The price of gas is down compared to highs earlier in his administration as President Joe Biden backpedals on his ambitious EV goals and quietly allows more oil drilling.
As The Dallas Express detailed, the White House recently announced that it was delaying implementation of its electric vehicle sales goal, which would have required most cars sold in the U.S. to run only on electricity by 2030. The decision to slow the rollout came due to the reaction of both the consumers — who did not embrace the EV platform as advocates from Biden’s green agenda had hoped or expected — and manufacturers, for whom producing a car in quantities that left masses unpurchased on dealer lots was proving too costly to continue.
Now, Biden has discreetly approved so much new oil drilling in the second half of his term that crude oil production is nearly at the peaks achieved under former President Donald Trump, RedState reported.
This is all the more noteworthy when one considers that, in keeping with his campaign pledge when he took office, Biden saw to the steepest drop in oil production in decades, as the graph by the U.S. Energy Information Administration demonstrates. However, as Axios pointed out, the steep decline in production also coincided with the steep drop in demand that accompanied the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Lack of demand has caused car companies that are exclusively EV manufacturers to take massive hits to their valuations. As Red State reported, Rivian’s stock price is down around $10 from a high of $130 after it announced missed sales goals and layoffs. Lucid, another EV maker, has seen its shares lose over 60% in a year’s time following missed sales and production targets.
RedState also noted many of these EV companies are failing even despite the Biden administration’s attempt to prop them up with funds in the Green New Deal.
All the while, gas prices are decreasing nationally, as Biden has touted yet rarely attributed to the increase in oil production on his watch.
But some Democrats would like to see Biden take credit for lower gas prices, even if it means losing some of his green agenda bonafide.
“Gas prices have been high — and the Biden Administration has done a huge amount to lower them, including upping drilling in the U.S.,” said Josh Freed of the moderate Democratic group Third Way, per Axios.
