Peoria Standard

Rep. Mark Luft spoke of the Illinois people's problems with the sky-high gas prices.

Luft joined several of his colleagues on March 16 to call for relief from rising gas prices to help Illinois residents. He spoke, giving the view from a city's perspective, as he is the mayor of Pekin, Ill.

"If we're having to pay twice as much for gas, we're close to it. It cuts into funds available for every other service the city can provide," Luft said. "Our options are limited because we're getting close to the end of our fiscal year. Much of our fuel budget has already been spent. We work really hard during the year to put a budget together and now at this particular stage, it's going to take a lot of work to appropriate those funds." 

As of March 29, the average price of a gallon of gas was $4.49 in Illinois. The national average was $4.24, according to AAA.

To help ease the pain of soaring gas prices, legislators filed Senate Bill 4195, which caps the price per gallon of gas to $0.18 per gallon for motor fuel and 80% of that amount for gasohol and biodiesel blends.

Sens. Dave Syverson and Don DeWitte are also urging that a cap be put in place to stop the surging gas prices. "With gas prices continuing to skyrocket, we could easily see the average price of gas to be around $5 per gallon," Syverson said in a March 10 release on his website. "We would be providing relief at the pump now, and then preventing any future sales tax increase. We must pass emergency relief legislation before we leave this spring session."