How Would President Bachmann Bring Gas Prices to Under $2 a Gallon?
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At a town hall meeting in South Carolina on Tuesday, Michele Bachmann said that once she’s President, gas prices would magically drop to less than $2/gallon:
“Under President Bachmann you will see gasoline come down below $2 per gallon again,” she said in Greenville. “That will happen.”
Notably, Bachmann didn’t say how it would happen. But as The Hill explains, it likely has something to do with increased domestic oil drilling:
Bachmann and other GOP White House contenders are calling for much more aggressive U.S. oil drilling — her campaign backs drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and wider offshore production, alleging President Obama has placed too many restrictions on development.
But, as I’ve pointed out before, if domestic oil drilling could actually bring gas prices down, it would have done so by now:
And as Stephen Lacey explains, a huge drop in demand caused by a global recession is the only way gas prices will go below $2/gallon again:
Unless Bachmann would like to bring us back into a recession, the idea that we can drop gasoline prices below $2 a gallon simply through more drilling just doesn’t hold weight. The EIA issued an analysis in 2009 that compared opening the entire Outer Continental Shelf to drilling with a more restricted approach. It found that by 2030, gasoline would only be 3 cents cheaper under an open-drilling scenario.
For a much more humorous take on all of this, head over to Wonkette.
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