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Yemeni rebels, or Iran, according to the Trump administration, attacked a couple of Saudi oil facilities Saturday, knocking out 10-12% of the world’s oil production.
Will prices go up? Will prices stay up? Will the economy go into a funk?
And why is gasoline so expensive around here?
OK, $2.35 gas in Morgan City isn’t likely to show up on “Meet the Press” Sunday. But if you drive between, say Houma and Morgan City or Lafayette and Morgan City, you have to wonder.
Monday, I filled up at a Race Trac in Lafayette for $1.919 a gallon. Then I cussed, because a nearby Super 1 had gas for $1.899.
Sixty-seven miles down U.S. 90 in Patterson, Berwick and Morgan City, gas was going for $2.28-$2.35.
There was no sense in cussing. It’s been like that for at least four years. The difference is 20 cents a gallon 90% of the time, and often 30 or even 40 cents.
I’ve asked knowledgeable people why this might be. Their lips move, and no usable information is imparted. We can speculate, but first let’s get something out of the way.
Energy prices started climbing for real in 1973, the year of the last big Arab-Israeli war and the ensuing OPEC oil boycott that jacked gasoline up to — gasp! — 50 cents a gallon. Now, $2.35 looks awfully expensive compared to the good old days.
But if you go to the handy inflation calculator on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, you’ll find that 50 cents in December 1973 is worth $2.78 in August 2019 dollars. So even where gas is relatively expensive, it’s cheap in historical terms.
Besides, 1973 wasn’t exactly the good old days. We had a big Mississippi River flood (and the debut of barge-sinking in Bayou Chene). We had the Senate Watergate hearings. We had gas lines. We had our ignominious withdrawal from Vietnam.
We had lime green polyester leisure suits. Those were dark days for our nation.
It’s also about the time when drivers changed the way they bought gasoline.
Before then, you bought gasoline at a service station. You pulled alongside a pump, driving over a hose that made a bell ring in the station. Someone came running out to pump the gas, wash your windshield, and check your oil and tires.
You didn’t have to get out of the car. If you did, it was probably to look at the calendar the station got from an auto parts dealer. Winter or summer, the calendar had a picture of a busty woman in coveralls that hardly covered anything.
I’ve been told that in those days, gasoline was considered a low-margin product. Mechanics sold gas to lure customers in for auto repairs, which is where they made their real money.
If there was a station across the street with gas for a penny less (and maybe a better auto parts calendar), our mechanic might lose repair business. So you could drive through a good-size city in which every station sold gas for the same price, which was about as low as the stations could stand.
By the mid-1980s, we were buying our gas at convenience stores, and later still at stands outside big-box stores. Now, instead of being a loss-leader to lure customers, gasoline seems to be an end in itself.
Once you could get a lube job at your gas station. Now you get McNuggets, or Subway or Church’s chicken. Or, in our area, the wings at Stazione. You fill up while you pick up lunch.
A nifty article at bizfluent.com lists all the ways stores try to get customers to buy their gas: loyalty programs (“Do you have a so-and-so card?” the pump’s card reader asks you); contests and promotions; amenities like TV screens showing sports scores while you fill up; and those partnerships with retailers.
But they’re doing the same things in Lafayette and Houma. So why the difference in price here?
The federal Energy Information Admin-istration tells us that the price of crude oil makes up 56% of the price of gasoline. Taxes add another 17%. Refining accounts for 13%.
The rest, something like 13%, is marketing and distribution. Our position an hour’s drive away from even a modest metro area probably tacks some pennies onto the price of gasoline.
Whatever the cause, any spike that occurred because of the attack on Saudi facilities seems unlikely to last long. The attack happened Saturday, and oil jumped about $8 to $62 a barrel Monday. But it was back down to $56 Wednesday.
Before you know it, we’ll be back to paying the usual amount more than neighboring cities pay.
Bill Decker is managing editor of The Daily Review.

BATON ROUGE (AP) — Louisiana’s Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, moved quickly to expand Medicaid when he took office in 2016, making his state the only one in the Deep South to embrace that signature piece of President Barack Obama’s health care law.
And in a conservative state that solidly supports President Donald Trump, the $3 billion-plus Medicaid expansion program that is Edwards’ hallmark achievement isn’t going anywhere, even if the Democratic governor is ousted by a Republican in this fall’s election.
Edwards’ two main challengers on the Oct. 12 ballot — U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham and businessman Eddie Rispone — aren’t pledging to rip expansion out by the roots in a state where about 10% of residents get the coverage.
Instead, Edwards’ opponents strike at one of his primary selling points by slamming the administration’s rollout of Medicaid expansion rather than the program’s creation. The GOP contenders accuse Edwards’ health department of millions in wasteful spending and suggest they would tighten controls.
“They have to be careful in how they are framing their critique because it’s a popular program,” said Michael Henderson, director of Louisiana State University’s Public Policy Research Center.
Nearly 460,000 Louisiana adults, mainly the working poor and many of them voters, receive the government financed health coverage. LSU’s annual survey of Louisiana public opinion shows 76% approval for Medicaid expansion, including 57% backing from Republicans.
To criticize Edwards on expansion, “you have to make a complicated argument that says, ‘Hey, I like this thing the governor did, but boy, I wish we’d done it differently. Let me do it differently,’” Henderson said. “That’s a tricky argument to make.”
Thirty-six states have agreed to expand their Medicaid programs under the federal health overhaul, few in the South.
Louisiana’s program started in July 2016. Adults ages 19 to 64 with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level — about $16,750 annually for a single adult or $28,680 for a family of three — are eligible for coverage. The federal government pays nearly all the Medicaid expansion cost. State lawmakers passed a tax on health maintenance organizations and hospital fees to cover the state’s share.
The Democratic governor said thousands of people have been newly diagnosed with hypertension, diabetes and cancer because of expansion. He credits the billions in federal tax dollars received with spurring health industry job growth. And he touts Census data showing 8% of Louisiana’s residents are without health insurance, lower than the national average and below the uninsured rate of neighboring non-expansion states.
“Expanding Medicaid is the biggest, easiest decision that I’m going to make as governor,” Edwards said. “Unlike the other Southern states across the country, Louisiana has not had a single rural hospital to close. And that’s due in large part to the Medicaid expansion.”
Edwards campaign ads show people who received treatment for lupus, glaucoma and cancer through the program. In fundraising emails, Edwards says his Republican opponents “won’t hesitate to dismantle” the program if they win.
But Abraham and Rispone step gingerly when asked about plans for the expansion program, insisting they don’t want to kick anyone off the coverage if they qualify.
Abraham, a doctor and third-term congressman from northeast Louisiana, voted repeatedly to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act.
“Obamacare? A complete mess, absolutely,” he said. But asked if that assessment applies to Medicaid expansion, Abraham replied: “Not necessarily.”
Abraham and Rispone said Edwards mismanaged expansion, with rampant fraud and abuse. They cite legislative audits that documented money spent on ineligible services and that suggested millions could have been spent on people who earned too much for the coverage, including 1,600 people with six-figure incomes. They note thousands have been kicked off the Medicaid rolls after the Edwards administration started doing quarterly, rather than annual, wage checks.
“The governor made the decision to take one of the worst versions of Medicaid expansion available, rushed it to market knowing full well that they did not have the tools available to administer or ensure that the people that were enrolling were even eligible,” Abraham said.
Rispone, a Baton Rouge businessman largely self-financing his campaign, said he’d “freeze” enrollment at current levels until he could assure wasteful spending is eliminated, though critics have questioned if federal law allows that. Rispone also said he’d consider trying to enact work requirements for the expansion program.
“I’m going in there and making sure that everybody that’s on it should be on it and they’re the ones that have the most need,” he said.

Barry E. Robinson of Slidell, a native of Morgan City, has received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal.
Robinson was honored for sustained leadership as the B-2 Test Stand core stage test project manager at Stennis Space Center. The project goal was to ready the B-2 facility for testing the Space Launch System core stage prior to its maiden mission.
Robinson was among those who received awards from Stennis Space Center Director Rick Gilbrech and NASA Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen on Sept. 10. The ceremony was held at the rocket engine test site near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
Robinson coordinated work across six separate facilities and involving 29 separate B-2 stand systems. By February 2019, he had led 100 percent of work to completion and activated all 29 systems, preparing Stennis for a new chapter in rocket propulsion testing.
Stennis Space Center is located near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and is NASA’s lead center for propulsion testing.

The State Funeral for World War II Veterans announced recently that U.S Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Metairie, received this year’s national George Marshall Award during a ceremony at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
The honor recognizes a prominent American who best celebrates the sacrifice, resilience and service of the 16 million women and men who served in our Armed Forces during World War II.
“Rep. Scalise has been a strong supporter of our mission to convince the President of the United States to provide a state funeral in Washington. D.C., for the last remaining World War II Medal of Honor recipient, when he passes away,” said State Funeral for World War II Veterans Chairman Lee William "Bill" McNutt.
“We are blessed to have his strong leadership in The Pelican State!”
Both chambers of the Louisiana congressional delegation in Washington D.C. and both houses of the state Legislature in Baton Rouge recently called on the Trump administration to support the State Funeral for World War II Veterans’ mission. In total, 473 Americans received given our nation’s highest military honor during the Second World War.
Today, only three remain.
“The approximate 400,000 remaining veterans of the Second World War will benefit from a State Funeral in Washington, D.C. for the final MOH recipient from World War II,” said Greg Hamer, National Board Member of the State Funeral for World War II Veterans, who resides in Morgan City.
“This will be a final salute to the greatest generation, and we’re grateful for Rep. Scalise and the entire Louisiana Congressional delegation and both houses of the State Legislatures’ support. They are all in on this initiative. We need as many elected voices as possible from across the county to join this cause if we are to ensure this happens.”
“Congressman Scalise’s role in this sets the standard for other officials to follow,” said James McCloughan, a Vietnam War veteran who received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2017 for heroism near Tam Kỳ in 1969.
“During that time in America’s history, it is amazing how The Greatest Generation stepped up to the plate to fight for the freedom our country believes in. The citizens of this nation were behind the cause, as the 16 million men and women carried out our military mission in WWII.
"It is up to our generation to show gratitude to that great generation for the example they set for all generations to follow. Every time the most powerful, intelligent and compassionate U.S. military force stands up for peace in this world, it is the actions of the WWII Veterans who set the bar for the defense of democracy.”
“I am humbled and honored to receive the National George Marshall Award. The passing of the last World War II Medal of Honor recipient will represent the end of an era.
"For the past century, the Greatest Generation has guided our nation through great and terrible trials,” said Scalise. We will soon be left without their wisdom, courage, and moral conviction; and while their sacrifice will live on in our national story and in our democratic experiment, we will be somehow less without them. A state funeral in Washington, D.C., is the only fitting goodbye to these brave patriots. I am proud to do my part in making this mission a reality.”
In addition to Scalise, other members of the Louisiana Congressional Delegation affixing their signatures to the Presidential letter were U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-Baton Rogue) and John Kennedy (R-Baton Rouge,) and U.S. Reps. Clay Higgins (R-Port Barre), Mike Johnson (R-Shreveport), Ralph Abraham (R-Alto), Garret Graves (R-Baton Rouge) and Cedric Richmond (D-New Orleans).
A State Funeral is a seven to 10-day national event and consists of ceremonies within the state where the honoree was in residence, ceremonies within Washington, D.C., and in the state (or at Arlington National Cemetery) where the authorized individual has chosen to be interred.
All funeral arrangements are made by the U.S. Military District of Washington, D.C., and involve Armed Forces honor guards, elite military bands, and/or guns support (source White House.gov website). The last two State Funerals were Ronald Reagan in 2004 and George Bush in 2018. The last non-Presidential State Funeral was General Douglas MacArthur in 1964.
This effort is the brainchild of McNutt’s 10-year-old daughter, Rabel, a public school student, in honor of her godfather, Walter Ehlers, the oldest holder of the Congressional Medal of Honor when he died in 2014. He received the honor for his efforts at The Battle for Normandy in June 1944.
Individuals can show their support by signing the Change.org petition.
Three World War II Medal of Honor recipients remain with us: Hershel “Woody” Williams of West Virginia, Francis (Frank) Currey of New York and Charles Coolidge of Tennessee. All three are more than 90 years of age.
Louisiana’s congressional delegation is one of six states to call for a state funeral for the World War II resolution. The state is also one of five to pass a joint resolution supporting the initiative.