Because the price of gasoline at the pump is only marginally connected to the price of crude (most of which is forward delivery, in any case). The single limiting factor in this country is the refining capability.

Currently, US oil supplies are quite high. With supply up (relatively) and demand down, you'd think this would drive the price lower. But the crude has to be refined. Since we are running at 100% capacity, as there hasn't been a new oil refiniery built in this country in something like 30 years, refinery capacity is the single limiting factor in the price of gasoline at the pump. No matter how much crude oil there is, you can only get as much gasoline as there are refineries to process it 9the crude). Every time a refinery gets taken down for maintenance, or has some accident, etc, you feel it firectly at the pump. Remember the oil spike after katrina? If wasn't because there wasn't any oil; it was because several refineries went down.

As I said, much of the spike in crude prices are due to speculators. There have been attacks on the Nigerian pipelines, Mexcian facilities, unrest in Venezuela (which is going to have infrastructure problems in the somewhat-near future). The oil suppliers, at least for little while longer, have less interest in moderating the price of oil since they are benefitting directly. The speculators, however, are the main driving force. But soon, it will be like a game of musical chairs, someone's going to be holding the contracts when someone realizes that there is a lot of oil out there and things will swing back in balance (although never like it was 3-4 years ago)

Still, there are alwasy people who are willing to believe that this is some vast conspiracy.

In total amongst all the responses TIE I think you have your answer and if it doesn't point us in the direction of making sure we diversify our source of energy I don't know what will! It is a concern now but it will be solved. I read of the finest minds set to solve this dilemma in a forward moving manner in looking into less dependence upon this source of energy.