Day: April 12, 2022

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NPR

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Biden will allow summer sale of E15 gas : NPR

President Biden will announce Tuesday that his administration will temporarily allow E15 gasoline — gasoline that uses a 15% ethanol blend that is typically banned from sale from June to September — to be sold this summer, a measure intended to help ease gas prices on a day when inflation hit its highest monthly figure in 40 years.

This will be an interesting experiment in air pollution control. Will it make air pollution worse in major cities from additional volatile organic compounds being released in the air?
 
Or will the impact be muddled from everything else -- such as less driving due to high gas prices, plus all the smoke from wildfires? Only time will tell.

 

NPR

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How soaring inflation forces stark choices on low-income Americans : NPR

From rising rent to higher heating bills, surging inflation impacts everybody, but it poses a particular hardship for people with little extra money to spare.

On Tuesday, the Labor Department reported that consumer prices in March were 8.5% higher than a year ago — the sharpest increase since December of 1981.

While no one likes paying more for haircuts or hamburgers, high inflation is especially painful for low-income families, whose spending is heavily weighted toward necessities such as gasoline and groceries, which have seen some of the largest price hikes.

Gasoline prices have jumped 48% in the last year while grocery prices are up 10%.