Petro Patrol

The price of regular gas has dropped 2 cents this week, from $3.89; gallon to $3.87.

Also, last Thursday after a prolonged moratorium on offshore drilling, the Department of the Interior gave Royal Dutch Shell conditional approval to begin drilling exploratory wells in the Arctic Ocean next summer-- a Shell floating drill rig for a 4,000-foot-deep well.

Some see this as a signal that the Obama administration is easing a regulatory clampdown on offshore oil drilling that it imposed after last year’s deadly accident in the Gulf of Mexico.

The high gasoline prices and continuing high levels of unemployment have put significant pressure on the Obama administration to react and provide monetary relief at the pump.