This past Wednesday, Old Uncle Joe sent off a letter to a few oil companies calling on them to increase their levels of production and to cut profits as the price of fuel continues to skyrocket across the nation.
The letter takes in the wake of the $5 barrier being shattered in regards to the national average price of gasoline per gallon. When Biden took his seat in the Oval Office the price of gas was on average $2.39 per gallon as of last year, significantly contributing to overall inflation, which has reached a record shattering 8.6% for consumers and a staggering 10.8% for businesses as of reports that came out last month.
“There is no question that Vladimir Putin is principally responsible for the intense financial pain the American people and their families are bearing,” Biden stated in his letter that went out to seven gas and oil companies. “But amid a war that has raised gasoline prices more than $1.70 per gallon, historically high refinery profit margins are worsening that pain.”
The profits for the oil companies have seen quite a spike in the past few months. For example, ExxonMobil has reported $5.5 billion in profits for its first quarter of 2022, despite having to eat a $3.4 billion loss because of its departure from Russia due to the war. During the last quarter of 2021, ExxonMobil issued a report that showed an $8.87 billion profit, the largest profit reported in the past seven years.
Despite all this, Katie Tubb, a research fellow for the Heritage Foundation, highlighted that Old Uncle Joe outright failed to talk about “any connection between his administration’s policies and high gasoline prices” throughout the letter.
“It has been the consistent message and persistent policy choice of this administration to pursue an anti-oil regulatory agenda,” stated Tubb. “The only logical conclusion of policies designed to forcibly wean Americans off conventional fuel is higher prices. California is a clear example — similar policies have been on the books for years and it is no surprise that Californians consistently have to pay some of the highest prices in the country for gasoline.”
Various officials with the White House — which includes Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, and President Joe Biden himself– have argued that the record shatteringly high gas prices will forcibly speed up the transition to green energy for the country.
On Wednesday, John Berman, an anchor with CNN, spoke out to Granholm about the letter from the Biden administration, claiming that calling for the oil companies to decrease their profits would be quite difficult when officials within the Biden administration have pursued the decline of fossil fuel production quite regularly. “What we’re saying is today we need that supply increased,” Granholm claimed. “Of course, in five or 10 years, actually in the immediate, we are also pressing on the accelerator, if you will, to move toward clean energy so that we don’t have to be under the thumb of petro-dictators like Putin.”
Seemingly in response to the letter from Biden, ExxonMobil claimed on Wednesday that the Biden admin could effectively stimulate an increase in oil production through “predictable lease sales, as well as streamlined regulatory approval and support for infrastructure such as pipelines.”
In addition to other recommendations, Tubb stated that Biden could just work to “relieve federal regulatory burdens on refineries.” She claimed that the cost for refineries to go along with the Renewable Fuel Standard, through which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandates that a certain amount of biofuel be in gasoline and other energy products, “are at record highs and ultimately get passed down to customers.”
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