T. Boone Pickens: $5 gas possible next year

Gasoline prices are on the rise again, up a dime a gallon since the start of the month to a national average of $3.64 for unleaded regular. That's higher than they were when the White House announced it would be releasing 30 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to stem the oil price tide at the time.

And veteran oil man T. Boone Pickens says prices could hit the $5 mark sometime next year.

He tells CBS News Business and Economics Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis Washington has been talking about lessening United States dependence on foreign oiol for 40 years but hasn't done much about it.

Pickens, the oil tycoon who's also the founder and chairman of BP Capital Management, estimates the U.S. will buy $2.2 trillion in oil from OPEC over the next ten years, but is hoping it doesn't come to that.

Instead, he continues to urge lawmakers to pass an energy policy that replaces much of the oil we import with domestic natural gas.

"The cheapest natural gas in the world is in the United States," he tells Jarvis " ... I mean, we're fools not to use it. ... But I can tell you, if you don't spend it on your own resource, you're gonna spend it on OPEC's resource."

Pickens says his plan would create a minimum of half-a-million jobs.

Jarvis also discussed the likelihood of a U.S. swing toward its own natural gas with "Early Show" co-anchor Chris Wragge.