“The U.S. government has limited influence over those global prices, which are shaped by market and geopolitical factors. Gas prices dropped during the early months of the pandemic, for example, because millions of people stayed home and dramatically reduced their gas consumption. But as the Bureau of Labor Statistics documented, prices surged as society reopened and the economy started to rebound.
While energy prices have consistently been higher under Biden than they were during Trump’s first term, they have dropped from their heights in 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent global prices soaring. As the Agriculture Department noted in February, fuel and oil costs saw significant declines in 2023 and are expected to decline again in 2024, thanks to drops in global energy prices. U.S. oil prices in the past few days have dropped to their lowest level in two years as OPEC+ says it will increase its own oil production later this year and fuel demand in China looks weaker.
And it’s not clear green-lighting more domestic drilling would have much impact on energy costs. For one thing, the U.S. is already producing record amounts of oil and gas, not to mention renewable energy like solar, wind and hydropower. The Biden administration has also approved more permits to drill for oil on federal land than many of its predecessors, even as it moves to restrict how much federal land is available for drilling.
Several economists also told POLITICO that while energy costs are a factor in every part of the food supply chain, they’re just one of many inputs companies consider when setting prices.”
“The move to regulate fuel economy came about a few years earlier, following the 1973–74 Arab embargo that suddenly ended the flow of oil from OPEC nations. In the face of skyrocketing oil prices, Congress froze gasoline prices to protect American consumers from pocketbook shock. Then came the hard part. Elected officials sought to require U.S. automakers to build the smaller, more economical cars that unquestionably would have been built had gasoline prices been allowed to rise freely. Yet the fuel economy standards hit passenger sedans hard while leaving light trucks, which were not seen as passenger vehicles, almost untouched.
As the fuel economy standards began to bite consumers, they found that trucks provided comfort and safety no longer available in the downsized sedans. Truck sales surged, and in 1990, Ford placed a four-door body on a Ranger truck frame and introduced the Ford Explorer, a passenger vehicle that satisfied the government’s truck definition. This inspired an explosion of similar SUV production across the industry. Trucks became beautiful, expensive, and highly desirable.”
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“All the while, the fuel economy standard for trucks remained less strict than for sedans. To make things even better for U.S. producers, almost-prohibitive tariffs on European light trucks were extended to the rest of the world. Many foreign producers eventually jumped the tariff wall and built trucks and cars here, but the home-grown industry enjoyed an early advantage.”
“President Biden still isn’t what you’d call popular, but he’s closer to popular than he’s been in some time. On Jan. 11, Biden hit a 44.1 percent approval rating in FiveThirtyEight’s average — his highest mark since October 2021. That was 3 percentage points higher than it was on Nov. 9, which isn’t a huge increase in the grand scheme of things, but in this polarized age where any movement in the president’s approval rating is rare, it’s a veritable Bidenaissance.
This is the part of the story where you expect me to explain why this is happening. Which is understandable, except it’s impossible to know for sure what’s behind this shift. One leading theory, though: It’s because inflation has been slowing down. Prices in December 2022 were just 6.5 percent higher than they were in December 2021, which was the lowest inflation rate in over a year. Gas prices, another highly visible metric of the strain on Americans’ wallets, also plummeted from an average of $3.80 per gallon in November to $3.32 per gallon in December. These seem like pretty compelling explanations, considering how closely Biden’s approval rating was tied to the inflation rate and gas prices last year.”
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“But is Biden’s luck about to run out? The discovery of a handful of classified documents from the Penn Biden Center and Biden’s Delaware home has generated arguably the first bad news story for Biden in months, and it’s fair to wonder whether it will reverse — or at least halt — his miniature political comeback. The few polls that have been conducted since these revelations suggest that Americans think Biden acted badly, and that could be dragging down his approval rating.”
“More than half the gas stations in the country are single-store operations run by an individual or a family, according to the Association for Convenience and Fuel Retailing (NACS), a trade association representing the stores that sell more than 80 percent of the
“Several factors have pushed gas prices down, including a drop in oil prices as recession fears grow and a smaller-than-expected impact from Western sanctions on Russia. Supply has also improved relative to demand, which has slightly fallen in recent weeks and remains at levels lower than a year ago, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration.”
How Much Of The Gasoline Price Surge Is President Biden’s Fault? Robert Rapier. 2022 3 13. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2022/03/13/how-much-of-the-gasoline-price-surge-is-president-bidens-fault/?sh=31618bce7c8b 4 reasons high gas prices aren’t Joe Biden’s fault—and one critical way he’s adding to the problem Will Daniel. 2022 6 8. Fortune. https://www.yahoo.com/video/4-reasons-high-gas-prices-090000545.html
“as CNN pointed out not long ago, oil companies used to respond like other businesses to rising prices by increasing supply. Burying their industry in red tape and choking off access to capital has been a very effective signal to rethink their entire business strategy. Oil industry insiders may coast along and enjoy the profits from existing capacity, but they’re unlikely to invest in facilities to meet demand for gasoline, and offset soaring prices, until they’re certain their industry will be allowed a future.”