Gasoline prices in the US reach $5 per gallon

The average price of gasoline in the US topped the $5 a gallon mark on Saturday for the first time in history, fueling decades of inflation that has become politically very costly for the Biden administration.

The new $5 milestone, reported by the AAA, means gasoline prices in the US have risen by more than two-thirds in the last year and have more than doubled since Joe Biden took office.

Rising energy prices are a major contributor to persistent inflation, which accelerated again in May and is now at its fastest annual pace since December 1981. The latest consumer price index, released on Friday, shows prices rose 1 percent in the last month alone, or 8.6 percent from the same time last year.

The US administration has repeatedly tried to blame Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing the country's invasion of Ukraine as the main reason for the sharp rise in crude oil prices, which in turn has pushed up fuel costs.

International oil benchmark Brent has risen to more than $120 a barrel since Moscow ordered troops into Ukraine - down from lows of nearly $10 a barrel during the peak of the pandemic two years ago.

In recent months, the White House has announced the release of record amounts of oil from a government emergency stockpile to ease supply shortages, and has urged Saudi Arabia and other Opec+ countries to significantly increase their supply.

The White House has also blamed US oil companies for their reluctance to drill.

In a speech in Los Angeles on Friday, the president slammed ExxonMobil, the US's largest oil company, saying the company "made more money than God" this year.

US oil company executives say Wall Street investors' demand that gains from high oil prices be spent on dividends rather than new production has held back spending on new supplies.

Biden and other senior officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, have repeatedly said that tackling high inflation is "a top priority" for the US administration -- a message they have consistently emphasized amid record-breaking presidential approval ratings.

Republican lawmakers took the opportunity this week to scrutinize Yellen at congressional hearings, forcing her to defend the Biden administration against accusations that her spending fueled price pressures.

Biden encouraged the US Federal Reserve to do whatever is necessary to counter high inflation and stressed its independence while raising interest rates rapidly. Since March, the US Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates by 0.75 percentage point and is planning another half-point hike next week after raising interest rates in May, the first since 2000.

A series of such hikes are now expected through the second half of 2022 as the Fed seeks a "speedy" shift of its monetary policy to a "neutral" framework that no longer stimulates demand.

At $5 a gallon, US gasoline prices - the equivalent of £1.07 a liter - remain well below retail prices across the Atlantic. According to the RAC, petrol has sold for an average of £1.83 a liter in the UK in recent days.