President Joe Biden suggested on Wednesday that the high cost of gasoline is here to stay for quite some time, as he lamented to reporters that it is “not likely” he can simply “click a switch” to bring down prices.
Biden made his remarks regarding gasoline from the White House-crafted fake Oval Office that he uses instead of the actual Oval Office — which he reportedly uses so that he can stay on a script from a teleprompter — immediately after discussing the baby formula shortage in the country.
“There’s a lot going on right now, but the idea we’re gonna be able to, you know, click a switch, bring down the cost of gasoline is not likely in the near term, nor is it with regard to food,” Biden said.
BIDEN: “The idea we’re gonna be able to, you know, click a switch, bring down the cost of gasoline is not likely in the near term.” pic.twitter.com/lXNtUZzzbs
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 1, 2022
On Monday, The Daily Wire reported that gas prices reached a national average of $4.62 per gallon, “marking the highest Memorial Day gas prices in more than a decade.”
“Americans are thus paying nearly 11% more than the $4.18 prices that prevailed a month ago — as well as 53% higher than the $3.03 prices from Memorial Day last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration,” The Daily Wire added.
In response to Biden’s claims, The Heritage Foundation’s John Cooper rebutted, “This is a lie. If Biden said we were going to start producing more oil and gas in the U.S., the price of oil would go down *tomorrow.* But he won’t, because he’s doing this all on purpose.”
As The Daily Wire has previously reported, high-energy costs have been a hallmark of this administration, and experts like The Heritage Foundation’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies Senior Policy Analyst Katie Tubb argue that Biden has done worse than nothing on the matter. He has actively discouraged investment in the industry and enacted policies that drive up costs, she explained last November.
“Rather than relieve regulatory roadblocks to affordable energy—like lifting the Jones Act and the ethanol mandate—President Biden has aggressively deployed regulators across the executive branch to make it more difficult to explore for and produce oil, construct and operate pipelines, access financing and private sector investment, and use gasoline in cars and trucks,” Tubbs wrote in November 2021.
“President Biden made a political example out of the Keystone XL pipeline and has so far failed to show leadership, as his counterpart in Canada has done, to defend existing pipeline infrastructure serving American families across the country. He has used his bully pulpit from day one to vilify the oil industry rather than implement simple and effective policy solutions,” she added at the time. “Further, President Biden continues to boost the so-called ‘Build Back Better’ bill, which would increase oil prices by adding new fees and regulations on oil producers and cutting access to oil off American coasts.”
Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) has also recently said that energy companies need “signals from the administration that they will support oil and gas development and production” in order to help lower costs by providing confidence in the future of the market. As The Daily Wire explained, “gas prices are a futures market, meaning their cost is partially dependent on signs from the government that oil production will be allowed.”
“Here’s the situation,” Biden said last Tuesday when asked directly about the “enormously high” cost of gas. “And when it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over.”