Did you notice the big drop in gas prices over the holiday weekend? No? It's because there wasn't a big drop in gas prices.
Last week President Biden announced the release of 50 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, in an attempt to at least make it like they're trying to lower gas prices.
"This is not what the Petroleum Reserve is designed to do" said Texas based petroleum economist Karr Ingham, "We're talking about 50 million dollars, but only about 32 million of those to be released in the near term. Well, 32 million barrels of crude oil is about a day and a half worth of U.S. consumption."
So the reality is, the release of the SPR oil is literally a drop in the barrel, and won't do anything to lower gas prices. In fact, it's actually going to make things worse.
In response to Biden's move here in the U.S., OPEC+ is expected to counter by -not- increasing it's output, which would lead to even higher prices. OPEC has not forgotten the hit that they took when we became energy independent, taking away their massive profits.
"We slapped OPEC around pretty nicely" Ingham told KTRH, "So I just don't think they're of the mind to deal with us right now, and we shouldn't be in the mind of going on our knees begging them to do this."
But that is exactly what Biden has done, after killing our energy independence here in the U.S. just hours after taking office. So what is the solution? It's not a supply problem, it's a policy problem.
"I don't think there's much reason to hope that gasoline prices are gonna be going down anytime soon" Ingham said, "What ought to be terrifying to all consumers is, this seems to be the mindset of this administration."
A mindset that we were all warned about last November. Yet another reminder, that elections have consequences.