Great Lakes Wire

While states across the country received a minor relief in gas prices, Michigan and others in the Midwest have seen soaring prices in the last month. 

This comes as analysts continue to be critical of President Joe Biden's decision to tap into the nation's emergency oil supply, claiming domestic production is the solution to these record-high prices.

According to AAA price data, the cost of a gallon of gas in Michigan has risen 6 cents in the last week and 35 cents in the last month. The current average is $4.18 per gallon, while seven days ago it was $4.12 per gallon and a month ago it was $3.83.

"The administration may try to pretend otherwise, but President Biden’s keep-it-in-the-ground policies are a major reason Americans are facing an energy-cost crisis. Unleashing American energy production, not draining our own emergency supply, is the lasting solution to high prices," Sen. John Barrasso said in a release from the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. 

According to a Wall Street Journal analysis, the Biden administration has leased fewer acres for offshore and federal land oil-and-gas drilling than any other administration in its early stages, dating back to the end of World War II. The analysis states President Biden’s Interior Department leased 126,228 acres for drilling during his first 19 months in office. No other president since Richard Nixon in 1969-70 leased out fewer than 4.4 million acres at this stage in his first term.

After signing a series of executive orders that prioritized climate change in early 2021, Biden has taken action to remove fossil fuels entirely in America—from killing the Keystone XL pipeline to banning oil and gas leasing on federal land, which had provided around one-fifth of the total production in the United States as of 2019, according to a report issued by the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources titled "Europe's Energy Crisis: A Warning to America."

In his effort to curb high gas prices earlier this year, Biden began tapping into the nation's emergency crude oil supply in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). On March 31, he announced the release of up to 180 million barrels of crude oil from the SPR over a six-month period.

As of April 1, the SPR held 564.58 million barrels of oil in stock. As of Sept. 30, the SPR inventory stood at 416.4 million barrels of oil, a decrease of 148 million barrels since Biden's initial release.

According to OPEC+ sources, the influential alliance of some of the world’s most powerful oil producers is reportedly considering their largest output cut since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The number of barrels coming off the market will likely bring a return of crude oil prices nearing $100 a barrel, analysts say.

Amidst rising fuel prices back in November 2021, Forbes reported OPEC and its oil-producing partners rejected Biden’s calls for increased production, retorting that if the United States believes the world’s economy needs more energy, then it should use the capability to increase production itself.