Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, the critics of any
Speaker 1: US president are quick to blame the commander in chief
Speaker 1: for things that are totally beyond their control. Of course,
Speaker 1: presidents and their supporters are equally quick to take credit
Speaker 1: for things that are beyond their control, and the price
Speaker 1: of gasoline is a perfect example. In fact, one Pew
Speaker 1: research study showed that Democrats believe the president can control
Speaker 1: gas prices when a Republican president is in the White House,
Speaker 1: but not when a Democrat is. Republicans also believed that
Speaker 1: the president controlled gas prices when a Democrat occupied the
Speaker 1: White House, but not when a Republican did. The truth
Speaker 1: is that no president, be they Democrat or Republican, friend
Speaker 1: of big oil, or supporter of alternative fuels, can do
Speaker 1: much of anything to affect these short term at price
Speaker 1: of oil and therefore of gasoline. The overriding factor that
Speaker 1: determines the price of oil from day to day is
Speaker 1: the market principle of supply and demand. It comes down
Speaker 1: to simple economics. When demand is greater than supply, prices rise.
Speaker 1: The actual price of a barrel of oil is constantly changing.
Speaker 1: Since oil is a commodity that's traded on the futures market,
Speaker 1: buying and selling oil futures is called speculating because you're
Speaker 1: making trades based on expectations of future supply and demand,
Speaker 1: and for a while demand with skyrocketing. After the Great
Speaker 1: Recession ended, demand steadily increased as the global economy recovered.
Speaker 1: To match that demand, US oil production rose dramatically, from
Speaker 1: around five thousand barrels a day in two thousand nine
Speaker 1: to a record high of thirteen thousand, one hundred barrels
Speaker 1: a day in early due in large part to the
Speaker 1: drilling technology called hydraulic fracturing or fracking. American oil producers
Speaker 1: were able to keep pace with demand and keep gasoline
Speaker 1: prices stable, but on March six, crude oil went as
Speaker 1: high as a hundred and thirty dollars and fifty cents
Speaker 1: of barrel overnight, the highest price since two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: just before the Great Recession caused a huge drop in demand.
Speaker 1: Prices then settled at around a hundred and twenty dollars
Speaker 1: of barrel, which is still high historically. Reports indicated that
Speaker 1: the spike was due to supply disruptions resulting from Russia's
Speaker 1: invasion of Ukraine combined with the market forecasting the possibility
Speaker 1: of a US ban on Russian oil, which did come
Speaker 1: to pass. So if gasoline prices are largely at the
Speaker 1: mercy of global fluctuations in supply and demand, what can
Speaker 1: a president actually do, if anything, to influence gas prices.
Speaker 1: What about increasing the oil supply? But can't the president
Speaker 1: boost US production? It's true that aggressive increases in US
Speaker 1: oil production would bring the global supply for oil closer
Speaker 1: to the demand. However, the US is such a small
Speaker 1: player on the international oil scene America controls only four
Speaker 1: percent of the world's oil reserves that even if the
Speaker 1: US doubled its current production capacity, it still wouldn't make
Speaker 1: much of a dent. It would also take a number
Speaker 1: of years to assemble the drilling rigs, pipelines, and crew
Speaker 1: to make that kind of production increase, meaning oil prices
Speaker 1: would be unaffected in the short term. The only way
Speaker 1: the president can quickly boost the oil supply to lower
Speaker 1: gasoline prices is by tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an
Speaker 1: emergency stockpile of more than seven hundred million barrels of
Speaker 1: crude oil stored along the US Gulf Coast, it's happened before.
Speaker 1: In June, President Barack Obama released thirty million barrels of
Speaker 1: oil from the emergency reserves in response to the crises
Speaker 1: in Libya and Yemen. The President George Bush also tapped
Speaker 1: the reserves, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, temporarily lowering
Speaker 1: gas prices tend to fifteent and President Joe Biden has
Speaker 1: announced plans that will raise the total of reserve oil
Speaker 1: released this year to a hundred and eighty million barrels.
Speaker 1: Over four hundred million barrels are still in reserve. One
Speaker 1: other way the president can influence gas prices is by
Speaker 1: changing the gasoline tax, which is currently at eighteen point
Speaker 1: four san sa galen, but this has been unchanged since
Speaker 1: and is not likely to move as there are a
Speaker 1: lot of political implications involved with raising or lowering it.
Speaker 1: Abiding called for Congress to enact day federal gasolene tax
Speaker 1: holiday over the summer of two to ease prices, but
Speaker 1: nothing came of it. As we've discussed in previous episodes,
Speaker 1: states can change their own gas taxes a little more easily,
Speaker 1: and some have done so during this election season, possibly
Speaker 1: to curry favor with voters. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article can the President Control gas Prices? On how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com, written by Dave Rouse. Brainstuff is
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang. Four
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