Since January 2007, the price of a gallon of gas is up $1.35 per gallon. Congressman Roy Blunt was in the city on Monday to offer some solutions that federal leaders in Washington are considering. Some businesses are already starting to take things into their own hands.

SMC Packaging produces and then hauls cardboard boxes a million miles each year to manufacturers around the region. Last year, the company spent $200,000 more on diesel fuel than the year before.

“Ninety percent of what we deliver, we deliver on our own trucks,” Rich Bachus of SMC.

To deal with the cost crunch, SMC decided greater shipping efficiency is the answer so it constructed a war room of sorts, a room that monitors the progress of each of the plant's machines from a central location. The goal is to combine orders and fill more trucks full to cut down on the number of shipping runs.

“Maybe tomorrow we're heading in a certain direction, maybe Wednesday or Thursday the same items are due in the same area. They may pull those forward because there's room on the truck,” said Bachus.

It's not just the bottom line that's the concern. It's also the impact on employees -- blue-collar workers who drive 30 or more miles to work.

Mike Hazell lives just in Springfield. He's begun carpooling with his wife, even though it's an inconvenience.

“I have to wait two hours for my shift to start because her shift started two hours before mine. And she has to wait about two hours or me to get off work,” he said.

Blunt says most of the solutions are long term but he's still offering legislation that would eliminate the gas tax for the summer driving season. He says he'd pay for it by putting a halt on earmarks, or special federal spending projects.

“I fought for some (earmarks) – the ones I fought for are pretty good – (but) I think we could all forgo those while dealing with gas prices,” he said.

Hazell is fed up and wants oil company profits capped, which is something Blunt might be less willing to support.

“I realize they might not have a super high markup but they're still making $12 billion a year, which is more than anybody else is,” said Hazell.

As far as capping or harshly taxing the oil company profits, Blunt says he's not opposed to looking at that but he then quickly notes that Microsoft, for example, has greater profits and a greater profit margin than the oil companies.