Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Monday, August 22. I'm Nyla Boudou. Here's

what we're watching today. A new phase in the search for habitable planets. Plus, a historic

moment at the IOS Day Fair. But first, what falling gas prices tell us about inflation.

That's today's one big thing.

Even in the U.S. may have reached its peak. A big part of that is falling gas prices, which

recently dipped back below the $4 a gallon mark. The price of crude oil is also on the decline,

closing it just under $90 a barrel on Friday. And a reminder, at one point, oil hit more

than $130 a barrel over the past year. Axios's business editor, Javier David, joins us to

talk about the role of gas prices in finally raining in inflation. Hey, Javier.

Hello, how are you? Javier, we should probably start with how much of a role gas prices played

in the eight and a half percent inflation we've seen year over year? Gas prices or energy prices

in general have played a substantial role in the price surges over the last year or so. Now we're

seeing the substantial drop that we've seen in the price of oil, which over $40 over the last

several months has trickled down into cheaper prices of gas. So that is a good thing for consumption

going forward. How much has actions by the U.S. government played a role in prices at the pump

here? Well, the Biden administration would like to believe that they've taken a lot of, they could

take a lot of credit for this. The reality is that the biggest spur for energy prices to date is

the Russia Ukraine conflict. That's really been the driver of these incredible almost astronomical

prices that we've seen in commodities, not even just oil and gas, but just commodities in general.

Now what we're seeing in terms of why these prices are on the decline is primarily there's a lot of

fear surrounding China. China's economy is not doing well. They are in major importer, if not the top

importer of oil and gas and their demand in their economy is really suffering. So on the one hand,

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