Are gas prices going up? And is it Joe Biden’s fault?

By Louis Jacobson

• Gas prices have gone up under President Joe Biden, continuing an upward trend that began in May 2020.
• The increase is largely due to supply and demand, energy experts say, rather than p**********l policies.
• The c****av***s p******c prompted a big fall in oil demand and gasoline prices, due to declines in driving and air travel. As the economy has slowly rebounded, growing demand has boosted prices at the pump.

There’s been chatter online recently about the recent spike in gasoline prices — and whether President Joe Biden is to blame.

One Facebook post features a photograph of Biden with the caption, "Gas prices going up? How do you like me now?"

Another Facebook post uses a different picture of Biden and a thinly veiled comparison with former President Donald Trump. "Gas prices are soaring," the caption says. "But thank God there were no offensive tweets this week." These posts were f**gged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Concern about rising gasoline prices also reached Fox News, where anchor Bill Hemmer said on March 1, "Gas prices are going higher, and if you don't think that Middle America takes notice of that, think again. We are seeing prices now that we frankly haven't seen in years."

Given the apparent alarm about gas prices, we thought it would be a good time to take a look at where they stand now, how they measure up historically and what’s causing the price movements.

Yes, according to federal data, gas prices have mostly been going up since they bottomed out at $1.87 a gallon in late April 2020. With gas prices reaching $2.72 in late February 2021, that’s an increase of 45% within about 10 months.

Part of that has come on Biden’s watch — prices have risen about 10% since he took office in January 2021. The bulk of the increase came under Trump.

Are gas prices higher than they’ve been "in years"? No. Today’s prices are the highest they’ve been in about 18 months.

Gas prices were similar to or higher than their current level for much of the time between October 2017 and January 2020 — that is, more than two years of Trump’s presidency. Prices were higher than today for all of the time between March 2018 and November 2018, and all of the time between April 2019 and August 2019.

Gasoline prices have a seasonal component: Demand rises during the summer and falls during the colder months, meaning that summer prices tend to be higher. That pattern is exacerbated by laws requiring more expensive gasoline formulations during the summer in order to limit emissions.

Looking just at winter levels, gasoline prices today are roughly in line with where they were at similar points in the calendar in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, when Trump was in office.

Some critics of Biden have said that his cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline early in his presidency would quickly result in higher gasoline prices. But we previously found that, for several reasons, that’s not the case.

For starters, the pipeline wasn’t operating yet. "Revoking it does nothing to today’s balance" of supply and demand, said Mark Finley, a fellow at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University.

Any price impact from the pipeline decision, or from other Biden policies to limit f****l f**ls, would be "years down the road," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, a website that tracks gas prices.

In addition, most of the oil to be carried by the Keystone XL pipeline would have been exported, meaning U.S. customers should see little direct effect on prices.

Experts said it was conceivable that Biden’s policies could eventually affect gas prices. But any impact wouldn’t be detectable in the recent gas price changes.

So why are gas prices rising?
In general, a president has limited control over the weekly and monthly shifts in gasoline prices. On a short-time horizon, gas prices depend mostly on global supply and demand.

On the supply side, the OPEC oil cartel and Russia have made voluntary production cuts, which has the effect of raising prices, Finley said.

In addition, Finley said, U.S. companies are investing less in finding new sources of oil. This is due to a combination of factors, including low oil prices over the past year, which discourage companies from developing new drilling sites, as well as growing pressure from environmentalists to shift away from f****l f**ls.

"Oil companies were hit hard in 2020," De Haan said. "They are not in growth mode. They are in survival mode."

But the biggest factor in the recent price spike has been the slow but steady economic recovery from the c****av***s p******c.

When the p******c began in the first quarter of 2020, the price of oil fell off a cliff. That reflected a plunge in demand: The p******c shut down some major industries for weeks, and sharply curbed the ability of people to travel (in airplanes) and commute to jobs (in cars). Crude oil prices closely track the price at the pump.

What the p******c took away, however, the recovery has begun to put back.

"The c****av***s numbers in every state are moving in the right direction," De Haan said. "We’re now seeing the highest demand since the p******c started. And now that demand is up, and oil production is not, that has pushed oil prices up."

It’s hard to say whether Biden deserves credit for the improving c****av***s outlook and economy. But De Haan said you could actually make the opposite argument than the Facebook posts do — that rising gas prices are a positive sign of growing consumer confidence.

"You could argue that the economic outlook has improved under Biden," he said, "providing a dose of optimism among consumers" that has led to rising prices at the pump.

Are gas prices going up? And is it Joe Biden’s fault?

By Louis Jacobson

• Gas prices have gone up under President Joe Biden, continuing an upward trend that began in May 2020.
• The increase is largely due to supply and demand, energy experts say, rather than p**********l policies.
• The c****av***s p******c prompted a big fall in oil demand and gasoline prices, due to declines in driving and air travel. As the economy has slowly rebounded, growing demand has boosted prices at the pump.

There’s been chatter online recently about the recent spike in gasoline prices — and whether President Joe Biden is to blame.

One Facebook post features a photograph of Biden with the caption, "Gas prices going up? How do you like me now?"

Another Facebook post uses a different picture of Biden and a thinly veiled comparison with former President Donald Trump. "Gas prices are soaring," the caption says. "But thank God there were no offensive tweets this week." These posts were f**gged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Concern about rising gasoline prices also reached Fox News, where anchor Bill Hemmer said on March 1, "Gas prices are going higher, and if you don't think that Middle America takes notice of that, think again. We are seeing prices now that we frankly haven't seen in years."

Given the apparent alarm about gas prices, we thought it would be a good time to take a look at where they stand now, how they measure up historically and what’s causing the price movements.

Yes, according to federal data, gas prices have mostly been going up since they bottomed out at $1.87 a gallon in late April 2020. With gas prices reaching $2.72 in late February 2021, that’s an increase of 45% within about 10 months.

Part of that has come on Biden’s watch — prices have risen about 10% since he took office in January 2021. The bulk of the increase came under Trump.

Are gas prices higher than they’ve been "in years"? No. Today’s prices are the highest they’ve been in about 18 months.

Gas prices were similar to or higher than their current level for much of the time between October 2017 and January 2020 — that is, more than two years of Trump’s presidency. Prices were higher than today for all of the time between March 2018 and November 2018, and all of the time between April 2019 and August 2019.

Gasoline prices have a seasonal component: Demand rises during the summer and falls during the colder months, meaning that summer prices tend to be higher. That pattern is exacerbated by laws requiring more expensive gasoline formulations during the summer in order to limit emissions.

Looking just at winter levels, gasoline prices today are roughly in line with where they were at similar points in the calendar in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, when Trump was in office.

Some critics of Biden have said that his cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline early in his presidency would quickly result in higher gasoline prices. But we previously found that, for several reasons, that’s not the case.

For starters, the pipeline wasn’t operating yet. "Revoking it does nothing to today’s balance" of supply and demand, said Mark Finley, a fellow at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University.

Any price impact from the pipeline decision, or from other Biden policies to limit f****l f**ls, would be "years down the road," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, a website that tracks gas prices.

In addition, most of the oil to be carried by the Keystone XL pipeline would have been exported, meaning U.S. customers should see little direct effect on prices.

Experts said it was conceivable that Biden’s policies could eventually affect gas prices. But any impact wouldn’t be detectable in the recent gas price changes.

So why are gas prices rising?
In general, a president has limited control over the weekly and monthly shifts in gasoline prices. On a short-time horizon, gas prices depend mostly on global supply and demand.

On the supply side, the OPEC oil cartel and Russia have made voluntary production cuts, which has the effect of raising prices, Finley said.

In addition, Finley said, U.S. companies are investing less in finding new sources of oil. This is due to a combination of factors, including low oil prices over the past year, which discourage companies from developing new drilling sites, as well as growing pressure from environmentalists to shift away from f****l f**ls.

"Oil companies were hit hard in 2020," De Haan said. "They are not in growth mode. They are in survival mode."

But the biggest factor in the recent price spike has been the slow but steady economic recovery from the c****av***s p******c.

When the p******c began in the first quarter of 2020, the price of oil fell off a cliff. That reflected a plunge in demand: The p******c shut down some major industries for weeks, and sharply curbed the ability of people to travel (in airplanes) and commute to jobs (in cars). Crude oil prices closely track the price at the pump.

What the p******c took away, however, the recovery has begun to put back.

"The c****av***s numbers in every state are moving in the right direction," De Haan said. "We’re now seeing the highest demand since the p******c started. And now that demand is up, and oil production is not, that has pushed oil prices up."

It’s hard to say whether Biden deserves credit for the improving c****av***s outlook and economy. But De Haan said you could actually make the opposite argument than the Facebook posts do — that rising gas prices are a positive sign of growing consumer confidence.

"You could argue that the economic outlook has improved under Biden," he said, "providing a dose of optimism among consumers" that has led to rising prices at the pump.

Are gas prices going up? And is it Joe Biden’s fault?

By Louis Jacobson

• Gas prices have gone up under President Joe Biden, continuing an upward trend that began in May 2020.
• The increase is largely due to supply and demand, energy experts say, rather than p**********l policies.
• The c****av***s p******c prompted a big fall in oil demand and gasoline prices, due to declines in driving and air travel. As the economy has slowly rebounded, growing demand has boosted prices at the pump.

There’s been chatter online recently about the recent spike in gasoline prices — and whether President Joe Biden is to blame.

One Facebook post features a photograph of Biden with the caption, "Gas prices going up? How do you like me now?"

Another Facebook post uses a different picture of Biden and a thinly veiled comparison with former President Donald Trump. "Gas prices are soaring," the caption says. "But thank God there were no offensive tweets this week." These posts were f**gged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Concern about rising gasoline prices also reached Fox News, where anchor Bill Hemmer said on March 1, "Gas prices are going higher, and if you don't think that Middle America takes notice of that, think again. We are seeing prices now that we frankly haven't seen in years."

Given the apparent alarm about gas prices, we thought it would be a good time to take a look at where they stand now, how they measure up historically and what’s causing the price movements.

Yes, according to federal data, gas prices have mostly been going up since they bottomed out at $1.87 a gallon in late April 2020. With gas prices reaching $2.72 in late February 2021, that’s an increase of 45% within about 10 months.

Part of that has come on Biden’s watch — prices have risen about 10% since he took office in January 2021. The bulk of the increase came under Trump.

Are gas prices higher than they’ve been "in years"? No. Today’s prices are the highest they’ve been in about 18 months.

Gas prices were similar to or higher than their current level for much of the time between October 2017 and January 2020 — that is, more than two years of Trump’s presidency. Prices were higher than today for all of the time between March 2018 and November 2018, and all of the time between April 2019 and August 2019.

Gasoline prices have a seasonal component: Demand rises during the summer and falls during the colder months, meaning that summer prices tend to be higher. That pattern is exacerbated by laws requiring more expensive gasoline formulations during the summer in order to limit emissions.

Looking just at winter levels, gasoline prices today are roughly in line with where they were at similar points in the calendar in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, when Trump was in office.

Some critics of Biden have said that his cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline early in his presidency would quickly result in higher gasoline prices. But we previously found that, for several reasons, that’s not the case.

For starters, the pipeline wasn’t operating yet. "Revoking it does nothing to today’s balance" of supply and demand, said Mark Finley, a fellow at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University.

Any price impact from the pipeline decision, or from other Biden policies to limit f****l f**ls, would be "years down the road," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, a website that tracks gas prices.

In addition, most of the oil to be carried by the Keystone XL pipeline would have been exported, meaning U.S. customers should see little direct effect on prices.

Experts said it was conceivable that Biden’s policies could eventually affect gas prices. But any impact wouldn’t be detectable in the recent gas price changes.

So why are gas prices rising?
In general, a president has limited control over the weekly and monthly shifts in gasoline prices. On a short-time horizon, gas prices depend mostly on global supply and demand.

On the supply side, the OPEC oil cartel and Russia have made voluntary production cuts, which has the effect of raising prices, Finley said.

In addition, Finley said, U.S. companies are investing less in finding new sources of oil. This is due to a combination of factors, including low oil prices over the past year, which discourage companies from developing new drilling sites, as well as growing pressure from environmentalists to shift away from f****l f**ls.

"Oil companies were hit hard in 2020," De Haan said. "They are not in growth mode. They are in survival mode."

But the biggest factor in the recent price spike has been the slow but steady economic recovery from the c****av***s p******c.

When the p******c began in the first quarter of 2020, the price of oil fell off a cliff. That reflected a plunge in demand: The p******c shut down some major industries for weeks, and sharply curbed the ability of people to travel (in airplanes) and commute to jobs (in cars). Crude oil prices closely track the price at the pump.

What the p******c took away, however, the recovery has begun to put back.

"The c****av***s numbers in every state are moving in the right direction," De Haan said. "We’re now seeing the highest demand since the p******c started. And now that demand is up, and oil production is not, that has pushed oil prices up."

It’s hard to say whether Biden deserves credit for the improving c****av***s outlook and economy. But De Haan said you could actually make the opposite argument than the Facebook posts do — that rising gas prices are a positive sign of growing consumer confidence.

"You could argue that the economic outlook has improved under Biden," he said, "providing a dose of optimism among consumers" that has led to rising prices at the pump.

Sir, you seemed to have missed or ignored the following from the above article...

"Some critics of Biden have said that his cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline early in his presidency would quickly result in higher gasoline prices. But we previously found that, for several reasons, that’s not the case.

For starters, the pipeline wasn’t operating yet. 'Revoking it does nothing to today’s balance' of supply and demand, said Mark Finley, a fellow at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University."

True 'nuf, Blade. But, if you don't realize it by now, you should: "Most people don't really want the t***h. They just want or need constant reassurance that what they believe is the t***h."

If it isn't what they want to believe, it can't be true.

BTW, season the article with all the salt you need. Even as I consider you one of the premiere contributors to OPP, I find myself taking a grain or two of salt upon/after reading some of your postings. C'est la vie.

Amazing, L-T. In spite of your purported omniscience, you remain bitter, dazed and confused.

The following came from the article above....

"The increase is largely due to supply and demand, energy experts say, rather than p**********l policies". This insinuates the policies of any/all president.

"In general, a president has limited control over the weekly and monthly shifts in gasoline prices. On a short-time horizon, gas prices depend mostly on global supply and demand".

In most of the world, the price is much higher than here. I suspect the price of oil is lower here because the U.S. gov't has given money to the oil industry: in other words, we taxpayers have been made to subsidize the oil industry; and this subsidizing in the U.S. (welfare for huge corporations who can't make it on their own) may have artificially lowered the price of gasoline that we pay at the pump.

The total process, of getting oil and turning it into gasoline and burning it as fuel, has a much higher real cost than the $4-at-the-pump price suggests. The biggest cost about it is pollution and all the effects that pollution from oil generates. Some other cost is spoiling the land from digging it up or fracking in it. All these bad effects aren't always measured in dollars, but they're real costs that somebody eventually has to pay, either in dollars, or in health (affected by pollution), or in loss of resources such as natural habitats. If our children or grandchildren don't have access to the kind of national parks we had, that's a cost: something will have been lost: maybe not their dollars, but their access to forests etc. If their air is more toxic than what we had, something's been lost. These are some of the real costs that we are burdened with as a result of favoring the oil industry (rather than favoring more ecological or sustainable ways of generating energy, or even using less energy).

I may have mentioned this before, but: a friend once told me that electric cars will never catch on, because electric power won't travel as well as gasoline power -- that is, he thought that one needs a gasoline engine to get a reasonable amount of range: that only a petroleum-product-powered car would be able to go, say, a hundred miles or more. My friend is being proven more and more wrong with every passing year now.

In my family we get good gas mileage. Also, we don't drive as much as we used to. As for me, my car's a Volt, which is a plug-in hybrid that can go 50 miles without using any gasoline. The trend toward the future is more electric cars and fewer people needing gasoline. The electricity that people use can be generated in lots of ways, some more ecological than others. In the future (if civilization doesn't collapse first), more of our power will be generated in more ecological ways (or maybe that will also happen even if civilization does collapse). Just like electric cars are developing, though my friend said they wouldn't, so also are ecological energy industries developing, and will get better and better.

Gasoline, pollution, the petroleum industry, and plastic are all related topics (because most plastic's some kind petroleum product). I'm learning to recycle household waste like plastic. It takes a while to learn it in this town; we don't even have recycle bins here; but eventually I found a place that I can take plastic to and they recycle it. My part of the process has become easier with practice.

We consumers _ought_ to have to pay a price, up front, for most kinds of gratuitous pollution that we do. The corporations that generate plastic ought to pay for recycling it and pay for any pollution it causes. The corporations that generate pollution from oil (in short, the whole oil industry) ought to be paying up front for all the pollution they're causing; and _that_ will partly be passed on to other people as a higher price of gasoline at the pump. Good; so be it; I'd much rather that I and my descendants have clean air, clean water, less cancer, less asthma and sinusitis from polluted air, and safe food to eat, than that I pay a low price per gallon of gasoline. A high price of gasoline is just a natural indicator that we should be using less of it!

In most of the world, the price is much higher than here. I suspect the price of oil is lower here because the U.S. gov't has given money to the oil industry: in other words, we taxpayers have been made to subsidize the oil industry; and this subsidizing in the U.S. (welfare for huge corporations who can't make it on their own) may have artificially lowered the price of gasoline that we pay at the pump.

The total process, of getting oil and turning it into gasoline and burning it as fuel, has a much higher real cost than the $4-at-the-pump price suggests. The biggest cost about it is pollution and all the effects that pollution from oil generates. Some other cost is spoiling the land from digging it up or fracking in it. All these bad effects aren't always measured in dollars, but they're real costs that somebody eventually has to pay, either in dollars, or in health (affected by pollution), or in loss of resources such as natural habitats. If our children or grandchildren don't have access to the kind of national parks we had, that's a cost: something will have been lost: maybe not their dollars, but their access to forests etc. If their air is more toxic than what we had, something's been lost. These are some of the real costs that we are burdened with as a result of favoring the oil industry (rather than favoring more ecological or sustainable ways of generating energy, or even using less energy).

I may have mentioned this before, but: a friend once told me that electric cars will never catch on, because electric power won't travel as well as gasoline power -- that is, he thought that one needs a gasoline engine to get a reasonable amount of range: that only a petroleum-product-powered car would be able to go, say, a hundred miles or more. My friend is being proven more and more wrong with every passing year now.

In my family we get good gas mileage. Also, we don't drive as much as we used to. As for me, my car's a Volt, which is a plug-in hybrid that can go 50 miles without using any gasoline. The trend toward the future is more electric cars and fewer people needing gasoline. The electricity that people use can be generated in lots of ways, some more ecological than others. In the future (if civilization doesn't collapse first), more of our power will be generated in more ecological ways (or maybe that will also happen even if civilization does collapse). Just like electric cars are developing, though my friend said they wouldn't, so also are ecological energy industries developing, and will get better and better.

Gasoline, pollution, the petroleum industry, and plastic are all related topics (because most plastic's some kind petroleum product). I'm learning to recycle household waste like plastic. It takes a while to learn it in this town; we don't even have recycle bins here; but eventually I found a place that I can take plastic to and they recycle it. My part of the process has become easier with practice.

We consumers _ought_ to have to pay a price, up front, for most kinds of gratuitous pollution that we do. The corporations that generate plastic ought to pay for recycling it and pay for any pollution it causes. The corporations that generate pollution from oil (in short, the whole oil industry) ought to be paying up front for all the pollution they're causing; and _that_ will partly be passed on to other people as a higher price of gasoline at the pump. Good; so be it; I'd much rather that I and my descendants have clean air, clean water, less cancer, less asthma and sinusitis from polluted air, and safe food to eat, than that I pay a low price per gallon of gasoline. A high price of gasoline is just a natural indicator that we should be using less of it!