A tense relationship between the Biden administration and the oil industry is clouding the prospects for a unified response to the growing threat of energy shortages and surging gasoline prices in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine.
President Biden stoked the tensions on Tuesday while announcing a U.S. ban on Russian oil imports, designed to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine and bombing civilians. In a televised address, Mr. Biden asked the nation to brace for higher gas prices, which hit a national average of $4.252 a gallon on Wednesday.
Mr. Biden then looked at the camera and issued a stern warning to the oil industry: “Russia’s aggression is costing us all,” the president said, “and it’s no time for profiteering or price gouging.”
In Houston, where oil-and-gas companies were gathered for an annual conference, Mr. Biden’s scolding the industry on national television didn’t go over well. It was a gratuitous swipe at oil producers, said Mike Sommers, head of the American Petroleum Institute, the largest U.S. trade group for oil-and-gas companies, “as if we would take advantage of this moment to price gouge.”
For students of past energy crises, the latest tensions between government and industry underscore a problem. The two worked well together during World War II, and overcame challenges. But communication between the two was poor during the Arab oil embargo of
1973, and the nation suffered shortages and gas lines, said Daniel Yergin, the vice chairman of S&P Global and author of the oil history “The Prize.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-and-the-oil-industry-are-at-odds-clouding-effort-to-tame-gasoline-prices-11646838614 