The USA average gasoline price from June 2020 to June 2022 is charted below:
For the last 6 months of 2020, the price of gasoline averaged about $2.20/gal. The outcome of the 2020 election put the Democrats solidly in control of US energy policy. The Democrats were really going to be able to pursue their long-stated goal of seeking the death of the American oil and gas industry, since they controlled the Presidency and both houses of the Congress. The oil and gas industry had no choice but to respond with drastic investment caution as the Democrats canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline once again, canceled oil and gas leases, and put huge tracts of US land with great deposits of oil and gas off limits for development. Over time, it also became clear that the government was canceling many other environmental permits actually needed to produce oil from existing oil leases and that it was generally preventing the building of new oil and gas pipelines.
Keeping oil and gas production in the US at a constant level requires a constant investment of effort and money. This is even more true now that so much of our production is due to fracking. The inevitable result of the Democrat anti-carbon fuel policies was that the US oil and gas industry was not willing to invest enough money to increase production enough to keep gasoline prices low. The Democrats made it too hard to do so and any investment the oil and gas industry made was subject to later annihilation as the Democrats pursued their stated goal to kill the oil and gas industry.
The Democrats and the Federal Reserve also proceeded to flood the economy with new money. The Treasury Department money presses printed money day and night, without pause. The employees manning the presses and verifying the paper and ink ingredients were virtually flogged to print record amounts of new money. Congress passed major spending bills and the Federal Reserve pursued its own money supply expansion policies. The result was that the measure of the money supply called M2 increased rapidly from June 2021 to January 2022. This generated a general price increase in almost all goods and services. Oil and gas products could not be an exception.
Biden and the Democrats keep claiming these factors are not the cause of the gas price increases. They say they were caused by increased demand as the economy recovered from Covid-19 and by Putin. The economy was recovering, but the oil and gas industry had been readily able to supply an economy of equal size prior to the Covid-19 contraction. Despite the Democrats, the oil and gas industry has steadily increased the number of active oil rigs since the minimum in the July to September 2020 period. But, the number presently employed is still not as many as were employed prior to the Covid-19 downturn. Democrat policies make banks and other lenders unwilling to lend money to the oil and gas industry and their own investors have reason to exercise extra caution in pursuing only the most lucrative projects with supporting infrastructure already in place.
As for Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that effect is responsible for the spike on the gas price curve, but note that there appears to be a rapid price increase before and after that spike that seems to be based at least mostly on other factors in play prior to the Russian invasion.
The increase in gasoline and diesel fuel prices are deleterious for our entire economy. Add these to the high price increases in almost all goods and services, and many Americans are struggling to get by. Americans with low incomes are hurting the most. The Democrats say they care, but they do not care the least little bit. They are determined to pursue their expensive oil and gas price policies with an aim to murder the oil and gas industry, no matter how many Americans are hurt.
After all, they claim it is because carbon dioxide emissions by man are an existential threat to the planet. I have demolished that argument many times on this blog. Others have also shown the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis to have failed in its scientific predictions. On the basis of the scientific method, this Democrat argument holds no water, but they cling to it as though it is a religion. It is a truth that people have chosen to annihilate millions of others due to their differing religions or lack thereof, so it is hardly surprising that Democrats of the catastrophic man-made global warming religion are very willing to do great harm to the standard of living of many, many of their fellow countrymen and of many in the developing world who desperately need the advantages of affordable oil and gas.
Those who hunger for ever-increasing power are willing to use that power brutally. The Democrats are demonstrating that general truism by driving up the cost of our goods and services while leaving our incomes behind the curve. This is just one more instance showing the foolishness of those many Americans deceived into believing the Democrats were the "kind" party. Constant expressions of caring about others are a sign that someone is trying very hard to pull the wool over the eyes of the naïve. This has been the one thing that Democrats have been very accomplished at doing. Dealing with reality is another thing entirely.
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