How much does the president have to do with the price of gasoline?
A lot, say American voters. According to oil experts and economists, not so much — at least in the short term.
Putting rising gas prices in context.
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Today’s oil prices are the product of years and decades of exploration, automobile design and ingrained consumer habits combined with political events in places such as Sudan and Libya, anxiety about possible conflict with Iran, and the energy aftershocks of last year’s earthquake in Japan.
“This notion that a politician can wave a magic wand and impact the 90-million-barrel-a-day global oil market is preposterous,” said Paul Bledsoe, strategic adviser to the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former Clinton administration official.
The price of gasoline is a hardy perennial in presidential campaigns. Jimmy Carter struggled with high gas prices, which had doubled since the Iranian revolution. And during the 2008 presidential race, Barack Obama said in a campaign speech that “here in Ohio, you’re paying nearly $3.70 a gallon for gas — 21 / 2 times what it cost when President Bush took office.”
On Monday, President Obama defended his energy policy in a flurry of interviews with swing-state TV stations while GOP hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum stumped at an energy summit in Biloxi, Miss. “If we want to create lower prices for energy, we know how to do it — now,” Santorum said. White House spokesman Jay Carney fired back, blaming factors “well beyond the control of any administration.”
What can the president control? This year, Republicans are saying Obama has not done enough to promote domestic drilling, but the U.S. drilling-rig count is twice as high now as it was in 2009. With the exception of a spike in 2008, the current rig count is higher than any year since the early 1980s, according to figures compiled by WTRG Economics.
The White House frequently points to the increase in domestic oil production when talking about what it calls its “all of the above” policy to develop myriad sources of energy. But that is a result of new drilling techniques, the lure of high crude prices, and offshore projects that began before Obama entered the White House. Shell, for example, began oil production in the Gulf of Mexico from its Perdido platform during Obama’s term; it bought initial leases in the area in 1996 and began commercial development in 2006.
“Everyone takes credit for what’s on their watch,” said Frank Verrastro, director of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
(Related: A rule of thumb for gas prices and the economy)
U.S. policy makes a difference, energy experts say, but with a long delay, whether it is a matter of drilling for more oil or increasing the fuel efficiency of the automobile fleet, which takes a decade or more to turn over.
“There is a substantial time lag between the adoption of energy policies [on the demand and supply sides] and their impact on the market,” said Jay Hakes, a former administrator of the Energy Information Administration and now director of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum. “George W. Bush deserves some credit for signing the 2007 legislation that has helped the current situation from getting worse, but [he] will never get any credit.”
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