Gas price predictions hit $7/gallon, Dems criticize Bush
 With Americans facing rising gas prices, including a report which predicts $7 a gallon by 2010, Democrats are criticizing the Bush administration's estimates of lower prices by 2016.
When the government issued its proposal to raise vehicle fuel economy standards to a fleetwide average of 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015, the plan assumed that gas prices would be $2.42 a gallon in 2016, the Associated Press reported Friday.
"When compared to today's prices at the pump, these numbers are nothing short of absurd," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who leads a House panel on energy independence and global warming, said Thursday.
Many economists have suggested that speculation is a large part of high prices at the pump.
The House of Representatives seems to agree, as it passed a measure Thursday to curb speculation in the energy market, Bloomberg reported.
The bill would require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to consider imposing limits on the size of the stake each speculative investor can own, as well as raising margin requirements, the amount of money required to trade, according to the article.
A new energy report predicts that the cost of oil will rise to $200 a barrel -- or $7 a gallon -- in the next two years, CBS News reported Friday.
To indicate how deeply such a rise in cost would affect Americans, the report interviews people who are already suffering from gas prices.
A Miami landscaper said he is in danger of losing his 20-year-old business.
"In an 8-hour day, this consumes about 10 gallons of gas," said a landscaper referring to his lawnmower.
His monthly expenses exceed $30,000, a number that would rise to $50,000 with the expected increase.
Those with an annual income less than $25,000 would see the percentage of their money spent on gas increase from 7 percent to 20 percent, according to the report.
"People are gonna be spending more on gasoline than they do on groceries, and that's not a sustainable choice," said Jeff Rubin, chief economist for the CIBC.
A national poll shows Americans rank rising gas prices as the most important issue facing the country, with health care second and education third, according to an article by US News and World Report.
This video is from CBS Evening News, broadcast June 26, 2008.
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