i do snow removal in st. louis, missouri, and we had to cut our weeklong vacation a little early so i can go back to work. is that a good thing or a bad thing? it s a bad thing. i would rather vacation than work. reporter: so the folks that we spoke with who got out early said that the traffic wasn t too bad which is a good thing and also on their side, yasmin, are the lower gas prices. nationwide, gas prices are trending downward. it s $3.40, which is 12 cents lower than last week. maybe a little extra money for
this is not a restaurant. this is not a riverboat or a train. i m interested in the intersection of public accommodations law and speech. reporter: while lorie smith s views are rooted in her christian faith, her case is about whether excluding gay weddings is free speech, not religious freedom. lester? all right, kelly, thank you. more good news tonight. in at least one part of the economy. gas prices continue to drop. they could average under $3 a gallon by christmas. but will it last? sam brock is following this. sam, what should we know? reporter: lester, good evening. it is a timely trend right now for consumers who have been rocked by inflation. if you look at the average cost of gas across the country right now, it was $3.80 a month ago. lester, $3.40 tonight. but projections of that figure going below $3 by christmas. and right now there are currently nine states in the u.s. led by texas that are already under that $3 a gallon average.
food. nowhere to get gas. and so people are really depending on themselves, especially as their kids are out of school right now and there s a curfew that starts at 9:00 p.m. every single night. and it is likely to stay in place as we wait day by day for both the school administrators and the county officials to make decisions about what is possible and safe as they wait for the lights to go back on. what is striking to people as they try to get the community back on its feet, is the revelation how vulnerable our infrastructure is, not only in moore county but a wakeup call to the rest of the country. antonia hylton, thank you. millions of americans struggling with high prices have gotten some relief in the last few months with gas down to about $3.40 a gallon on average. 40 cents lower than a month ago. $1.60 from the record high set back in june. the question now is, will those prices perhaps start ticking up again sometime soon? starting today, the european
that the worst of inflation is behind us. as this headline is putting it, from chicken wings to used cars, inflation begins to ease its grip. we re seeing prices drop at the pump too. the national average cost of gas hitting $3.40. oil prices falling as well. opec+ opted against trying to stop the slide of prices by choosing not to make further cuts. i want to bring in steve leaseman to talk more about this. i m curious as the signs you re specifically seeing when it comes to inflation. do you feel as if it s starting to ease here, starting to come down, and should we with all that information involved expect to get another rate hike from the fed? yeah. two obviously related questions. all the things you mentioned are accurate in terms of the declining prices and i think it s important to say we re back