Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed and ten colleagues are urging the Biden administration to do what it can to lower gasoline prices. The average price is currently three-dollars-40-cents, a 25-cent increase in Rhode Island in the past month. Reed and the other senators are suggesting a release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and a ban on crude oil exports to help curb rising prices.
“Instead of allowing the market to work, investing in clean energy technology, and strengthening domestic energy infrastructure, the Trump Administration fixated on propping up the stock price of big oil companies, rolling back vehicle fuel efficiency standards, and cozying up to Saudi Arabia and Russia. Now Americans are paying more at the pump and our nation is more vulnerable to the oil whims of Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other adversarial dictatorships abroad,” stated Reed. “Oil companies are enjoying the surge in fuel prices. Consumers are not. And it has to end. Some of the upward pressure on oil prices today is directly tied to the fact that oil producers can make more money by producing less oil. For the good of our economy and national security, we must ween ourselves off a system that is so ripe for foreign manipulation and driven by greed.”
In addition to Senator Reed, the letter was signed by U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D-PA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Ed Markey (D-MA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH).
So far there has been response from the White House.
(Photo by Michael Williams/Getty Images)