Opinion: David Asman Says Democrats Won on Gas Prices While Pushing Policies That Raise Them, From Keystone XL to Carbon Taxes and EV Mandates
The Fox News contributor argues Democrats' record on pipelines, carbon fees and electric vehicles raised energy costs. He adds that Trump's promise of $3 gas after the Iran war was undercut by missed timelines. The views are his.
This is a Fox News opinion column by David Asman. The views are his, not ours.
The irony. Asman writes that Democrats "won largely on the issue of higher gas prices" while having "done everything they can to raise gas prices when they've been in power."
His evidence. He points to President Biden's first-day order canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, which he says would have carried 830,000 barrels of Canadian crude a day to Gulf Coast refineries built for heavy oil, and to President Obama's 2015 veto of the pipeline's approval, which the Senate failed to override. He says Kamala Harris backed a carbon fee in 2019 and Pete Buttigieg a carbon tax. He adds that Buttigieg pushed automakers toward electric vehicles that buyers did not want, citing a $11.2 billion loss at GM and a $19.5 billion write-down at Ford. He also blames the Inflation Reduction Act, with its green energy spending, for part of what he calls 21.5 percent cumulative inflation under Biden.
The price comparison. Asman says gasoline peaked at $4.55 a gallon in some areas in May 2011 under Obama, or $6.78 adjusted for inflation, and at $5.03 in June 2022 under Biden, or $5.79 adjusted. He says the highest price under Trump was $4.55 in mid-May of this year.
The caveat. Asman concedes that Trump said gas would return to $3 once the Iran war ends, and that voters grew frustrated with "the president's failed estimates of when the war will end." He notes oil dropped sharply when an Iran deal looked possible in April, and says "exactly when the war is over, we don't know." His closing point is that Democrats "are in no position to criticize current gas prices."
Why it matters here. Republican columnists are split on why the party lost. Asman argues the price pain was real but Democrats own more of its causes. Mehek Cooke, whom we also carried, argues Republicans must deliver relief themselves. Neither can be settled by the numbers in a single column.
What we could not check. We read the column. We did not verify the barrel counts, the loss figures, the inflation total or the price peaks, or whether Trump-era prices were affected by the war. He does not link prices to specific policies in a way a reader can test.