Biden pressures oil companies on gas prices

President Joe Biden on Wednesday urged American oil companies to increase production and refining to bring down the price of gas for consumers.

“You should be using these record-breaking profits to increase production and refining,” Biden said during a speech at the White House. “Invest in America for the American people. Bring down the price you charge at the pump to reflect what you pay for the product.”

Biden made the plea to the oil industry while also announcing the planned release of 15 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in December, a move aimed at bringing gas prices down. The president also outlined a plan to refill the reserve once oil prices drop to $70 a barrel, which he emphasized would allow oil companies to ramp up production now with the confidence that they’d “be able to sell their oil to us at that price in the future.”

With the price of a barrel of oil having fallen about 30 percent since the spring, Biden said the price of gas at the pump should reflect that drop. The average gas price soared to a high of about $5 over the summer and has since dropped closer to $3 a gallon, but prices started to increase again last month amid refinery outages in California and Ohio.

“My message to oil companies is this: You’re sitting on record profits. And we’re giving you more certainty so you can act now to increase oil production now,” Biden said.

Despite calling for an increase in oil and gas production, the president maintained that these plans are consistent with his administration’s promise to transition to clean energy. Biden said that by focusing on both oil and gas production and the clean energy transition, “we can lower energy costs” for consumers and “enhance our national security at a very difficult moment.”

He also asked Congress to pass an energy permitting bill to accelerate the development of clean energy. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) proposed such a bill last month as part of funding legislation, but getting it passed proved difficult as it faced stiff opposition from both parties.

“Right now the process of getting clean energy projects approved is too cumbersome and too time-consuming,” Biden said. “So I’m asking the Congress, pass a permitting bill to speed up the approval of all kinds of energy production, from wind, to solar, to clean hydrogen. Because we need to get this moving now.”

Biden’s pressure on both oil companies and Congress in his speech on Wednesday comes less than three weeks before the midterm elections, when gas prices and inflation are sure to weigh on voters’ minds. Asked by a reporter following the speech what his response was to Republicans saying he’s releasing the oil from the reserve only to help Democrats in the midterms, Biden responded: “Where have they been the last four months?”

The president also told reporters that the move was not politically motivated.

“It’s motivated to make sure that I continue to push on what I’ve been pushing on, and that is making sure there’s enough that’s being pumped by the companies, so that we have the ability to be able to produce enough oil that we need here at home, and at the same time, keep moving in the direction of providing for alternative energy,” Biden said.