One of the most positive aspects of the recent Consumer Price Index report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — which, according to CNN and others, is inherently immune to inaccuracy, malfeasance, impreciseness, or wrongness of any kind when it comes to knowing everything about the world’s biggest economy in near real-time, and shall never be questioned — is that U.S. energy prices are decreasing.
According to the report, as a general category, energy prices are down 1.6 percent. Specifically, energy commodity prices are down 9 percent, whereas energy services increased 7.2 percent.
Among energy commodities, “fuel oil” declined nearly 3 percent and “gasoline of all types” plummeted 9.5 percent.
On the other hand, under energy services, electricity prices increased 5.5 percent, and natural gas (piped) increased 13.8 percent.
Before we delve into the bad, let’s accentuate the good.
The fact that gasoline prices are falling is terrific news for nearly all Americans.
Consider: More than nine in 10 American households own at least one car. There are approximately 280 million commercial and private vehicles registered in America. And only 8 percent of those are electric vehicles.
Did you know that on average, Americans drive 14,263 miles per year?
In 2023, Americans spent roughly 3.2 percent of their budget on gasoline, which amounted to $2,449 in total and $204 per month.
In 2020, before the Biden administration declared war on fossil fuels, “gas took up 2.4% of Americans’ overall spending. In that year, Americans spent $121 a month on gas and $1,447 over the course of the year.”
That’s right, the Biden administration’s foolish policies that sought to regulate fossil fuels out of existence while subsidizing unaffordable, unreliable, and undesired “green” energy sources and electric vehicles, made energy prices skyrocket.
How about electricity bills? Well, in April 2024, the New York Post reported, “Since January 2021, electricity prices have soared 29.4% — 50% more than overall inflation — rising 13 times faster than the previous seven years.”
As my colleagues noted in a 2024 report, “After three years of Biden’s energy policies, the average U.S. driver has spent at least an extra $548 per year in higher gasoline costs while the average household has expended $318 in higher electricity costs. Households that use natural gas have spent an extra $586 over the past three years, and those using home heating oil have paid a whopping $3,068 more. Since Biden entered the Oval Office, the average American household has directly paid at least $2,548 in higher direct energy costs.”
Now, the potential bad news.
Unlike gasoline production, which can be ramped up relatively easily, the destruction wrought by the Biden administration to America’s grid and the damage done to affordable, reliable, and clean conventional energy will likely take longer to reverse.
For many decades, both political parties have engaged in stupid policies supposedly meant to save the planet from the existential crisis known as climate change. Over time, these silly laws have gradually become increasingly onerous.
As the government, mostly at the behest of leftist climate alarmists, has embraced more radical policies intended to purportedly save humanity, it has also produced a counternarrative: climate realism.
Contrary to climate alarmism, climate realism is based on sound science, hard data, and common sense. It also incorporates history, which proves that the climate always has and always will change.
Climate realists also accept that we just aren’t at a place in which solar panels, windmills, and electric vehicles make economic sense — at least, not yet.
Most importantly, climate realism puts hard-working Americans first and foremost by ensuring that they have ample access to affordable, reliable, and clean energy.
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