On this week’s second installment of The Editors podcast, Jim reminds us that, contrary to what some news sources may tell you, all is not well when it comes to our fuel supply. “Around August, you could find publications like the New Republic and Politico and Bloomberg all treating the issue of high gas prices like it had been resolved. Keep in mind gas went down to like $3.70 a gallon as the national average — God help you if you’re on the West Coast. That’s lower than the $5 a gallon national average of mid June, but it’s still not a good price.”
He stresses how the Biden administration refuses to look at reality and simply believes that people are feeling better about the economy: “Biden and the Democrats want people to feel better, ergo they conclude that people are feeling better because gas prices must be going down.”
Earlier this week, when news started to break about OPEC+’s looming production-cut decision, Jim was already sounding the alarm bells. “I’m not an expert on world energy markets, but I know if you reduce supply, prices go up, and even though we produce a lot of our own oil, our prices are influenced by the global market, and that can’t be good news for us.”
“The Biden administration was going to put a stop to this,” Jim says, pointing out that CNN was reporting how the administration was calling every foreign leader it could and “using every ounce of influence and arm-twisting they had,” but to no avail. “And then the announcement comes out yesterday that no, they’re not going to cut production by a million barrels a day, they’re cutting production by 2 million barrels a day.”
Now, with the midterms right around the corner, the administration has a major PR problem on its hands. “There’s a guy at GasBuddy who says, ‘Yeah, you’ll probably see prices go up 15–30 cents a gallon,” Jim warns. “Technically the production cut isn’t supposed to go into effect until after November, but you’re gonna feel it sooner.”
What steps should the administration take to fix this? It’s a complicated question, but Jim takes a worthy stab at it, and you can listen to that answer — along with the rest of the show — right here: