The average price of gasoline in the U.S. shot up to a new all-time record ahead of President Joe Biden’s planned speech about “his plan to fight inflation.” [Biden spoke as planned but didn’t address how to lower the high energy prices. —CCD Ed.]
The average pump price nationwide surged to $4.37 per gallon, the highest level since March, while the average price of diesel fuel hit a record $5.56 a gallon, according to AAA data released Tuesday. [bold, links added]
Biden, however, is slated to deliver remarks at 11:30 a.m. to contrast his approach to inflation with “Congressional Republicans’ ultra-MAGA plan,” his public daily calendar showed.
“There’s little, if any, good news about fuel prices heading into summer, and the problem could become worse should we see an above-average hurricane season, which could knock out refinery capacity at a time we badly need it as refined product inventories continue to plummet,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at research firm GasBuddy, said in a statement Tuesday.
In February, Biden said he would “work like the devil” to bring prices down, and in March, he promised gasoline would decline between 10-35 cents per gallon after he announced a historic release of U.S. emergency oil stocks.
The president ordered a 50-million-barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve release in November, a 30-million-barrel release on March 1, and a 180-million-barrel release on March 31 to combat rising gasoline prices.
Energy prices worldwide have skyrocketed in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden has also attempted to lower prices at the pump by temporarily scrapping an environmental regulation prohibiting the sale of gasoline with 15% ethanol.
Experts and meat industry groups slammed the rule change, saying it would drive already-high food costs up.
But the Biden administration has dragged its feet on opening up domestic oil and gas drilling in light of surging consumer prices.
The Department of the Interior has yet to hold a single onshore lease sale and chose not to appeal a federal judge’s ruling that a 2021 offshore lease sale was illegal.
“There is no doubt the White House is hoping that Americans simply become numb to yet another disastrous result of their energy failures, but the pain at the pump is too real and everyone intrinsically understands that Joe Biden is to blame,” Power the Future executive director Daniel Turner said in a statement.
Read rest at Daily Caller
Feel sorry for the locals but here on Gold Coast, Australia we are paying nearly double that amount. In our current up/down price swing each few weeks for our version of US super goes from $9.00+ down to $8.30. Now seems to our permanent price!