There is not much good news these days when it comes to the United States' economy, so we'll take whatever upbeat financial reports we can get.
It's obviously not encouraging that U.S. economic growth is nearly at a standstill. But there is at least one positive side effect from anemic growth: lower demand for oil. That reduced demand has helped push down gasoline prices a little.
To be sure, the price you pay for a gallon of regular gas is still not by any means "low." The average cost was about $3.51 in Chattanooga recently. But that was down about 6 cents from a week earlier, and analysts predict that gas prices will continue to fall in coming weeks.
At any rate, $3.51 per gallon is obviously better than the nearly $4-per-gallon figure we were seeing not too long ago.
The United States imports too much oil from unstable or hostile foreign regimes, while we counterproductively put much of our own oil -- and natural gas -- off limits for unjustified environmental reasons.
It's good that gas prices have fallen a bit lately at local stations. But we could do much more to cut prices and reduce our dependence upon foreign oil if we would develop and use our own energy resources more fully.