“Days before a neck-and-neck presidential race, pump prices — one of the most salient data points consumers use to gauge inflation — are tumbling in key swing states,” Bloomberg reports.
“In Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, retail fuel prices have fallen at least 20% since the 2022 midterm election.”
“Gasoline is approaching or has fallen below $3 a gallon in most states, returning to a national average not seen since February in one of the clearest examples of prices declining after a period of rapid inflation,” the New York Times reports.
“Prices at the pump averaged $3.16 for regular gas on Tuesday, down 11 percent from this time last year.”
“Oil executives have emerged as an increasingly important source of funding for Donald Trump, as industry titans open their wallets to bolster the Republican nominee’s campaign for a second term in the White House,” Bloomberg reports.
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Wall Street Journal: “Some executives in the largely pro-Trump oil industry are worried the former president, if re-elected, would side with conservative lawmakers who want to gut the IRA. They fear losing tax credits vital for their investments in renewable fuel, carbon capture and hydrogen, costly technologies requiring U.S. support to survive their early years.”
“The oil market is in another tailspin. Producer group OPEC+ is scrambling to stop the bleeding. And gas prices are falling fast, with more to come,” CNN reports.
“US gas prices fell to a fresh six-month low of $3.31 a gallon on Thursday, down 50 cents from this point last year.”
“Donald Trump has said he will immediately fill up the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve if he becomes president in November, a move that could boost oil demand by hundreds of millions of barrels,” the Financial Times reports.
Said Trump: “We don’t need energy from any other country. We have to fill up the strategic reserves again. It is the lowest number it has ever been.”
Politico: U.S. oil output notches fresh record in August.
“Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign pledged the likely Democratic presidential nominee would not ban fracking, rejecting what it called ‘false’ accusations by Donald Trump that she would prohibit the technology if elected president,” Politico reports.
“Fracking technology has helped U.S. drillers reach record oil and gas output.”
“The U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed a bill to accelerate the deployment of nuclear energy capacity, including by speeding permitting and creating new incentives for advanced nuclear reactor technologies,” Reuters reports.
“Expanding nuclear power has broad bipartisan support, with Democrats seeing it as critical to decarbonizing the power sector to fight climate change and Republicans viewing it as a way to ensure reliable electricity supply and create jobs.”
“Donald Trump suggested to oil executive donors this month that he could ease the Federal Trade Commission’s scrutiny of their industry’s mergers and acquisitions if he returns to the White House,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump’s remarks, which have not previously been reported, indicated that he may try to influence the FTC, an independent agency, on behalf of his supporters.”
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) said he is opposed to President Biden’s new China tariffs due to inflation concerns, the Washington Post reports.
Said Polis: “If we are reducing our ability to get the solar panels we need to power our clean energy economy, everybody winds up paying more for electricity through their utility, and it slows the clean energy transition.”
“In a rambling fundraising pitch to oil executives in Houston on Wednesday, former president Donald Trump promised them that he would immediately approve their projects and expand drilling in a second term — just as he worked to expedite the controversial Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines soon after taking office in 2017,” the Washington Post reports.
CNN: Senate Democrats launch investigation into alleged Trump “quid pro quo” with oil executives.
“The Biden administration said Tuesday that it is releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from a Northeast reserve established after Superstorm Sandy in a bid to lower prices at the pump this summer,” the AP reports.
“Federal regulators on Monday approved sweeping changes to how America’s electric grids are planned and funded, in a move that supporters hope could spur thousands of miles of new high-voltage power lines and make it easier to add more wind and solar energy,” the New York Times reports.
“The new rule by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate electricity transmission, is the most significant attempt in years to upgrade and expand the country’s creaking electricity network.”
“As Donald Trump sat with some of the country’s top oil executives at his Mar-a-Lago Club last month, one executive complained about how they continued to face burdensome environmental regulations despite spending $400 million to lobby the Biden administration in the last year,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted.”
“Giving $1 billion would be a ‘deal,’ Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him.”
“Trump’s remarkably blunt and transactional pitch reveals how the former president is targeting the oil industry to finance his reelection bid.”
Financial Times: Big Oil boomed under Biden. So why does it hate him?
New York Times: “The political war over electric vehicles has been fueled by an incendiary mix of issues: technological change, the future of the oil and gas industry, concerns about competition from China and the American love of motorized muscle.”
“And in the rural reaches of America, where few public charging stations exist, the notion of an all-electric future feels fanciful — another element to the urban-rural divide that underlies the nation’s polarization.”
“Gas prices have spent the last 10 days bouncing around within a two-cent range, currently averaging at $3.10 a gallon nationwide. But the median average is $2.79, as the national number is heavily influenced by higher prices on the West Coast,” CBS News reports.
“You won’t hear President Biden talking about it much, but a key record has been broken during his watch: The United States is producing more oil than any country ever has,” the Washington Post reports.
Playbook: “That, of course, is helping reduce inflation. Nationwide, the average gallon of gasoline now costs $3.11, per AAA.”
Gas prices will fall in 2024 for the second year in a row, according to GasBuddy projections, CNN reports.
GasBuddy, which had a forecast for 2023 that proved to be eerily accurate, expects U.S. gas prices will average $3.38 a gallon in the key election year of 2024.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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