As U.S. gasoline prices approach a 14-year high, the Biden administration is exploring ways to reduce fuel costs, from suspending federal gas taxes to additional use of the Strategic Oil Reserve of the country.

“This is a kind of five-alarm fire in the White House; they are extremely concerned,” Jeff Stein, a political journalist for the Washington Post, told CBS News.

“High petrol prices are one of the most prominent political issues. People see it every day; they hear it in their pockets; it affects the approval of a president quite dramatically.”

The national average gas price fell to $ 4.24 a gallon this week, 10 cents below its recent record highs, but still about $ 1.35 more than a year ago. Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who cite inflation as the biggest problem facing the U.S. is approaching its 40-year high, according to a Gallup poll this week.

“The prices that people notice most often are energy and food. Fill up every week and go to the grocery store every week and there are still inflationary pressures,” said Paul Ashworth, chief economist in North America. at Capital Economics. CBS News.

Options the White House is examining to curb gas prices include reopening the Strategic Oil Reserve, suspending the federal gas tax and offering incentives to oil producers to increase production, Stein said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said she is open to suspending the federal gas tax. Democrats in the Senate have introduced legislation that would suspend the 18.5-cent-per-gallon tax for the rest of the year, although critics point out that doing so would deplete the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for maintenance. of the roads. Several states they have already eliminated their own state taxes on gasoline.

Not all lawmakers agree to give energy companies a break. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is calling for a tax on excess profits from oil and gas producers, who are making profits as energy prices rise. Four of the largest fossil fuel extractors are up 50% higher than last year, the independent senator said in a recent tweet calling for an “extraordinary profits tax.”

The price of gas is usually closely linked to the overall price of crude oil. But while the cost of crude oil fell below $ 100 a barrel this week, “we haven’t seen a corresponding drop in gas prices in proportion to the fall in oil prices,” Stein told CBS News Streaming.

Oil companies have been slow to drill to get more oil, despite a high price of crude oil that would make it very profitable to do so. Instead, many focus on paying off debt and passing on their profits to investors. In a recent poll, nearly 3 in 10 oil and gas executives told the Dallas Federal Reserve that crude oil prices had no effect on their expansion plans. When asked why they weren’t drilling more, oil executives blamed Wall Street, with nearly 60 percent citing “investor pressure to maintain capital discipline.”