I & I Editorial BoardCrude prices exceeded $110 a barrel in early April but now, at less than $70 a barrel on Thursday, are within a few of bucks of where they were before the bombing campaign against the terrorist regime in Tehran began. They have not fallen fast enough for the president, though, so he’s ordered the Justice Department to dig into oil companies’ business affairs. Please, Mr. President, don’t be Gavin Newsom.
“The big oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for oil,” President Donald Trump announced Wednesday on social media. “Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged.’ I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!”
It is the job of the president to protect the country. This is why we support much of what Trump has done over the past 17 months, including his campaign against the tyrants in Iran who have been waging war against the U.S. for nearly five decades. But it is not the job of the president, nor Congress, nor any legitimate government anywhere to police prices.
Price controls and corporate probes are tools of the devilish Democrats, who always accuse the oil industry of collusion and price gouging when prices go up (but are never asked to explain themselves when prices fall).
Democrats so deeply believe in government power that they eagerly use it to hunt down the witches they believe set prices higher than what the party and most of its voters believe to be fair. There’s never any acknowledgement that they have no idea what the right price for any good or service on any given day should be. They are simply driven by their urges to control as much of life as they possibly can.
California Gov. Newsom has become the king of oil company probes, suggesting that they are nothing but parasites gleefully sucking the life from their victims. Two years ago, he released his grand “plan to prevent Big Oil ‘profit spikes,’” promising that his bold action would “save Californians money at the pump.” He groused about refiners “playing games to earn even more profits” and vowed to force them to “act responsibly.”
Newsom, of course, ignored his own role in producing the highest gasoline prices in the continental U.S. It was he who made it clear that oil refineries were not welcome in his state. It was he who signed the bill that was intended to limit “higher profits for the industry,” an act that was rewarded with Phillips 66 announcing that it was closing its Los Angeles refinery complex. The state now has 11 refineries, down from the 23 in operation 25 years ago and the 40 that were churning out finished fuel products in 1983.
California had become an energy island, unable to import gasoline from other states because of rules that outlaw every other fuel but the state’s own boutique blend, before Newsom became governor. But he’s done nothing but exacerbate the problem.
Trump needs to steer clear of Democrats’ petty, reckless tactics. The president who promised we would drill, baby, drill and pledged that the U.S. would become energy dominant needs to let the market do its job, which at this time of the year is to bump up prices to keep supplies on hand for the American driving season. Big oil is not an enemy, it is an irreplaceable provider of the energy the nation requires to keep the economy churning forward. Interrupting its operations with an investigation will squeeze Americans’ daily need to pump, baby, pump.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
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Johnny Kampis
I couldn’t agree more. All the President is doing it acting like a demagogue-or a Democrat which is essentially the same thing.
Barrels of oil are now around $70; however, that is not going to translate into a cheaper gallon of gas immediately.
The barrel of oil was bought earlier-perhaps at $100. The gas companies paid for the oil at that price. That’s probably why the price at the pump hasn’t fallen yet. If the gas is sold now, as if the barrel was $70, then the barrel that was bought at the earlier date will not be paid back.
The oil companies have competition to sand back the prices. That is how capitalism manages to lower prices-not because the wholesaler is a nice guy; but because he/she wants to sell the product.
It is either using competition or Government strictures and force to drive down prices.
President Trump being near the most successful entrepreneur in the world most likely knows this.
Demagoguing, as he is doing now, is not MAGA. It is Freddy Kreuger.
This is what happens to any conservative/libertarian when living in Washington long enough. Their principles go out the door and politics takes over.
I don’t believe the President would have previously handled Iran in his slipshod, paddy-cake way, as he is doing now. This is an Iranian government that-in my opinion-is fundamentally evil and will never change.
She has proven that (murdering many Americans with its hired proxies; trying to assassinate Americans; threatening our country for nearly half a century with Nuclear Holocaust) is a cash cow. Like Hitler and the Third Reich proved themselves to be the present Iranian Government is fundamentally evil and unforgivable.
With the price of gas at the pump now more than $3 (and it will come down in a month or so if barrels of oil don’t jump back up in price) and the Iranian situation in flux, President Trump has turned into less a leader and more like a politico panderer.
I really do believe President Trump has changed. The question is what changed him? I hope it’s not his health. We really do all owe him a debt of gratitude for his MAGA policies of the past (domestic and international).
I understand your analysis of why oil prices are high but here’s the confusing part: as soon as oil went up well over $100, the prices at the pump went up the NEXT day or that week. So the “gas” in the station’s underground tanks and at the refinery was purchased when oil was hovering at just over $65. As weeks went on, the new higher-priced oil made its way to the refiners. And pump prices went up higher and higher. Then when oil drops to $70 a barrel, do we see the same commiserate drop at the pump? No. It takes weeks, if not months. Yes, there is something that stinks about the whole oil futures market, making it appear as if oil companies have been gaming the system for decades.
As for Newsom, he hired an independent commission to investigate this gouging and they found none. They blamed it on the state’s high taxes and costs of importing oil from overseas.
And Biden also said the oil companies were price gouging when prices didn’t come down when oil prices did. How could anyone not forgot him being mercilessly mocked by just about every economist.
One word: Inventories.
They are still really low. I would not expect prices of finished products to fall much more until inventories have been replenished.
The problem with your argument is that the oil industry has a long time bad habit of immediately raising prices at the pump when prices rise even tho the fuel was bought months ago at a lower price. And when crude drops they wait way too long to,lower pump prices. So trump is totally justified in wanting an explanation. Your thoughtless knee jerk editorial merely diminishes your credibility as a thoughtful publication.
Again, why has the bottleneck at Hormuz influenced the price of gas in the States since we produce more than enough for ourselves and for export, too.
Yes, yes, international pricing is often touted, but why are we not independent of that?
And for the fun of it, let us ask why our Democrats have not been screaming and rending their garments in righteous playacting regarding “price gouging” to do with FIFA tickets? Is there no billionaire to pay them their per diem to rend their garments for that issue?