Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm laughed when asked what her plan is to boost domestic oil production in a bid to bring gas prices down.
During an interview on Friday, Bloomberg Radio host Tom Keene noted, “In Sturgis, Mich., it is $2.89 a gallon. I guess that’s better than in California.”
He asked, “What is the Granholm plan to increase oil production in America?”
Granholm laughed then said, “That is hilarious. Would that I had the magic wand on this.”
“As you know, of course, oil is a global market. It is controlled by a cartel. That cartel is called OPEC. And they made a decision yesterday that they were not going to increase beyond what they were already planning,” she added.
She continued, “So, you know, the interesting thing is, you know, the Department of Energy has an energy information agency. And that agency does the forecasting of what oil and gas prices are going to be. As of right now, their forecast for the beginning of December is that on average … gasoline prices will be about $3.05 at the beginning of December. They will do an adjustment forecast in the next week or so, so we’ll see if that holds.”
Still, Granholm said, “The Biden administration is very concerned about the price at the pump and certainly the price in people’s wallets for natural gas as well for this winter including, I would say, propane and heating oil, particularly, in the Northeast.”
Watch the video below:
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm laughs when asked about Biden's plans to bring gas prices down.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 5, 2021
"Ha ha ha. That is hilarious!" pic.twitter.com/0V0XCsVqDc
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) reacted to Granholm saying in a tweet, “Americans aren’t laughing when they go to fill up and see gas prices at the highest level since 2014.
Americans aren’t laughing when they go to fill up and see gas prices at the highest level since 2014. https://t.co/U3P2PrRRIO
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 5, 2021
The exchange comes after roughly a month after the average price for a gallon hit $3.22, a seven-year high. And in some parts of the country, the price for a gallon of gas surpassed $5.
Granholm referenced OPEC’s recent decision not to increase oil production. As Reuters notes, the U.S. has called for more production to bring oil prices down.
CNN notes domestic oil producers are “under enormous pressure from Wall Street to be more retrained and share profits with shareholders” after the COVID-19 pandemic and are “in no rush to come to the rescue,” which is part of the reason there has not been a rebound in oil production.
Still, the American Petroleum Institute (API) argues that President Joe Biden’s administration should be trying to boost domestic oil production, instead of pressuring OPEC to produce more oil, to bring prices down.
API President Mike Sommers told CNN Business, “You’d think the first place you would go would be American producers, rather than OPEC, which literally held this country hostage for decades because they were our top supplier.”
“We have this strategic advantage of an energy revolution — that started under President Obama. We should be doing everything we can to encourage production in the United States,” he added.
