As has become typical during most Democrat administrations in the modern era, gas prices have exploded during Joe Biden’s tenure. The national average is hovering around $4.10 a gallon, nearly double what it cost the day Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election.
And while the White House would love to claim the rise is solely due to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the precipitous rise began over a year before that. That’s largely due to Biden’s anti-energy policies. While campaigning for president, he routinely promised to end the use of fossil fuels. As president, he’s shut down pipelines and frozen federal leases. The United States, after becoming energy independent under Donald Trump, is once again reliant on foreign tyrants.
With that said, the Biden administration has been touting a “big” announcement to help lower gas prices. Would the president green-light more pipelines, fast-track the permit process, and/or open up leases that are easier and cheaper to drill?
Nah, he’s going to allow an E15 blend during the summer months instead.
President Biden will announce today that his administration will temporarily allow E15 gasoline — gasoline that uses a 15 percent ethanol blend that is typically banned from sale from June to September — to be sold this summer. https://t.co/y04d9lBbL1
— NPR (@NPR) April 12, 2022
This is like suffering a gunshot wound and then jamming your finger in it. Yeah, you might slow the bleeding for a moment, but in the end, you are going to do more damage than good. E15 is a garbage blend of fuel that harms engines and gets lower miles per gallon than traditional mixtures. That means that even if the cost per gallon is lowered by a few cents, a driver will likely spend more money in the end to go the same distance they would on regular gas. Never mind the future repair costs some will incur after the increased ethanol ruins seals, pistons, and other engine components.
It appears that the Biden administration just wants to be able to say they “lowered” gas prices without any care for the actual result, which is typical. This White House has long valued shallow messaging over effective solutions. As long as the president gets to mumble in a speech about something, nothing else matters.
Regardless, how many gas stations do you know of that are set up to pump E15? There aren’t any in my area. When I looked up the numbers, there are 2,300 in the entire United States. That’s compared to over 150,000 total gas stations.
In other words, this policy change by Biden is ineffective on multiple fronts. The E15 blend itself is inefficient and damaging, but even if it weren’t, it’s widely unavailable anyway. There are proven ways to lower gas prices out there. Instead of doing those, we are getting the equivalent of telling poor families to go buy an electric car. If the White House pushing such stupidity isn’t a microcosm of the current regime, I’m not sure what is.
Story cited here.
