Soaring gasoline prices in the United States have just hit a politically-charged milestone—they’re now double what they were when President Joe Biden took office.
Besides setting a new record, the sky-high price also happens to be a little more than twice as high as the week when Biden was sworn in.
Biden, who has faced a torrent of criticism over soaring gasoline prices—and high inflation more generally—has sought to pin the blame on factors such as “Putin’s price hike” and U.S. oil industry “price gouging.”
While Biden ordered a release of crude reserves from the national strategic stockpile in a bid to cool soaring prices, this has only had a temporary impact.
“These actions have already helped to blunt what would have been an ever larger Putin Price Hike,” Biden claimed.
But whatever the actual extent of the “Putin Price Hike,” a number of experts and industry figures say Biden’s climate agenda has discouraged investment in new oil supply projects and so is holding back initiatives that could put a meaningful dent in gasoline prices.
“We are going to grapple with high prices” of gasoline until we ”collectively accept“ the fact that the low-carbon transition will take longer and that fossil fuels will continue to play a major role in the U.S. economy ”for decades to come.”
“The idea we’re going to be able to, you know, click a switch and bring down the cost of gasoline is not likely in the near-term,” Biden told reporters at the White House on June 1.
“We can’t take immediate action that I’m aware of yet to figure out how we’re bringing down the prices of gasoline back to $3 a gallon,” he added.
Friends Read Free