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The new work shifts the state line in several areas a few hundred feet one way or the other. That has created a bureaucratic nightmare for some. Lewis Efird's company owns the land where a gas station was built in what he thought was South Carolina, but is now North Carolina. He said the move makes the station worthless because higher gas taxes will raise his pump prices 30 cents a gallon and the fireworks that boost his profits are illegal in North Carolina.

The Environmental Protection Agency is going to require all consumers to buy at least four gallons of gasoline from certain gas pumps after the new E15 ethanol-gasoline blend is introduced into the market.

With Congress spending all its time trying to avert the fiscal cliff, a slew of other legislative matters are going unattended. One of them is the agriculture bill which, if not addressed, could lead to a doubling of the price of milk early next year. It works like this: In order to keep dairy farmers in businesses, the government agrees to buy milk and other products if the price gets too low. The current agriculture bill has a formula that means the government steps in if the price of milk were to drop by roughly half from its current national average of about $3.65 a gallon.

Jeff Tucker on the insanity of 1.6 gallon toilets.

Breakthrough promises $1.50 per gallon synthetic gasoline with no carbon emissions

Analysts said the jump in used car prices partially reflected the government's "Cash for Clunkers" rebate program, which has reduced the stockpile of used vehicles since cars which qualified for that program were junked and therefore not available for resale.

The advance in both new and used car prices accounted for 90 percent of the increase in core inflation last month, government analysts said.

SEATTLE -- Cars are becoming more and more fuel-efficient, and you would think that's a good thing. But Washington state is actually losing money because of it and as a result, the state is now considering a "pay-by-mile" tax. The state predicts gas tax collected today won't add up to enough cash to pay for future road projects. Drivers of fuel-efficient cars are spending less at the pump, which means they are paying less in gas tax while driving the same amount of miles.

Prime Minister Mario Monti, in office just over a month, wants landlords, plumbers, electricians and small businesses to stop conducting large transactions in cash, which critics say helps them evade taxes. The government on Dec. 4 reduced the maximum allowed cash payment to 1,000 euros from 2,500 euros. “If they force us to use credit cards, prices will go up,” said d’Andrea, noting that many retailers offer discounts to customers who pay in cash and don’t demand a receipt, in effect splitting with them the savings from evading the country’s 21 percent sales tax.

Did you know that over the past 10 years, while the technological costs of processing transactions has gone down, interchange fees have more than doubled? A cost that then gets passed on to you in the form of higher prices.