It’s no secret that gas prices have been a politically salient issue this election year, and by all appearances, Republicans are likely to fare well because many consumers aren’t pleased with what they’re paying at the pump. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, but these are the circumstances we find ourselves in.
But as Election Day nears, there’s a striking disconnect between GOP rhetoric on the subject and reality.
The message many voters have heard from Republicans for months is that the Biden administration has curtailed U.S. oil and gas production, forcing prices higher. Some prominent GOP voices — including Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and the Republican National Committee — have argued that the White House has deliberately forced prices higher as part of some kind of nefarious plot that only the right understands.
The problem, of course, is that those who’ve argued that the Democratic president has slowed energy production are completely wrong. As we discussed several months ago, the administration has done largely the opposite. As a Vox report explained in March, “Biden has done nothing to halt oil leasing. In fact, the Biden administration has outpaced Trump in issuing drilling permits on public lands and water in its first year, according to federal data analyzed by the Center for Biological Diversity.”
Politico had a related report yesterday.
President Joe Biden’s regulators have approved new oil and gas wells at a far faster pace than the Trump administration did during its first 21 months in office — a fact that undermines Republican election-year arguments about the causes of this year’s high gasoline prices. The U.S. has also produced more crude oil since Biden’s inauguration than it had done during the equivalent period of former President Donald Trump’s presidency, a POLITICO review of federal energy data shows.
It’s worth emphasizing that the point of the Politico piece was to emphasize the tensions that exist largely on the left: Biden’s energy policy has long been predicated on the idea of lessening U.S. dependence on fossil fuels — a priority shared by much of his party’s progressive base — and yet he’s taking steps to boost oil production anyway.
And while we can certainly have a robust conversation about whether this is good or bad, Republicans don’t want to have that conversation: The GOP instead wants to pretend that these developments simply haven’t happened. Politico’s report added that under Biden, the United States “is still the world’s top oil and natural gas producer, as it had been under Trump, as well as the largest exporter of natural gas, gasoline and other transportation fuels.” Republicans have spent millions telling voters the opposite, despite reality, making a constructive public conversation about energy policy awfully difficult. Meanwhile, the latest polling from CBS News asked respondents what they expect Republicans to do if they do well in the midterms. The report explained, “A big majority of voters think Republicans would increase U.S. energy production if they win, and they are winning these voters.” Whether voters know it or not, Biden has already done that.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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