{"id":34539,"date":"2018-05-25T07:54:58","date_gmt":"2018-05-25T12:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=34539"},"modified":"2018-05-25T07:54:58","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T12:54:58","slug":"whos-to-blame-for-high-gasoline-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=34539","title":{"rendered":"Who\u2019s To Blame For High Gasoline Prices?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Energy-General\/Whos-To-Blame-For-High-Gasoline-Prices.html\">Who\u2019s To Blame For High Gasoline Prices?<\/a><\/h3>\n<picture><source srcset=\"https:\/\/d32r1sh890xpii.cloudfront.net\/article\/420x175\/244bc96323a461348e5421f442f205f5.jpg\" media=\"(max-width: 480px)\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"singleArticle__articleImage\" title=\"Fuel Pump\" src=\"https:\/\/d32r1sh890xpii.cloudfront.net\/article\/718x300\/244bc96323a461348e5421f442f205f5.jpg\" alt=\"Fuel Pump\" \/><\/picture>\n<div id=\"article-content\" class=\"wysiwyg clear\">\n<p>As retail gasoline prices rise to $3 per gallon across the United States, gas prices are a hot political topic in Washington once again, with the Democrats hoping to slam Donald Trump for causing pain at the pump and Republicans trying to shift blame back on their opponents.<\/p>\n<p>High gasoline prices have long presented dangers for politicians, particularly for those in power when prices rise. The debates often make for great political theater, although they typically fall far short on the substance.<\/p>\n<p>The spike in crude oil prices in 2008, during the heat of the presidential election, popularized the \u201cdrill, baby, drill\u201d slogan and also led to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-politics-gastax-economists\/clinton-mccain-gas-tax-holiday-slammed-as-bad-idea-idUSN3038243520080430\">calls<\/a> from both Senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton for a \u201cgas tax holiday\u201d \u2013 a temporary suspension in federal gas taxes.<\/p>\n<p>During the Arab Spring in 2011, and the outage of oil supply in Libya, prices spiked again. Republicans blamed former President Obama for high prices, charging that his refusal to allow more drilling caused prices to rise. His release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/itsallpolitics\/2011\/06\/23\/137365063\/obama-decision-to-tap-oil-reserve-gives-new-fuel-to-partisan-energy-debate\">came under criticism<\/a>. Years later, when prices crashed because of the oil market downturn, Obama <a href=\"https:\/\/grist.org\/briefly\/obama-brags-about-low-gas-prices-but-he-shouldnt\/\">took credit<\/a> for low gasoline prices.<\/p>\n<p>We haven\u2019t heard much about gas prices since 2014, but with WTI over $70 and gasoline back to $3 per gallon, suddenly it is a hot topic again.<\/p>\n<p>The Democrats held a press conference on Wednesday in front of an ExxonMobil gas station in Washington to blast the Trump administration for high gasoline prices. \u201cIt\u2019s time for this president to stand up to OPEC,\u201d Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-oil-campaign\/senate-democrats-want-trump-to-prod-opec-to-lower-oil-prices-idUSKCN1IO300\">said<\/a>. That was accompanied by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.energy.senate.gov\/public\/index.cfm?a=files.serve&amp;File_id=FF3983A8-97A3-495B-A95B-1EAE845AFA89\">letter<\/a> by several top Democratic Senators asking Trump to \u201cpressure\u201d OPEC to \u201cincrease world oil supplies in order to lower prices at the pump during the upcoming summer driving season.\u201d They noted that the run up in gas prices could cancel out the benefits of the tax cuts from last year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who\u2019s To Blame For High Gasoline Prices? As retail gasoline prices rise to $3 per gallon across the United States, gas prices are a hot political topic in Washington once again, with the Democrats hoping to slam Donald Trump for causing pain at the pump and Republicans trying to shift blame back on their opponents. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[205,7844,1423,6010,592,5332,678,827],"class_list":["post-34539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","tag-democrats","tag-donald-trump","tag-gasoline-price","tag-nick-cunningham","tag-oil-price","tag-oilprice-com","tag-republicans","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34540,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34539\/revisions\/34540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}