Today's GAS prices are not directly coupled to the OIL prices you hear on the news. Crude prices you hear are usually for 30 or 90-day delivery... the price that will be paid in 30 or 90 days when its delivered. So there is a lag.

This particular spate of high GAS prices are primarily for the reasons you hear on the news the past week- MTBE/ETOH changeover and the jinks caused by it.

Spot retail GAS prices started ramping up almost 4 weeks before crude futures did (respective lows were on or about 2/25 and 3/21, repsectively). 2/25 was almost immediately after the EPA ended (on 2/14) the oxygenation requirement for gasoline and ceased providing MTBE liability protection for fuel companies. By the 1st of March the major pipelines ceased shipping winter and MTBE fuels, thus beginning the locality-by-locality scramble to clean and prep for future ethanol mixing at the local terminals.

Now, crude prices, well, that's another ball of wax. I'm using a 'irrational exuberance but in reverse' analogy to explain it for now. Lots of inertia out there...