Maddy Michaud, of Windham, gases up Thursday at Citgo in Westbrook, where prices matched the statewide average of $3.42 a gallon. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

Gas prices that typically spike in summer as vacationers hit the road are instead falling due to weak demand and strong global supplies. But not so much that motorists notice.

“Not really,” Maddy Michaud said Thursday when asked if she’s seen a drop in prices. The Windham resident, who was putting gas in her SUV – a $75 tab, she said, to fill it completely – said as far as she can tell, the price has hovered from $3 to $3.50 a gallon “for a while now.”

She doesn’t plan long trips this summer, using her vehicle to get to her job in Portland and allowing her to fill up just once a month.

At the Citgo station on Main Street in Westbrook where Michaud was making her purchase, gas was selling at $3.42 a gallon, which is the average price statewide.

That’s down from $3.52 on Memorial Day and $3.60 a gallon two weeks earlier, according to data from GasBuddy. In the same two-week period last year, gas prices in Portland rose to $3.53 a gallon from $3.44.

The price of gas peaked at $3.65 a gallon on April 30 and has been falling since, with Maine prices remaining close to national averages.

In 2022, three months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rattled global energy markets, gas prices reached $4.77 in Portland on Memorial Day, up from $4.63 two weeks earlier, according to numbers from GasBuddy.

The U.S. price on June 10 was $3.39 a gallon, down from $3.58 May 6, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. demand slipped to about 9 million barrels a day in early June, about 200,000 gallons less than the same time last year, the EIA said.

Industry analysts say the drop in prices at the pump is due not only to lackluster demand, but also to strong supply and relatively mild global oil prices.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said reduced demand can be traced to a “COVID hangover” in many markets.

“With the reopening of the economy in 2022 everyone hit the road,” he said. “Those who didn’t pushed back to the following year when prices were down.”

Inflation also is a culprit, driving up the cost of restaurants and lodging, and giving vacationers second thoughts about summer driving plans, De Haan said.

Prices also typically rise in the spring because there’s less capacity as refineries are scheduled for maintenance, he said. Capacity is now 95% and prices are “drifting a little bit lower,” De Haan said.

Another factor helping push down prices is a burgeoning supply. The International Energy Agency reported recently that global oil production is “set to ramp up, easing market strains and pushing spare capacity toward levels unseen outside of the COVID (pandemic).”

Andy Price, president and chief executive officer of Competitive Energy Services, a Portland consulting group, said oil “has been struggling to maintain high prices” and seems to be “locked in” at $80 a barrel, plus or minus.”

“The consensus is the market is well supplied,” he said.

Lower gasoline prices could help President Biden in his bid for a second term. The U.S. Department of Energy has announced it will sell 1 million barrels of gasoline by June 30, ahead of the Independence Day holiday, “strategically timed and structured to maximize its impact on gasoline prices, helping to lower prices at the pump as Americans hit the road this summer.”

Observers say it’s too small to make much of a difference. The U.S. used about 9 million barrels of gasoline a day in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“It sends a message he’s doing something,” Price said. “It’s more symbolic than anything, I’m sure.”

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Firstly, I need to thank the sweetheart of a human who is Julia Gagnon, the girly who had a more than impressive run on American Idol this 2024 season. Though her schedule is wildly busy from the runoff of the competition, she was still humble enough to make some time for her home state and come co-host Krissy in the Morning the other day. Julia finished the national competition in the top 7, which is unbelievable, and although she didn’t win American Idol, it sounds like that was her goal.

No, Julia didn’t win the title of “American Idol”, but her ambitions are way higher than stopping just at the title of that show. “It’s hard to beat the title that is American Idol, I mean where do you go from there? By losing the competition, it allows me to go home to Maine and focus on my own path”, said Julia on-air with me. You can listen to the full conversation we had on our podcast by clicking right here.

I’ll be honest, I love that she said this. I wrote a whole theory behind why I personally believe that it’s in her best interest to have lost American Idol. From everything I’ve witnessed in this industry, I think it’s best to gain the publicity, and then use it to branch off into what you truly want to do with your career. Nobody tells you what to do, say, or wear. Nobody can dictate your future the way they potentially could if you’re under the grip of a producer or manager you didn’t personally choose. There are still so many other beneficial reasons behind losing this competition and you can read more of them here.

Anyways girlfriend, I am rooting for you in more ways than one, and I believe in your vision to the highest extent. Go get the world girl, you’re talented enough to make your dreams happen and you’ve got all of Maine behind you!

PORTLAND, Maine — An Army health expert told a panel investigating a mass shooting by a reservist who was experiencing a psychiatric breakdown that there are limitations in health care coverage for reservists compared to full-time soldiers.

There are no Army hospitals in New England and reservists generally don’t qualify for care through Veterans Administration hospitals, so they’re likely to utilize private health care — but such providers are barred from sharing information with the Army command structure, said Col. Mark Ochoa, command surgeon from the U.S. Army Reserve Command, which oversees the Psychological Health Program.

Gaps in communication could leave the commander who bears ultimate responsibility for the safety and well-being of soldiers without a full picture of their overall health, his testimony suggested.

Ochoa couldn’t speak to the specifics of the 40-year-old gunman, Robert Card, who killed 18 people and injured 13 others in October in Lewiston, but he gave an overview of services available to soldiers and their families in a crisis.

While there are extensive services available, the Psychological Health Program cannot mandate that a reservist get treatment — only a commander can do that — and Ochoa noted that there can be communication breakdowns. He also acknowledged that soldiers are sometimes reluctant to seek treatment for fear that a record of mental health treatment will hurt their careers.

“Hopefully we’ve demonstrated to the public and to ourselves that this is a complicated and complex process,” Daniel Wathen, the commission’s chair and a former chief justice for the state, said when the session concluded.

The independent commission established by the governor is investigating facts surrounding the shooting at a bowling alley and at a bar and grill. Card’s body was found two days after the shooting. An autopsy concluded he died by suicide.

The gunman’s family and fellow Army reservists told police Card was suffering from growing paranoia in the months leading up to the shooting. He was hospitalized during a psychiatric breakdown at a military training last summer in upstate New York. One reservist, Sean Hodgson, told superiors in September, a few weeks before the attacks: “I believe he’s going to snap and do a mass shooting.”

In the aftermath, the state Legislature passed new gun laws that bolstered Maine’s “yellow flag” law, which criminalized the transfer of guns to people prohibited from ownership, and expanded funding for mental health crisis care.

The commission intends to release its final report this summer.

In a preliminary report, the panel was critical of the police handling of removal of Card’s weapons. It faulted police for giving Card’s family the responsibility to take away his weapons — concluding police should have handled the matter — and said police had authority under the yellow flag law to take him into protective custody.

Mental health experts have said most people with mental illness are not violent, they are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators, and access to firearms is a big part of the problem.