Blame Obama for gas prices? Experts say no
How much does the president have to do with the price of gasoline?
A lot, say American voters. According to oil experts and economists, not so much — at least in the short term.
Today’s oil prices are the product of years and decades of exploration, automobile design and ingrained consumer habits combined with political events in places such as Sudan and Libya, anxiety about a possible conflict with Iran, and the energy aftershocks of the last year’s earthquake in Japan.
“This notion that a politician can wave a magic wand and impact the 90-million-barrel-a-day global oil market is preposterous,” said Paul Bledsoe, strategic adviser to the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former Clinton administration official.
The price of gasoline is a hardy perennial in presidential campaigns. Jimmy Carter struggled with high gas prices, which had doubled since the Iranian revolution. And during the 2008 presidential race, Barack Obama said in a campaign speech that “here in Ohio, you’re paying nearly $3.70 a gallon for gas — 2½ times what it cost when President Bush took office.”
On Monday, President Obama defended his energy policy in a flurry of interviews with swing-state TV stations while GOP hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum stumped at an energy summit in Biloxi, Miss. “If we want to create lower prices for energy, we know how to do it — now,” Santorum said.
What can the president control? This year, Republicans are saying Obama has not done enough to promote domestic drilling, but the U.S. drilling-rig count is twice as high now as it was in 2009. With the exception of a spike in 2008, the current rig count is higher than any year since the early 1980s, according to figures compiled by WTRG Economics.
U.S. policy makes a difference, energy experts say, but with a long delay, whether it is a matter of drilling for more oil or increasing the fuel efficiency of the auto fleet, which takes a decade or more to turn over.
Jay Hakes, a former administrator of the Energy Information Administration and now director of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, said, “George W. Bush deserves some credit for signing the 2007 legislation that has helped the current situation from getting worse, but (he) will never get any credit.” and “Obama is on a good path to ease future markets.”