Analysis: Gas prices are high. That could mess with Biden’s climate agenda
“There’s a genuine threat of a backlash against the green movement,” said Greg Valliere, chief US policy strategist at AGF Investments. “Most people agree with the goals, but their good intentions tend to fade when they look for something to blame.”
Americans despise high gas prices, and — fair or not — tend to blame them on whoever is in the White House.
“You can argue this isn’t Biden’s fault, but he’s the president,” said Valliere. “If you’re the quarterback and the team isn’t doing well, you get a disproportionate amount of the blame, whether you deserve it or not.”
More than perhaps any other good or service, consumers view gas prices as a proxy for the cost of living.
“You stand there and watch the LED screen add up every dollar,” said Ed Mills, Washington policy analyst at Raymond James.
National gas prices spike — especially in Europe
It’s not just gasoline prices creating angst right now.
“Well-managed clean energy transitions are a solution to the issues that we are seeing in gas and electricity markets today — not the cause of them,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement late last month.
‘A warning sign for what could happen here’
Still, critics of the climate provisions in Biden’s sweeping economic package have pointed to the experience overseas as a cautionary tale for the United States.
Beyond that, Mills doesn’t think the global energy crisis will change many minds in the current debate.
“If anything, it just makes it more complicated,” said Mills, adding that “all parties will dig into their existing positions.”
Making the case for clean energy
“We are dependent on volatile fossil markets — but we don’t have to be,” Trevor Higgins, senior director of domestic climate and energy policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, told CNN. “Switching to clean energy is actually a way to protect ourselves from increased costs.”
Higgins compared the situation with that of an investor who puts too many eggs in one basket.
“Just like how an investor will diversify his or her portfolio, our energy system needs to diversify its resources so that we have redundancies,” Higgins said.
The logic behind supporting EVs makes even more sense at a time when Americans are paying high gas prices. Further EV adoption should ease demand for gas, keeping prices from going higher.
Flooding, hurricanes and heatwaves
Another complicating factor in the climate debate is the role that extreme weather has played in limiting supply of fossil fuels.
Heatwaves in the United States drove up electricity usage this summer, depleting natural gas supplies heading into this winter.
Hurricane Ida knocked offline nearly all of the Gulf of Mexico’s oil-and-gas production and disrupted the region’s refinery activity late this summer.
“Climate change is part of why prices are high,” said Higgins. “If we stick to oil-and-gas dependence, we will make the climate crisis worse and cause more disruption from more heat and stronger hurricanes.”
Yet it remains an open question whether Democrats can credibly make that case.
Republicans may find it far easier to pitch the merits of more drilling to combat high gas prices.
“For those who want climate provisions, they will have to sit there and explain higher gas prices,” said Mills. “And in politics, when you’re explaining, you’re losing.”
