Why expensive gasoline is here to stay
“Future presidents and administrations are going to be absolutely bedeviled by high gasoline prices.”
The political pain that high gasoline prices have inflicted on President Joe Biden offers a potential warning to future presidents: It’s likely to happen to you, too.
The reason: The United States’ capacity for refining oil into gasoline is declining, a trend that appears irreversible — for reasons that include climate change. But the nation’s appetite for fuel is holding firm, no matter all the predictions of a future filled with electric cars.
The result is a domestic gasoline supply on a hair trigger, making the nation more vulnerable to fuel panics that would resemble last year’s hacker-driven shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, while feeding inflation and angering voters. Since early 2020, the United States’ fuel-producing capacity has fallen by nearly 1 million barrels per day, or about 5 percent.
“We are going to be operating a shrunken, old and in-need-of-repair refining system a lot harder,” said Bob McNally, head of consulting firm Rapidan Energy and former senior director for international energy on the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration. “Future presidents and administrations are going to be absolutely bedeviled by high gasoline prices.”
Republicans have pummeled the Biden administration for record high gasoline prices, blaming the jump on the president’s focus on climate change and his promises to reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels. But instead of being a modern outlier, the high prices may signal a new norm that future residents of the White House of either party will have to face down.
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