Rising Gas Prices Provide Fodder for Republican Criticism of Biden

The huge headache of President Biden’s Summer of 2022 — excessive gasoline costs — could as soon as once more bedevil him this week.

Gas costs jumped by about 25 cents a gallon nationally from mid-July to mid-August, topping out round $3.87 per gallon earlier than receding barely into September. The nationwide common worth of gasoline was $3.85 per gallon on Wednesday, in accordance with AAA.

That improve is predicted to gasoline an increase in headline inflation for August within the Consumer Price Index report due out Wednesday morning. It will virtually definitely provoke criticism from Republicans who hammered Mr. Biden over excessive gasoline costs all through final summer season.

Prices on the pump stay effectively beneath their peak in June 2022, when a gallon of gasoline value greater than $5 on common. That spike was largely the results of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Mr. Biden has since sought to cut back worth pressures by quite a lot of measures, together with releasing tens of millions of barrels of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Prices fell steadily final summer season, a growth that Mr. Biden celebrated.

Administration officers proceed to tout that progress, utilizing final June as a benchmark. “If you look at what we’ve been able to do from last summer to this summer — lowering gas prices by a dollar twenty cents, that is because of the work that this administration has done,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, instructed reporters final week.

Still, gasoline costs are actually greater than a dime per gallon larger than they had been on the similar level final yr. After months of serving to to cut back the year-over-year headline inflation price, gasoline costs are set to spice up the speed within the August knowledge. White House officers are bracing for that growth, and the Republicans critiques that may accompany it.