Wait a mo! The White House argument for the last three months was that Joe Biden was personally responsible for the direction of gas prices at the pump, no? Biden himself and Democrats made sure that they took credit for the significant drop in prices over the summer, which to some extent was legitimate … given that the price drops came from a demand decrease tied to slowing economic activity.

Now that prices are going back up, and likely by no small amount, suddenly presidents don’t have anything to do with gas prices again. Or at least that’s what the Democrat Party line will be, according to the Washington Post:

As prices at the pump trend up nationwide, the Biden administration is scrambling to shelter Democrats from consumer frustration, laying blame on oil company opportunism and threatening new restrictions on the industry.

In public comments and private meetings with oil executives, administration officials are warning that the White House could take extraordinary — and potentially economically risky — steps to bring costs down if the companies do not move more aggressively to shield Americans from price spikes.

The renewed attention on the cost of fuel comes as gas prices have jumped in recent days by as much as 60 cents per gallon in some regions, posing a political challenge for Democrats. A decline in prices that stretched for 99 days helped to improve their prospects in next month’s midterm elections, during which control of Congress and several key governorships is at stake.

But now prices are rebounding, and the tools the administration has for curbing them are limited.

Really? Biden didn’t make that very clear while taking credit for the pump-price descent over the last three months. The White House and Democrats looooved to point to the fall in prices as evidence that Biden’s economic policy was working. As early as mid-July, Biden was taking credit for those changes, tying it specifically to his short-term releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and supposed increases in US production.

Suddenly, as the entirely predictable impact of market forces and production limits have their effect, Biden and the White House want to throw their hands up … again:

The most potent policy option the White House has is emergency authority to limit exports to other nations, a strategy that would be targeted at boosting inventories at home but which could destabilize global markets and exacerbate the energy crunch. It would also be tricky to balance with the president’s commitment to keep as much oil flowing to Europe as possible.

That is not the most potent policy option Biden has, and the Post should know better. Biden complains that oil companies won’t invest in production, but his Executive Order 13990 vastly increased the costs and red tape involved in exploration, extraction, and refining. Biden could start by rescinding that EO and returning energy policy to the status quo ante, but he wants to stand by his commitment to end fossil-fuel use within the next decade.

Four months ago, Biden’s energy secretary Jennifer Granholm explicitly declared that investments in such activities, which take several years to generate any return, would be folly under Biden’s policies:

This clip is ASTONISHING.

Energy Sec. @JenGranholm demands energy companies to make massive investments to increase oil supply while simultaneously saying they want to shut them down over the next 5-10 years.

WHAT IS THIS WHITE HOUSE?! pic.twitter.com/CTgC4dk92x

— Jason Howerton (@jason_howerton) June 15, 2022

BERMAN: Do you want – do you want – do you — five years from now, ten years from now, are you telling me you want them drilling for more oil, you want the refineries putting out more gasoline in five or ten years?

GRANHOLM: What we’re saying is today we need that supply increased. Of course, in five or ten years – actually, in the immediate, we are also pressing on the accelerator, if you will, to move toward clean energy so that we don’t have to be under the thumb of petro dictators like Putin or at the whim of the volatility of fossil fuels.

Ultimately, America will be most secure when we can rely upon our own clean, domestic production of energy through solar, through wind, through –

BERMAN: But that’s the problem for these companies. These companies are saying, you know, you’re asking me to do more now, invest more now, when, in fact, five or ten years from now we don’t think that demand will there be. And the administration doesn’t even necessarily want it to be there.

Want to know why gas prices will soar again? That’s why. We have a completely irresponsible approach to energy policy, dictated by fantasies of technologies that have not proven reliable and a complete refusal to address the actual needs of the nation. It’s sheer idiocy.

The American people aren’t idiots, however. No matter how much Democrats try to dodge responsibility for these soon-to-skyrocket-again gas prices, voters will remember that we didn’t have these issues in the four years before Biden and his team of incompetents took charge.