There’s a striking irony in this election: Democrats won largely by focusing on high gas prices, despite having backed policies that critics say would push those prices higher when they were in power.
On his first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order canceling the Keystone XL pipeline. The proposed 1,200-mile project would have carried about 830,000 barrels of Canadian oil a day to U.S. refineries. Gulf Coast refineries are designed to process heavy Canadian crude, including oil from Alberta’s tar sands, into products such as diesel and jet fuel—fuels that are especially important right now.
Biden was not the first Democratic president to oppose the project. In February 2015, President Barack Obama vetoed the Keystone XL Pipeline Approval Act, which Congress had passed. The Senate failed to override that veto the following month.
Several other Democratic presidential contenders have also supported a carbon tax, a policy that could raise fuel costs. Kamala Harris said in September 2019 that her plan would include a carbon fee. Pete Buttigieg also proposed a carbon tax, arguing that politicians should be candid about what the policy was called.
As transportation secretary in the Biden administration, Buttigieg pushed automakers to move away from gasoline-powered vehicles and toward electric cars. But consumer demand lagged, leaving manufacturers and dealers with thousands of unsold EVs. General Motors reported $11.2 billion in losses and scrapped plans for parts of its EV infrastructure. Ford dropped some models, including its electric F-150, which Buttigieg had promoted and Biden test-drove in Dearborn, Michigan, in May 2021. Ford later recorded a $19.5 billion EV-related write-down.
Even so, Buttigieg maintained that EV buyers would not return to gas-powered cars. That confidence was tested during a severe winter, when some owners in Chicago and other places said cold weather had left their batteries unreliable and they would not buy another electric vehicle.
Democrats from a younger generation have also backed policies critics say could raise fuel costs. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal influenced parts of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The law’s large-scale spending on green energy became a significant part of the debate over inflation during Biden’s presidency. Prices rose 21.5% cumulatively during his administration, contributing to an affordability problem that Democrats blame on President Trump.
Those policies and investments, the argument goes, contributed to gas-price increases that were higher than today’s. Gas reached $4.55 a gallon in some areas in May 2011 under Obama, equivalent to $6.78 in today’s dollars. Under Biden, prices peaked at $5.03 a gallon in June 2022, or about $5.79 today after adjusting for inflation. Trump’s highest spike was $4.55 a gallon in mid-May of this year.
Trump has said gas prices could return to around $3 a gallon once the war with Iran ends, roughly the level seen before it began. But voters have had reason to doubt the president’s estimates of when the conflict might end. Oil prices fell sharply in April when a deal with Iran appeared possible. The timing of an end to the war, however, remains uncertain.
What is clear is that Democrats’ past support for policies that could increase costs at the pump makes it harder for them to criticize current gas prices.
