With gas risiong to $5 a gallon in some places…
And the economic and political fallout getting worst by the minute…
Some are looking to make the energy industry to target of their ire…..
But the Russia conflict with the Ukraine has been a problem and Biden has so far refused to get the Ukraine President to work on a cease fire which would drop energy prices immediatly probably….
In Washington this week, senior White House aides had sat down with chief executives of Exxon and Chevron, the latest in a regular series of meetings in recent months, according to a White House official. This week’s meetings were first reported by CNBC.
Biden also criticized shipping companies, suggesting that a virtual oligopoly in the industry had driven up prices for consumers. Nine major ocean shipping companies — dividing themselves into three consortia — have contributed to soaring costs of consumers, he said, calling on Congress to crack down on the foreign-owned shipping companies that Biden said brought in $190 billion in profits last year.
“Every once in a while, something you learn makes you viscerally angry — like, if you had the person in front of you, you’d want to pop them,” Biden said. “No, I really mean it.”
Biden’s tone reflected in part a growing frustration within the White House that the administration has been able to do little to slow the rise in the cost of gas, food and other goods, a trend that risks eclipsing the president’s message and badly hurting his party in the November congressional elections.
Behind the scenes, several prominent Democrats have been pushing to make attacks on the greed of oil and gas companies a centerpiece of the party’s message, in the hopes of making Democrats the party of fighting inflation by the midterms. They argue that the issue of gas prices needs to be reframed as a choice between Democratic support for proactive measures — like suspending the gas tax or prodding oil companies to drill on existing leases — and Republican opposition to taking action.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who runs the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, circulated a white paper to her colleagues in the spring titled “Big Oil Price-Gouging Americans at the Pump,” with statistics showing the dramatic increase in company profits between the first quarters of 2019 and 2022.
“Oil and gas companies are padding their profits, and hardworking Americans are paying the price,” the document said. “Senate Democrats are committed to stopping oil companies from excessively increasing gas prices. Senate Republicans are committed to blocking legislation that would hold oil and gas companies accountable.”
Biden’s event Friday came as new figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that inflation reached 8.6 percent last month compared with a year earlier, contributing to the fastest hike in prices in the energy, housing and food sectors in four decades.
The rapid run-up in gas prices has become one of the most visceral ways people feel inflation in their daily lives and is emerging as a dominant policy and political problem for the Biden White House. As of Friday morning, the national average for a gallon of gas was $4.99, according to AAA.
In a written statement earlier Friday, the president acknowledged that inflation was not “coming down as shapely and as quickly as we must see.” As he has many times before, Biden named Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine as the prime trigger of rising prices, although inflation had started to dog the White House before the February incursion by Russia.
Later, Biden name-checked Putin three times during his speech at the Port of Los Angeles, as he highlighted his administration’s work to streamline supply chains and boasted of the improvements to American ports that is included in the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted last November….