One bright spot for struggling Americans this holiday: gas prices hit a five year low yesterday. “We’re paying about a billion dollars per day less than we were in July” for gasoline one analyst. “We could probably bail out some banks and maybe even some of the auto companies with the savings.” The news isn’t all good. Pump prices have fallen in part because more families are staying home, driving nine billion fewer miles in October. Pump prices are now down to a national average of $1.64 a gallon, a far cry from the $2.98 average a year ago. Oil producing countries responded immediately with plans for more production cuts.

Americans are conserving gas? That is terrible news! Americans should not only be able to get cheap gas — we should be able to use as much of it as we want!

I guess some of the conservation is due to bad news.  For example, people driving less because they are out of work.  However, Americans buying smaller cars, driving less, inflating their tires (suck on that McCain/Palin!), and using public transportation is great news.  

Actually, I think this is more sloppy editing/writing than anything else. The original AP article says that the low gas prices are “bittersweet news”, which I think was then poorly rewritten in the news summary.