Area's gasoline price drops for ninth week
Local gasoline prices declined for the ninth consecutive week.
Tuesday's weekly report by SactoGasPrices.com, a GasBuddy.com website, said the average price of gas in the Sacramento area declined 4.4 cents to $3.69 per gallon over the past week.
Local prices are still 60 cents a gallon higher than they were at this time last year, but they're down 22.5 cents from last month.
Nationally, GasBuddy said prices dipped half a penny over the past week to settle at $3.57 a gallon – 84 cents higher than a year ago but down 20 cents from last month.
Analysts continued to cite declining crude oil prices.
Benchmark crude was up $1.95 to $96.89 a barrel in trading Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but that was still far below the early May price of around $114, when local gas prices averaged $4.19 a gallon.
Analysts said Tuesday's rise in crude was prompted by forecasts of supply possibly not keeping up with worldwide demand in 2012.
Magazine ranks state high on green issues
For a second straight year, California topped all states in sustainability rankings compiled by Site Selection magazine, published by Norcross, Ga.-based Conway Data Inc.
The magazine touts its second year of sustainability listings as a guide for green industry businesses looking to establish headquarters or new operations.
Site Selection gave California high marks for green incentive programs and projects. California was followed by Washington and Oregon, respectively.
The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont area topped the magazine's list of top sustainable metro markets nationwide, ahead of the Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles areas, respectively.
Rabobank tops scores of satisfied customers
California community bank Rabobank, N.A., which has a Roseville corporate office and more than 100 branches in the state, ranked highest in customer satisfaction among retail banks statewide, according to a new study by J.D. Power and Associates.
Rabobank said it received the highest customer-satisfaction score of 796, 54 points above the industry average in California.
The annual Power study measures retail banking customers' satisfaction with their primary financial institution based on six factors: account activities, account information, facility, fees, problem resolution and product offerings.
Power's 2011 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study was based on responses from nearly 52,000 retail banking customers nationally.
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