Our wallets feel it every time we head to the pumps.

Gas prices have certainly become a burden on our already tight budgets, and it’s probably not going to get any easier.

Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported the price jumped to $3.80 a gallon — a record high for this time of year.

And because “investors bet that supplies will shrink,” the summer is expected to be just as bad price-wise, with the potential of reaching $4.25 per gallon.

It’s a never-ending cycle, creating higher prices for nearly everything from groceries to travel expenses.

Just like so many others, we’re feeling it.

But many are looking to quick fixes for the constant increase in gas prices. The Keystone XL pipeline, for example, has created quite the political stir. The proposed 1,661-mile pipeline would have delivered oil to the Gulf Coast from Canada, but it failed to pass the Senate last week by four votes, and that’s really upset supporters.

Yes, the pipeline would have created thousands of jobs, and it may have lowered gas prices (that’s even been disputed), but we have to ask ourselves if it would it have been beneficial in the long run. The constant reports peppered with ill-informed opinions have made it unclear if the pipeline would have changed much of anything.

John Schoen from msnbc.com’s The Bottom Line wrote it would have reduced the unemployment rate by only about 0.01 percent. That’s just not enough to warrant the possibility of harming the environment.

We need to stop looking for new ways to get oil and start looking for new ways to replace it.

Becoming less dependent on oil might mean giving up some of these opportunities that seem beneficial in the short term, but it’s clear that we can’t use short-term solutions as answers to long-term problems.

Our best bet is to start looking elsewhere for energy.

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the Daily Kent Stater editorial board.