President Joe Biden has called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate possible anticompetitive or “illegal” actions by oil and gas companies that may have raised gas station prices, prompting criticism from a major oil lobby that blamed the president’s policy of stifling US energy production.
Biden said in Letter dated November 17 Federal Trade Commission Chairman Line Khan said that “there is growing evidence of anti-consumer behavior by oil and gas companies,” indicating that the market is clearly dislocated – lower production costs and lower prices for unprocessed gasoline, while gasoline prices are rising.
“Typically, gas station prices are in line with changes in gasoline prices, unprocessed gasoline, which is the main ingredient in gasoline that people buy at the filling station,” Biden wrote, noting that the price of gasoline for gasoline fell in the past month. 5 percent, while the retail price of the pump rose about 3 percent.
According to the American Automobile Association, the average US retail gas price per gallon was $ 3.413 as of Wednesday, up from $ 3.319 a month ago and $ 2.121 a year ago. The current crude gasoline futures price known as the RBOB at 11:37 New York time was $ 2.31 a gallon.
Biden also noted that the two largest US oil and gas companies are set to nearly double their bottom line compared to 2019.
“Gas station prices continued to rise even as refined fuel costs were falling and industry profits were rising,” Biden said in the letter, urging the FTC to “study what is happening with the oil and gas markets” and “bring all the tools to the Commission to use if you find any wrongdoing. “
“I don’t accept hardworking Americans who pay more for gas because of anticompetitive or potentially illegal behavior,” Biden added.
The American Petroleum Institute (API), the nation’s largest oil and gas trade association, called Biden’s letter to the FTC a “distraction” and accused his administration’s “reckless” policies of limiting the country’s energy supply and exacerbating the pain. at the pump.
“Demand is back as the economy comes back and outstrips supply,” Frank McCiarola, API Senior Vice President for Policy, Economics and Regulatory Affairs, said in a statement.
“The imbalance is further impacted by the administration’s continuing decision to restrict access to America’s energy supply and cancel critical infrastructure projects,” Macchiarola added, presumably referring to Biden’s decisions to freeze new leases for oil and gas wells on federal lands and waters and to cancel the pipeline Keystone XL project.
He added that rather than pressure the FTC to audit controlled and regulated oil and gas markets or “plead with OPEC to increase supplies, we should encourage the safe and responsible development of American-made oil and natural gas.”
Biden faced harsh criticism over soaring gas prices, with his administration’s main plan to ease the pain of the pump was to persuade OPEC to increase production more dramatically to reduce the supply gap, but so far this plan has since failed.
At its last meeting on November 4, the oil-producing cartel rejected calls from the Biden administration for a sharper increase in oil production, voting to gradually increase oil production by 400,000 barrels per day every month.
The administration has also faced calls to use the Strategic Oil Reserve (SPR) to lower gasoline prices, but the White House has taken no action on the matter.
Biden dodged a commitment when a reporter at a November 6 briefing asked when he would respond with an SPR, given that “OPEC-plus has rejected your call to pump more oil.”
“There are other tools in the arsenal that we have” to get “more energy in the pipeline,” Biden said, although he did not provide more details, other than that his administration “deals with other countries” and that he will discuss the matter further “at the appropriate time.”
This came as consumer confidence in the United States fell to a 10-year low, according to a study by the University of Michigan, blaming rising inflation and a growing belief in American consumers that the Biden administration did not implement any effective measures to contain skyrocketing prices. … …
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