impact on the united states. in fact, of the president is saying we are going to release some oil from the strategic oil reserve we can keep cap on oil praises that is not a strong response and not effective in the long run it does not deal with the supply/demand imbalance in the world energy market. it just simply does not deal with that we are faced are rising energy privacies still. for example, this morning the national average for a price for a gallon of gas, regular, $3.57. up 3 cents from yesterday. up 20 cents from a month ago. no sign that that increase in gas prices is going to calm down at all. steve: right. but you know, stuart, there are people on the political left who want gas prices to go up because then people will drive less and then there will be less pollution and stuff like that. of course, on day one, the president pulled the plug on keystone and last night at the press briefing which ran to, i think 7:00, something like that.
food prices 1.2% jump in december. energy privacies up 2.6%. stocks were down on that news. the dow lost 107, the s&p 500 fell 35. the nasdaq was off 176. the u.s. senate has just narrowly approved a measure to raise the debt ceiling. that is bringing new scrutiny on president biden s overall spending agenda. congressional correspondent chad pergram is live on capitol hill with the latest tonight. good evening, chad. good evening, bret. democrats voted to spend so they can spend on the build back better bill. the senate voted 50 to 49 to lift the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion only democrats voted yes. this is about paying debt accumulated by both parties. so i m pleased republicans and democrats came together to facilitate a process that has made addressing the debt ceiling possible. in exchange for democrats voting yes, the g.o.p. agreed to get out of the way and break a