Liam Denning, Columnist

On Gasoline Prices, Biden Is More Therapist Than Doctor

The best he can do is listen in sympathy and hope for mild weather and a loosening oil market.

November 11, 2021 at 11:00 AM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

The price is up.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

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When it comes to gasoline prices, U.S. presidents are more therapists than doctors. They can lend a sympathetic ear and hope for better times. But immediate relief or a cure? Not so much.

President Joe Biden is facing an energy-themed winter of discontent. The Energy Information Administration expects the highest average gasoline prices for December since 2013. Natural gas prices, while no longer above $6 per million BTU, remain high relative to recent years, and it’s only November. Propane is at its highest level in more than seven years.