As Memorial Day weekend arrives, the summer driving season is poised to get underway. In general, American consumers are finding relatively affordable prices at the pump, and as the Associated Press reported, President Joe Biden hopes to take steps to keep it that way.
The Biden administration said Tuesday it is releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from a Northeast reserve established after Superstorm Sandy in a bid to lower prices at the pump this summer. The sale, from storage sites in New Jersey and Maine, will be allocated in increments of 100,000 barrels at a time. The approach will create a competitive bidding process that ensures gasoline can flow into local retailers ahead of the July 4 holiday and sold at competitive prices, the Energy Department said.
“This builds on other actions by President Biden to lower gas and energy costs — including historic releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the largest-ever investment in clean energy,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added in a statement.
Evidently, Republicans are not pleased.
Donald Trump published an item to his social media platform describing the Democratic administration’s policy as “DISGUSTING!” Around the same time, House Speaker Mike Johnson condemned the move as “disgraceful.” A report in the conservative Washington Times added:
Republicans slammed President Biden’s decision to sell off 1 million barrels of gasoline over the coming weeks from a strategic reserve as a “desperate” attempt to cover for his environmental policies, which they say caused soaring prices at the pump.
My personal favorite was a written statement from Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who argued, “Releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from the Northeast reserve is a desperate move by Joe Biden to lower prices that HE raised.”
At this point, it’s worth pausing to note a couple of relevant points the White House’s GOP critics may not fully appreciate.
First, the idea that Biden raised gas prices is plainly silly. As we recently discussed, the United States under Biden is not only producing more energy than any other country, the United States under Biden is producing more energy than at any time in history.
What’s more, it’s not just oil. U.S. production of natural gas, solar, wind generation, and battery storage have all reached record highs under Biden.
To be sure, whether one sees these developments as good news or bad news is a matter of perspective. There is, of course, a planetary climate crisis underway, creating an urgent need to cut carbon emissions. To prevent intensifying catastrophes, we’ll need to burn fewer fossil fuels, not more.
That conversation, however, is muddled to a ridiculous degree, not only by those who reject and deny climate science, but also by Republicans who keep telling the public that the Biden administration is dramatically scaling back production, even as production reaches record highs. Politico published a report last summer with a memorable headline: “The U.S. is pumping oil faster than ever. Republicans don’t care.” In context, it wasn’t that Republicans were indifferent to increased energy production; it’s that Republicans apparently didn’t care that their rhetoric was demonstrably false. But even if we put this aside, let’s also note how odd it is to see leading GOP voices complain bitterly about Biden trying to help consumers by keeping prices down. We can, to be sure, discuss whether the administration’s move will have a dramatic impact on prices at the pump — the effects are likely to be modest — but the obvious goal is to increase supply and offer drivers some relief. For Republicans to see this as “disgusting” and “disgraceful” is bizarre. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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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