Fact check: Ernst ties gas prices to Biden, Keystone pipeline permit
Americans have shared plenty of complaints about gas price increases and U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst is among them. Ernst, R-Iowa, opened a March 19 newsletter email blast claiming gas prices have continued to rise since President Joe Biden's first day in office back in January 2021.
Posted — UpdatedAmericans have shared plenty of complaints about gas price increases and U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst is among them. Ernst, R-Iowa, opened a March 19 newsletter email blast claiming gas prices have continued to rise since President Joe Biden’s first day in office back in January 2021:
U.S. gas prices have risen under Biden, data shows, but Ernst’s claim suggests that Biden’s policies and his action on Keystone were a driving factor. Yet, gas prices already were on the rise before he took office, due, energy analysts say, to a change in demand following the easing of pandemic restrictions. Meanwhile, the sharpest increases at the pump have come since the start of war in Ukraine.
In an email to PolitiFact Iowa, Ernst spokesperson Brendan Conley wrote that regular gas was priced at $2.36 per gallon during Biden’s first day in office. During the fourth week of March 2022, the prices were $4.24, Conley wrote.
That’s accurate as far as it goes, but it ignores that the data from the Energy Information Administration shows an increasing trend since April 2020, when gas prices dipped to a low of $1.77 per gallon. That was nine months before Biden took office.
West Texas Intermediate grade crude oil reflects a similar trend, with prices increasing from $16.94 per barrel on April 19, 2020, to $110.94 on March 20, 2022. These costs are paid before the oil is refined into gasoline.
While the cost has dipped slightly at certain times — including in November 2020 and August and November 2021 — the overall trends have been up. In the past year, the low price per crude oil barrel has been $57.63. The high reached $130.50.
Iowa’s average cost per gallon was $3.88 on March 24, according to AAA. The state had the seventh lowest average gasoline cost then, the association said.
On July 14, 2008, gas reached its most recent peak prior to 2022 at $4.11, Energy Information Administration data show.
PolitiFact ruling
Ernst said that "gas prices have been going up since the president’s first day in office, starting with his move to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline."
She has a point that gas prices, as well as crude oil prices, have been on an upward trajectory for essentially all of Biden’s tenure.
However, she ignores that prices started to rise when Trump was president, which experts say stemmed from increased demand for fuel after COVID restrictions eased. Gas prices did not simply turn upward on a dime after Biden took office or after he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline.
We rate the statement Half True.
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