Gas prices expected to head south after Labor Day

There's some good news for people who wait to vacation until after Labor Day weekend: at least one industry expert expects gasoline prices to go down. Tom Klonza of the Oil Price Information Service told USA Today that he believes that prices at the pump could drop by as much as 15 cents a gallon.

Thank falling crude oil prices, climbing inventories, and a continued slack in demand by the driving public for the projected declines. Unleaded gasoline futures for September delivery have dropped steadily over this month, too, down to $1.88 today, another harbinger of declining fuel costs.

Lest we get overconfident, though, the U.S. Energy Information Administration's Short-term energy outlook is projecting that regular gas will average $2.77 a gallon in the second half of this year, up a penny from the first half of 2010.