Showing posts with label gas prices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gas prices. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 16, 2026
U.S. Voters Blame Republicans For Rising Gas Prices
Saturday, April 18, 2026
Most Voters Blame Trump For The Rising Gas Prices
The chart above reflects the results of the Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between April 9th and 13th of a nationwide sample of 1,028 registered voters, with a 3.8 point margin of error.
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Yahoo Poll - Public Is Upset With Trump Economy And Rising Gas Prices
Wednesday, June 08, 2022
U.S. Is "Energy Independent" - That Didn't Reduce Gas Prices
Here is how Catherine Ramped describes the situation in The Washington Post:
Good news: We’re energy independent again. Huzzah!
Bad news: “Energy independence” has turned out to be a hollow victory.
“We have the skills, and we have the resources right here in the United States to be energy independent,” says Sen. Joni Ernst. (R-Iowa). “We shouldn’t be subjected to these prices.”
Other GOP lawmakers have even given a specific timeline for this elusive goal. “We have watched this president go after energy, so we can no longer be energy independent,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said over the weekend. His pitch to midterm voters: “In 156 days, we’re going to become energy independent.”
Astonishingly, McCarthy and his fellow Republicans have delivered on their promise early. Because, as it turns out, the United States is alreadyenergy independent — and has been for six months, according to data available through March.
Somehow no one appears to have noticed.
“Energy independence” is a political slogan in search of a concrete definition, but based on context, conservatives appear to be referring to situations when the United States sells more oil and petroleum products to the rest of the world than it buys from other countries. The United States initially became a net exporter of oil and petroleum products in late 2019, while Trump was in office, for the first time since at least the 1950s..
There were a few months in late 2020 and early 2021 when that vaunted new trend reversed, and the United States again imported slightly more than we exported. But even then, total petroleum production and consumption still remained nearly even.
That was the loss of “energy independence” that Republicans often decry, and (incorrectly) blame on President Biden’s supposed “war on fossil fuels” rather than the pandemic and its volatile effects on petroleum markets.
But even that quickly reverted back again. Since last October, we’ve been exporting more than we import each month, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent government statistical agency. That is, we got back to “energy independence” under Biden, but Republicans forgot to update their talking points.
And what of the reports that fossil-fuel firms ratcheted down production in the past couple of years, allegedly because Biden was waging war on them?
It’s true that earlier in the pandemic (i.e. pre-Biden), energy production declined both domestically and internationally. No surprise, given that oil prices briefly turned negative. A lot of companies went bankrupt and investors lost money. In fact, Trump helped negotiate a cut to global oil production to help stabilize plummeting prices, another fact Republicans sometimes conveniently forget.
Even so, U.S. crude oil production has been rising again since about late 2020. Perhaps not as quickly as consumers would like, given other disruptions to global markets, but it’s still rising. In fact, we’re producing about as much crude today as we did in 2019, and are not that far below the record levels of production from early 2020. In other words, in the documented history of U.S. oil production, there has been only about a year when U.S. oil producers pumped more per day than is the case right now.
So congrats, America, we’ve achieved “energy independence,” and we’re reasonably close to the highest levels of oil production in recorded history. But what good did any of this do us?
Despite this prized achievement, U.S. petroleum prices remain painfully high. That’s because even if we can meet all our consumption needs with domestic production, oil prices are still set by global markets. If a major world supplier such as Russia suddenly gets taken offline, that drives global prices up — including here in the United States.
If we actually want to get energy costs down, if we want to completely insulate ourselves from global price shocks, what we ultimately need is the technological investments that keep energy cheap, reliable and, coincidentally, clean.
That means investing in renewables, including: installing grid-scale solar wherever possible. Encouraging consumers and businesses to transition to electric vehicles, stoves and heat. And especially, developing better battery technology.
Despite the perception that renewable energy is some expensive, indulgent cause of liberal tree huggers, it’s already quite cheap. It’s cheaper, for instance, to build and operate an entirely new wind or solar plant than it is to continue operating an existing coal facility. But without better storage technology, we’re stuck with using easily storable fossil fuels, which are dirtier and subject to geopolitical turmoil.
We can’t control what the Russians do. We can’t control what the Saudis do. What we can do is electrify everything and make sure the electricity we use is cheap. That’s the solution if you want to stick it to oil companies, as many on the left do; it’s also the solution if you want abundant, inexpensive and truly independent energy sources, as the right has been coveting for decades.
Monday, April 11, 2022
Most Blame Putin And Oil Companies For High Gas Prices
The chart above is from the recent ABC News / Ipsos Poll -- done on April 8th and 9th of a national sample of 530 adults, with a 4.9 point margin of error.
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Big Oil Is Engaged In An Obscene Price-Gouging
Americans, especially those in the poor and working classes are suffering from very high gas prices. Some want to blame President Biden, and others want to blame Vladimir Putin. Both are wrong! It's the Big Oil companies that are taking advantage of the current situation to increase their already exorbitant profits.
Here's part of how former Labor Secretary Robert Reich describes it:
Guess who’s making no sacrifice at all — in fact, who’s reaping a giant windfall from this crisis?
As crude oil prices hit levels not seen in more than 13 years, Big Oil has hit a gusher. Even before Putin’s war, oil prices had begun to rise due to the recovery in global demand and tight inventories. Last year, when Americans were already struggling to pay their heating bills and fill up their gas tanks, the biggest oil companies (Shell, Chevron, BP, and Exxon) posted profits totaling $75 billion. This year, courtesy of Vladimir Putin, Big Oil is on the way to a far bigger bonanza.
How are the oil companies using all this windfall? I can assure you they’re not investing in renewables. They’re not even increasing oil production. As Chevron’s top executive Mike Wirth said in September, “we could afford to invest more” but “the equity market is not sending a signal that says they think we ought to be doing that.” Translated: Wall Street says the way to maximize profits is to limit supply and push up prices instead.
So they’re buying back their own stock in order to give their stock prices even more of a boost. Last year they spent $38 billion on stock buybacks — their biggest buyback spending spree since 2008. This year, thanks largely to Putin, the oil giants are planning to buy back at least $22 billion more.
Make no mistake. This is a direct redistribution from consumers who are paying through the nose at the gas pump to Big Oil’s investors and top executives (whose compensation packages are larded with shares of stock and stock options).
Though it’s seldom discussed in the media, lower-income earners and their families bear the brunt of the burden of higher gas prices. Not only are lower-income people less likely to be able to work from home, they’re also more likely to commute for longer distances between work and home in order to afford less expensive housing.
Big oil companies could absorb the higher costs of crude oil. The reason they’re not is because they’re so big they don’t have to. They don’t worry about losing market share to competitors. So they’re passing on the higher costs to consumers in the form of higher prices, and pocketing record profits.
It’s the same old story in this country: when crisis strikes, the poor and working class are on the frontlines while the biggest corporations and their investors and top brass rake it in.
Wednesday, March 09, 2022
U.S. Public Overwhelmingly Supports Ban On Russian Oil
The chart above is from a new Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between March 4th and 6th of a nationwide sample of 1,374 adults, with a 2.6 point margin of error.
Gas prices are already very high in the United States, and some thought the public would not support a ban on Russian oil -- which could raise prices even further. But as this poll shows, that is simply not true. At least 71% of American adults say they would support a ban on Russian oil -- even it it caused gas prices to go higher.
Thursday, November 18, 2021
President Biden Is NOT To Blame For Rising Gas Prices
The American Public is not happy with inflation -- especially the rising price of gas. And too many, urged on by Republicans and right-wing media, are blaming President Biden for the gas prices. But the truth is that President Biden is not to blame.
Here's how economist Paul Krugman explains it:
So many voters seem to have skewed perceptions of economic reality. Furthermore, to the extent that they see genuine problems, they may not be clear about which problems politicians can solve and which they can’t.
Take the price of gasoline, which has risen about $1.50 a gallon from its pandemic lows.
Higher gas prices represent a real hardship for many Americans — and historically voters have seemed to blame the president when gas prices go up. Yet presidents have very little influence on prices at the pump.
In the current episode, what’s driving gas prices is a surge in the global price of crude oil. Here’s the price of Brent crude, that is, the price in European markets (which generally moves in tandem with prices everywhere, because oil is a globalized commodity):
So we’re living in a nation with many voters who seem to have both a distorted view of the state of the economy and false beliefs about what aspects of the economy politicians can affect. How is democracy supposed to function well under these conditions?
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Willard Still Lying About Gas Prices
Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) continues to tell lies in an effort to pin some kind of blame on President Obama for the economy (which is actually slowly improving). This time it's one he has told before -- several times. He wants voters to believe that the high gas prices are the fault of President Obama. He knows this is not true, and this time he is called on it by a conservative business-oriented site -- Bloomberg Businessweek. Here is some of what Matthew Philips had to say on that website:
Energy markets are as complex as any in the world. But complexity makes for bad campaign messaging. So Romney has reverted to a simplistic message that more oil production will lead directly to lower gasoline prices. If only it were that easy.
The U.S. is currently producing 6.6 million barrels of crude oil daily, compared with 5 million when Obama took office. The last time the U.S. was pumping this much oil was in May 1995, when the national average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline was $1.17. Today, it’s $3.81. The difference is the price of a barrel of oil. In 1995, a barrel of oil was $19. Today, it is around $92.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the cost of crude oil makes up 64 percent of the price of gasoline, and refining is 18 percent. Depending on where the oil is coming from, the refiners that produce your gasoline pay different prices. For example, the cheapest gasoline prices right now are in the middle of the country. (Heat map here.) The reason is that refiners there have easy access to all the cheap, domestic crude being drilled in such places as Texas and Oklahoma and Kansas. Most of that crude istrapped, however, and can’t efficiently reach markets on the coasts.
Meanwhile, the places with the highest gasoline prices—California, Oregon, most of New England—are stuck buying gasoline that has been refined from more expensive imported oil, rather than the cheap stuff coming from the middle of the U.S. A barrel of foreign oil priced against the Brent benchmark that gets shipped over from West Africa or the North Sea is currently $20 a barrel more expensive than domestic crude priced against West Texas Intermediate.
High gasoline prices aren’t a production problem; they’re a logistics problem. The U.S. is currently undergoing the biggest recalibration of its pipeline infrastructure since many of those pipes were laid 50 years ago. But here’s the thing: Building more pipes won’t necessarily bring down the price of gasoline. If anything, it’ll make it more expensive on the whole. Once all that cheap domestic crude starts to find more markets, its price will rise, not fall. A commodity that has access to more markets, and thus more demand, will eventually become more valuable.
In the next decade, the U.S. will continue to become more energy independent. That’s a function of higher domestic production but also due to gains in efficiency. That doesn’t mean, though, that the nation will get to a point where it, and Canada, operate in a closed loop, in which we use only what we make, with nothing going out and nothing coming in.
That’s not only a fantasy; it’s also bad policy. Whether it’s natural gas or coal or oil, energy is global, and therefore so are its prices. To say otherwise is to suggest closing markets and limiting global trade. That’s called protectionism. Which, last I checked, isn’t in the Republican tool kit.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
GOP Is Now Silent About Gas Prices
MITT ROMNEY (GOP Presidential Nominee)
“He gets full credit or blame for what’s happened in this economy, and what’s happened to gasoline prices under his watch, and what’s happened to our schools, and what’s happened to our military forces. All these things are his responsibility while he’s president.”
JOHN BOEHNER (GOP Speaker of the House)
“The president’s own policies to date have made matters worse and driven up gas prices.”
MITCH MCCONNELL (GOP Senate Minority Leader)
“This President will go to any length to drive up gas prices and pave the way for his ideological agenda.”
But that smile has now been wiped from their faces. Why? because the average price of gasoline in the United States has done nothing but fall in the last few months. It now is about $3.45 cents a gallon -- about 47 cents a gallon lower than it was. And it looks like it may fall even lower.
The Republicans were quick to blame the president when prices were rising. Have they been willing to give him the credit now that prices are falling? Of course not. They don't even want to talk about the price of gas anymore. They've known all along what many of us progressives were saying all along -- that the president has not control over the price of gasoline, whether it is going up or down. Here's how Think Progress puts it:
Obama’s policies haven’t changed since April: the Keystone XL pipeline has not been built, drilling hasn’t drastically changed, and the same regulations are in place. Yet gas prices have fallen. Economics says he isn’t responsible, either way.
They've known this all along, but didn't want to admit it. They're not interested in facts or truth, but only in beating up the president. And it doesn't matter to them whether what they are blaming him for was his fault or not.
I doubt we'll be hearing any more about gas prices in this election season.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
"Drill, Baby, Drill" Won't Lower Gas Prices
Republicans love to tell simple lies, because those are the most likely to be believed. One of those simple lies they have repeatedly told is that the answer to high gas prices is just to drill for more oil in the United States (and just off-shore). That sounds like it would work. After all, wouldn't more oil production drive down the price of oil (and therefore gasoline)?
Actually no. If there was a glut of oil on the world market, more than could possibly be sold, the price might go down. But that is not the current situation (nor will it be at anytime in the future). Every bit of oil produced can easily be sold, because the demand for it is high and increases with each passing day. If one country doesn't want to buy it, there are plenty more that will (and at whatever price is asked for it).
The scarcity of oil (and the prospect of it grower much scarcer as we approach the point of "peak oil") makes it a commodity that speculators love. They know they can make money no matter how much they have to pay for the oil, because they know they can always sell that oil no matter how high they jack up the price. And it is this action by speculators on Wall Street that drives up the price of oil (and therefore gasoline) -- not the lack of drilling or production (both of which are higher under President Obama than they were during the Bush administration).
Just look at the chart above. It clearly shows that the amount of oil a country produces (or doesn't produce) has little to do with the price of gasoline in that country. The chart shows that the ups and downs of gas prices are mirrored in the United States, Japan, and Canada -- even though the United States imports 63% of its oil (less than under Bush II), Japan imports 100% of its oil, and Canada produces so much more oil than it can use that it actually exports 77% of its oil.
Obviously, the amount of oil production in each country has nothing to do with the price of gas in that country. A far better way to control the price of gasoline is through greater efficiency and less dependence on oil (foreign or domestic). Here is how the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office puts it:
Policies that promoted greater production of oil in the United States would probably not protect U.S. consumers from sudden worldwide increases in oil prices stemming from supply disruptions elsewhere in the world, even if increased production lowered the world price of oil on an ongoing basis. In fact, such lower prices would encourage greater use of oil, thus making consumers more vulnerable to increases in oil prices. Even if the United States increased production and became a net exporter of oil, U.S. consumers would still be exposed to gasoline prices that rose and fell in response to disruptions around the world.
In contrast, policies that reduced the use of oil and its products would create an incentive for consumers to use less oil or make decisions that reduced their exposure to higher oil prices in the future, such as purchasing more fuel-efficient vehicles or living closer to work. Such policies would impose costs on vehicle users (in the case of fuel taxes or fuel-efficiency requirements) or taxpayers (in the case of subsidies for alternative fuels or for new vehicle technologies). But the resulting decisions would make consumers less vulnerable to increases in oil prices.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
More On The GOP Lies About Gas Prices
But these charts, recently displayed on the excellent website Think Progress, so clearly expose the Republican charges as ridiculous lies that I thought the issue should be revisited. The top chart shows the rise and fall of gas prices in the United States compared to European prices (in Great Britain, Germany, and France). Note how the rise and fall of prices in all four countries neatly mirror each other. That's because the gas prices are not determined by the leaders of any of these countries. They are determined by the oil speculators driving up the price of crude oil and the Big Oil companies' greed for more profits.
The middle chart shows the Republican charges that President Obama has suppressed drilling for oil and forced the United States to rely on foreign oil is clearly untrue. It shows that oil production in the U.S. has risen since Obama took office (and is higher than at any time during the Bush administration). It also shows that America's reliance on foreign oil is has gone down since President Obama took office (and is currently lower than at any time during the Bush administration).
The bottom chart shows that the price of gas has little to do with the level of drilling (oil production). While oil production has remained very stable since 1990 (and is currently slightly up), the price of gasoline has been very volatile (rising and falling sharply during that same period). Clearly the price of gasoline is not due to changes in oil production, but to prices of crude oil set by oil speculators and price of the refined product set by the Big Oil companies.
Fortunately, most Americans are able to see through the Republican lies. They know the president is not responsible for the rising gas prices. But many right-wing voters in the Republican Party base are blaming the president -- and it is to these voters the Republican leaders are trying to appeal. Why does the Republican base believe these lies? One pretty good reason is probably because of where they get their "news".
As the chart below shows, the talking heads at Fox News have gone out of their way to spread the lie. In just the last couple of months, they have done at least 144 segments blaming the president for rising gas prices. As usual, this unfair and unbalanced cable channel is far more interested in broadcasting Republican propaganda than in telling the truth.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Public Not Buying Republican Lies About The Rising Gas Prices
Of course the Republicans see this as nothing more than an opportunity to try and blame something else on President Obama. They want the American people to believe President Obama is responsible for the rising gas prices -- in spite of the fact that a sitting president (of either party) has little to do with gas prices.
And those Republicans don't mind stretching the truth all out of shape to blame the president. They are saying that the gas prices are the result of the president cutting back on domestic drilling and and forcing the nation to rely more heavily on foreign oil. The problem with that is simply that it's not true. Domestic drilling has actually increased and currently resides at a higher level than at any time in the Bush administration -- and the U.S. reliance on foreign oil has gone down, to a point lower than at any time during the Bush administration.
Fortunately, the American public is not buying these Republican lies. A recent United Technologies/National Journal Poll shows that only 14% think President Obama is responsible for the rising gas prices. About 38% blamed the rising prices on manipulation by the large oil companies and 28% blamed it on the tensions and troubles in the Middle East. Another 5% blamed congressional Republicans.
Even better is the fact that more Americans think President Obama can solve our energy problems than believe the congressional Republicans can do so. About 44% of the public thinks President Obama can better solve our energy problems, while only 32% said the Republicans in Congress could do it better. About 16% said neither could do it and 1% thought both could do it.
Once again, the American public is smarter than the Republicans give them credit for.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Bernie Blames Wall Street For Gas Prices
The congressional Republicans are very busy trying to blame President Obama for the rising gasoline prices. This is not surprising. They blame the president for everything -- from bad weather to the late arrival of a delivery pizza. The reason is obvious. Their economic and social agenda has been exposed as abject failures, so they are left with nothing but to lie about the president.
But the truth is that President Obama has nothing to do with the rising price of gasoline. That blame must be laid at the feet of Wall Street. Senator Bernie Sanders, who has never been afraid to tell the unvarnished truth, has this to say about rising gas prices in an article for CNN -- and he is right on target:
Gas prices approaching $4 a gallon on average are causing severe economic pain for millions of Americans. Pump prices spiked 5% in the past month alone. Crude oil prices stood at $108 on Friday, up from only double digits at the beginning of the month.
What's the cause? Forget what you may have read about the laws of supply and demand. Oil and gas prices have almost nothing to do with economic fundamentals. According to the Energy Information Administration, the supply of oil and gasoline is higher today than it was three years ago, when the national average for a gallon of gasoline was just $1.90. Meanwhile, the demand for oil in the U.S. is at its lowest level since April of 1997.
Is Big Oil to blame? Sure. Partly. Big oil companies have been gouging consumers for years. They have made almost $1 trillion in profits over the past decade, in part thanks to ridiculous federal subsidies and tax loopholes. I have proposed legislation to end those pointless giveaways to some of the biggest and most profitable corporations in the history of the world.
But there's another reason for the wild rise in gas prices. The culprit is Wall Street. Speculators are raking in profits by gambling in the loosely regulated commodity markets for gas and oil.
A decade ago, speculators controlled only about 30% of the oil futures market. Today, Wall Street speculators control nearly 80% of this market. Many of those people buying and selling oil in the commodity markets will never use a drop of this oil. They are not airlines or trucking companies who will use the fuel in the future. The only function of the speculators in this process is to make as much money as they can, as quickly as they can.
I've seen the raw documents that prove the role of speculators. Commodity Futures Trading Commission records showed that in the summer of 2008, when gas prices spiked to more than $4 a gallon, speculators overwhelmingly controlled the crude oil futures market. The commission, which supposedly represents the interests of the American people, had kept the information hidden from the public for nearly three years. That alone is an outrage. The American people had a right to know exactly who caused gas prices to skyrocket in 2008 and who is causing them to spike today.
Even those inside the oil industry have admitted that speculation is driving up the price of gasoline. The CEO of Exxon-Mobil, Rex Tillerson, told a Senate hearing last year that speculation was driving up the price of a barrel of oil by as much as 40%. The general counsel of Delta Airlines, Ben Hirst, and the experts at Goldman Sachs also said excessive speculation is causing oil prices to spike by up to 40%. Even Saudi Arabia, the largest exporter of oil in the world, told the Bush administration back in 2008, during the last major spike in oil prices, that speculation was responsible for about $40 of a barrel of oil.
Just last week, Commissioner Bart Chilton, one of the only Commodity Futures Trading Commission members looking out for consumers, calculated how much extra drivers are being charged as a result of Wall Street speculation. If you drive a relatively fuel-efficient vehicle such as a Honda Civic, you pay an extra $7.30 every time you fill your tank. For larger vehicles, such as a Ford F150, drivers pay an extra $14.56 for each fill-up. That works out to more than $750 a year going directly from your wallet or pocketbook to the Wall Street speculators.
So as speculators gamble, millions of Americans are paying what amounts to a "speculators tax" to feed Wall Street's greed. People who live in rural areas like my home state of Vermont are hit harder than most because they buy gas to drive long distances to their jobs.
It doesn't have to work this way. The current spike in oil and gasoline prices was avoidable. Under the Wall Street reform act that Congress passed in 2010, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was ordered to impose strict limits on the amount of oil that Wall Street speculators could trade in the energy futures market. The regulators dragged their feet.
Finally, after months and months of law-breaking delays, the commission in October adopted a rule. It was a weak version of a proposal that might have put meaningful limits on the number of futures and swaps contracts a single trader could hold. Even the watered-down regulation adopted by the industry-friendly commission was challenged in court. The Financial Markets Association and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association wanted free rein to continue unregulated gambling in the oil markets.
So today, Wall Street once again is laughing all the way to the bank. Once again, federal regulators should move aggressively to end excessive oil speculation. We must do everything we can to lower gas prices so that they reflect the fundamentals of supply and demand and bring needed relief to the American people.
The time for real action is now.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
GOP Is Lying About Domestic Oil Production
And all Senator Hutchison did was to tell the same old lies the Republicans have been telling us for a while now. They want us to believe that the current high prices for gasoline are President Obama's fault. Here is some of what Hutchison had to say:
Last February, the average cost of a gallon of unleaded was $3.17 per gallon – the highest February price ever. But this February’s average is $3.57 per gallon – and all forecasts are for prices to rocket above $4.00 per gallon during the summer driving season. Families and businesses will be devastated. . .
We can’t slow down global demand for oil and gas, but we can do a lot more here at home to assure that we have the energy we need and to halt skyrocketing costs.
But, President Obama’s policy has resulted in an unprecedented slowdown in new exploration and production of oil and gas.
Offshore drilling permits are being issued at less than half the rate of the previous administration. The average number of leases issued on public lands is less than half that during President Clinton’s term.
Offshore drilling permits are being issued at less than half the rate of the previous administration. The average number of leases issued on public lands is less than half that during President Clinton’s term.
Not only will the slowdown in domestic production drive up fuel prices, it also takes away jobs from tens of thousands of oil industry workers.
The same is true for the Keystone pipeline. It would produce thousands of good-paying construction jobs and tens of thousands more at U.S. refineries and suppliers.
There are so many lies there that it's hard to know where to start. First, nothing President Obama has done has affected the price of gasoline at the pump. That price has risen because of the unbridled greed of both the oil speculators and the Big Oil companies. The speculators have driven up the cost of crude oil and the Big Oil companies have cut back on gasoline production to create an artificial shortage to raise gas prices. And both have done this in spite of already having record profits. Their greed has no limit (and has nothing to do with President Obama).
Second, there has been no cut in domestic production of either oil or natural gas. As my fellow Texas blogger over at Brains and Eggs points out, there is actually an enormous glut in the production of natural gas. So much is currently being produced that it is actually driving down the price that producers can get for it. As for oil production, as the chart above shows, it has been higher in every month under President Obama than any month under George W. Bush.
It is an outrageous lie to say production has been cut. And since there has been no cut or slowdown in the domestic production of oil, that cannot be the reason for the rise in the price of gasoline. There has been a loss of jobs for refinery workers, but this is not due to any drop in production of oil (since there hasn't been a drop). It is due to the Big Oil companies closing refineries to reduce the amount of gasoline available -- so they can claim a shortage and raise prices.
Hutchison has also inflated drastically the job-creation that would occur from building the Keystone XL pipeline. There would be a couple of thousand construction jobs temporarily created to build it, but realistic estimates show the new pipeline would only create a couple of hundred permanent jobs. The Republicans are trying to hide another giveaway to Big Oil as job creation -- another lie.
As for the threat of the oil going to China, it has always been destined to go there. It is only a question of whether China gets gets the crude oil (if the pipeline is not built) or whether they get the refined product (if it is built). None of it will stay in the U.S. in either case (but the Big Oil companies want the pipeline so they can make money by refining the oil for China). Touting the pipeline as a way to reduce the price of gasoline in this country is just another Republican lie.
Why are the Republicans repeatedly telling these obvious lies? Two reasons. First they want to hurt the president, and they think blaming him for gas prices will do that. Second, telling the truth would expose them as being in the pocket of the Big Oil corporations -- which they are.
Here are a few other facts about how the president "is moving us toward energy independence and saving American consumers at the pump":
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Americans Know Who To Blame For Gas Prices
The problem with that argument is that there is currently more drilling going on now than in the Bush administration, but that drilling has not brought us cheaper prices. And it won't. The experts agree that even if drilling was substantially increased in the United States it wouldn't have much of an effect on gas prices -- that's because the U.S. just doesn't produce a truly significant amount of the total world production (and doesn't have the capacity to do so).
But while ordinary Americans are paying more at the pump, there are some entities doing very well off the price of oil and gas these days. They are the oil speculators and the big oil companies. These two groups are making record profits. For instance, Exxon made about $5 million an hour in profit for the first quarter of this year. And Goldman Sachs, a leading commodities speculator, topped all estimates for its profits in the first quarter of this year -- by a large margin.
This brings up the question of who do the ordinary people blame for these ridiculous gas prices? Are they swallowing the Republican lies about how we need to help out Big Oil and Wall Street? Or do they put the blame where it belongs -- on Wall Street and Big Oil?
CNN/Opinion Research conducted a survey of 1,034 adult Americans between April 29th and May 1st (with a 3 point margin of error). Here's who the people think had a "great deal" to do with the increase in gas prices:
Oil Companies...............61%
(some blame.....27%)
Wall Street Speculators...............59%
(some blame.....31%)
Foreign Oil Producers...............42%
(some blame.....39%)
Violence in the Middle East...............40%
(some blame.....40%)
President Obama's Policies...............25%
(some blame.....36%)
Republican Policies...............24%
(some blame.....42%)
Environmental Regulations...............24%
(some blame.....37%)
American Driving Habits...............21%
(some blame.....41%)
It looks like a clear majority of Americans know where the responsibility lies for the high gas prices. And this is brought home even more by the final question of the survey:
Are Oil Companies Making Too Much Profit, A Reasonable Profit, Or Not Enough Profit?
Too Much Profit...............77%
Reasonable Profit...............22%
Not Enough Profit...............1%
Obviously the American people don't think the oil companies need any more tax cuts (or subsidies) since they're already making too much profit. Maybe it's time to make the oil companies pay their fair share in taxes (and get rid of their subsidies). With this kind of numbers it would certainly be politically viable.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Americans Are Fickle
A few months ago, a buyer would have to wait in line to get a hybrid automobile. The automakers couldn't make them as fast as buyers were snapping them up, and some dealers were even charging more than the sticker price and selling all they could get. A dealer was lucky to have a few days worth of hybrids in stock. That was because the price of gasoline was approaching $4 a gallon.Americans were flocking to dump their gas hog SUVs and get a hybrid or a smaller car that would get more mileage. Many found themselves paying far too much at the pump and it was seriously cutting into their lifestyle. But that was a few months ago. Things have changed.
The price of gasoline has dropped back to less that $2 a gallon in most places, and car dealers are finding that no one wants a hybrid anymore. The dealers now have a several months supply on their lots. Where they were charging above sticker price, they are now actually offering substantial discounts to get buyers to purchase a hybrid. And even with discounts, the sales are very slow.
With cheap gas at the pumps again, Americans are once more opting for the huge SUVs. While all auto sales are down because of the economy, an SUV will move off the lot faster than a hybrid these days. Americans are acting like the cheap gas is here to stay.
Of course, it isn't. As soon as they can justify it (and that probably won't be long), the oil companies will begin to creep the price back up. They like those record profits they've been making, and they're not about to give them up. One thing you can count on is the oil companies going for ever increasing profits each year. Another is that someday soon the oil will begin to run out.
Then, once again, people will be trying to dump the gas hogs (and taking a beating on them because no one will want them). Hybrids will again become the hot ticket item. It's just a matter of time.
A smart buyer would take this opportunity to buy a hybrid at a discount right now.
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