The rising price of energy was a major theme of the first day of the Republican National Convention, with several speakers blaming President Biden’s policies for the spike in gasoline and electricity prices since 2021.
Here’s a look at some of their claims.
What was said about gas prices
“The day Joe and Kamala walked into office, gas was cheaper.”
— Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee
“Gas is up 48 percent”
— Senator Katie Britt of Alabama.
This needs context. The average price of gasoline has risen roughly 48 percent since Mr. Biden took office in early 2021. But experts say that global market forces affecting the price of oil typically have a much bigger influence over U.S. gasoline costs than any president.
The past few years have been a case in point: Global oil prices crashed in 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic shut down economic activity around the world. Prices then surged in 2021 when economies rebounded, but crude production was slower to recover. And oil prices spiked to record highs in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, which caused gasoline prices in the United States to reach $5 per gallon at points.
Since then, gas prices have declined, to around $3.50 per gallon today.
President Trump has promised to encourage more domestic drilling to bring down oil prices. But more drilling doesn’t always translate into cheaper gasoline: The United States is producing significantly more crude oil today under President Biden than it did under the Trump administration, yet prices remain higher than they were four years ago. Other factors, like fuel demand in China and output from Saudi Arabia, also matter.
What was said about electricity
“Biden and Harris outsourced our energy supply, driving electricity prices up over 29 percent.”
— Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee
This is misleading. Retail electricity prices have risen roughly 28 percent nationwide, on average, since Mr. Biden took office, depending on what measure one uses. But the reasons for that increase are complex, experts said, and typically have had less to do with the administration’s policies and more with other factors such as fluctuations in natural gas prices and the rising cost of upgrading the nation’s aging grid.
Since 2021, electricity prices have grown the fastest in 15 states, according to a recent report from Energy Innovation, a clean-energy research group. In California, soaring wildfire costs have caused bills to spike. In Massachusetts, volatile natural gas prices resulted from a lack of pipelines and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And in West Virginia, state regulators have ordered electric utilities to keep open older and more expensive coal plants to support the state’s mining industry.
Brendan Pierpont, Energy Innovation’s director of electricity modeling and an author of the report, said the study had found no evidence that clean-energy policies have driven up prices. In fact, he said, states with the biggest growth in wind and solar production — like Kansas, Iowa, New Mexico and Oklahoma — have managed to slow rate increases.
The bulk of electricity price spikes are the result of “increasing cost and volatility of fossil fuels” and extreme weather events like wildfires, he said.
Some of Mr. Biden’s policies could affect future electricity prices: The Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, has issued a regulation ordering the nation’s coal plants to either deploy technology to capture virtually all their emissions, or shut down. Republicans and business groups have said that will cause electricity costs to soar. Environmentalists say those fears are overblown. But those rules were just finalized and haven’t had an impact yet.
What was said about energy production
Former President Donald J. Trump had “energy independence” and a new Republican administration will “unleash American energy dominance.”
— Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia
This needs context. Both “energy independence” and “energy dominance” are political slogans designed to telegraph a break with the Biden administration’s climate policies.
The phrase “energy independence” suggests that the United States was self-sufficient under the Trump administration when it came to energy, which isn’t true. The United States imported millions of barrels of oil each day, including from the Persian Gulf, under Mr. Trump.
Under Mr. Trump, the United States began to export more crude than it imported, though that was largely the result of more than a decade of improvements in oil and gas production from hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.
That’s still true under the Biden administration: In 2022 the United States exported about 9.5 million barrels of crude oil per day, while importing about 8.3 million barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration.
When Mr. Trump’s supporters use the phrase “dominance” it is often code for unleashing more fossil fuels, particularly oil and gas. Yet the Biden administration, despite its focus on supporting an expansion of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, and despite several moves to block or slow the pace of fossil-fuel extraction, has still overseen record growth in oil and gas production.