Republicans have tried to blame the White House as gas prices have surged over the past several months and shot up even further following Russia's incursion into Ukraine.
The Republican National Committee's deputy communications director said last week that Joe Biden caused this and doesn't seem to care.
President Joe Biden did not cause this. The primary reasons why filling up your tank has gotten more expensive over the past year have almost nothing to do with America's chief executive. It shouldn't be a surprise that presidents don't have much control over gas prices. The sad joke of American politics is that voters act like they do.
I don't think so. Let's debunk the argument.
The cost of gas has gone up over the past few months because the president hasn't let oil companies drill enough, according to members of the GOP.
The White House has bottled up American fossil fuel production by issuing fewer oil leases on federal lands.
Republicans on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee wrote a letter to Biden complaining that there has not been a lease sale on federal lands since he imposed the ban.
It is true that oil production in the U.S. is lower than it was in February of 2020 when it hit a record high of 12.8 million barrels. The market crashed at the start of the coronaviruses crisis. You might be tempted to think that U.S. oil production has stopped since Biden took office.
Oil production has increased from about 11 million barrels per day to about 11 million barrels through 2021. Biden noted last week that domestic oil companies pumped more crude in the first year of his presidency than in the first year of Donald Trump's. The number of oil rigs in the US is still growing.
Biden has done little to slow fossil fuel production on federal property.
During his campaign, Biden promised to stop new drilling on federal lands. In the first months of his term, he paused the sale of new public oil leases. In November, the Biden administration held the largest-ever auction of oil and gas drilling leases from the Gulf of Mexico, locking in a future guarantee of more than 1 billion new barrels of oil from that region. The administration was not required to make this sale, as the Justice Department admitted, it was the government's choice.
The Biden administration paused oil lease sales again last month after a judge blocked them from considering climate costs. So it's a GOP-approved official who stopped land sales while the administration changed its energy accounting.
Even if Biden had approved the Gulf of Mexico tracts earlier in his term, or leased more federal lands before the current pause, it wouldn't have made much difference in today's oil prices. It would have taken many months to extract, refine, and put those billion barrels on the market.
It's false to say that the shutdown of the tar sands line has a role here. Only 8 percent of the entire line had been built, and the pipe wouldn't have gone online until next year at the earliest. The talking point ignores the fact that the Biden administration allowed the controversial Line 3 to go online in the fall, allowing for continued transports of crude from Canada. There is no reason for Kevin McCarthy or Noem to be upset. We don't suffer for crude imports from Canada because tens of millions of barrels travel into the U.S. by rail.
The fossil fuel industry's desire to earn a buck is the real reason why U.S. oil production hasn't returned to peak production levels.
Producers have been under pressure from shareholders to return cash to shareholders rather than increase production as demand for oil has rebounded. Companies have only expanded production slowly.
The CEO of Pioneer, which is the largest oil company, said that they are not going to change their growth plans.
Vicki Hollub said that her company needs to return cash to shareholders in the form of dividends or buybacks.
Oil production outside the U.S. has been held back by profit motives. Despite pressure from the U.S., Japan and India to pump more, the group of countries kept a tight cap on output last fall. They relented last week when the United Arab Emirates said it would increase production. Gregory Brew told me last month that the United Arab Emirates has spare oil capacity at hand, and it doesn't want high prices to suppress global demand.
Middle Eastern monarchies are not the only ones cashing in. According to an L.A. Times report, some California gas stations that were charging $7 per gallon were setting their prices far above state and national averages because desperate drivers were willing to pay even if it hurts.
Why does this matter? It has implications for the policy debate in Washington.
The Biden administration is trying to find new sources of oil to offset the loss of Russian crude, and is talking to Iran and Venezuela about increasing production in return for reducing sanctions on those countries. Foreign policy hawks don't want the U.S. doing business with either of those nations. Republicans introduced a bill to ban the U.S. from buying oil from those countries.
RT if you agree → Biden should be turning to AMERICAN energy producers for more oil and gas—not dictators in Venezuela, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) March 7, 2022
If you think the Biden administration is holding the U.S. oil industry back, this position makes sense. It is not Biden who is holding it back, it is the drillers.
The price of oil has come down a bit in recent days, but is still above $100 a barrel. Unless our government is willing to do business with bad regimes, American drivers are going to keep feeling pain at the pump.
Republicans will probably be fine with that if they blame Biden.
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