Dear Readers,

This is a good news, better news column.

For starters, the election is over. That is good.

I hope your guy won. If not, there is always next year. And it won't be very soon before the presidential hopefuls start to elbow their way on to the front pages of our newspapers and start preening for the TV cameras.

The second bit of good news is (drum roll) oil prices are going down.

On Monday, the Irving gas station in Boothbay Harbor was selling regular for $3 a gallon. If you shop around, you can find it for less.

A year ago, the statewide average was $3.40 per gallon, according to the website Gas Buddy. That means when you fill the 20-gallon tank in your pickup truck, it will cost you about $8 less than last year.

The same bit of good news carries over from your truck to your home. There, too, prices are down — a bunch.

At this time last year, home heating oil cost an average of $3.53 per gallon. This year it is $3.12.

That means it will cost you $61.50 less to fill your home's 150-gallon tank than it did at the same time last year.

Wait a minute. I thought that oil prices, like taxes, usually went up. It seems that it is especially true for this time of the year, when refineries usually blame higher prices on their production switch from gasoline to heating oil.

So, what is going on?

In Maine, the expert on such things is Lisa Smith, a senior planner for the governor's Energy Office. She confirmed the obvious. Oil prices are sliding.

“That is right. In most years, this time of the year saw prices jump. This year they are dropping,” she said. It all has to do with the laws of supply and demand.

Today, American oil production is up. In fact, U.S. production is the highest since the 1980s. At the same time, Saudi Arabia, which used to cut production when the price started to drop, has continued to pump at the same rates.

On the consumer side, world oil consumption has remained flat as the Europeans and the Chinese have not increased their demands.

So, when there is more supply than demand, prices slide, she said.

All American presidents, beginning with Richard Nixon, have talked about how our nation needs to be less dependent on imported foreign oil. Now, we are pumping so much oil we are on the cusp of becoming a net oil exporter. It looks like we are getting closer to the goal of independence. And that is a bit of good news for America.

Back at your house and mine, lower heating and gasoline bills are sure to bring out big smiles.

And that, dear readers, is more than a bit of good news.