Gas prices have surged by 50 percent since President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office, coinciding with Harris becoming the Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election against Donald Trump.
Breitbart’s analysis of non-seasonally adjusted data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the average price of unleaded gasoline in July 2024 is 50 percent higher than it was in January 2021.
On Thursday, the national average for unleaded gasoline stood at $3.36, nearly a dollar higher than when Donald Trump left office in January 2021. According to a press release from AAA on January 19, 2021, the day before Biden took office, the average price was about $2.38.
The highest recorded average price for unleaded gasoline under the Biden-Harris administration was $5.016 on June 14, 2022, according to AAA. The rise in gas prices has coincided with the administration’s push toward green energy initiatives as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which Harris helped pass with her tie-breaking vote in 2022.
This increase in gas prices is part of a broader inflation trend affecting the economy during Biden and Harris’s tenure. As of May 2024, prices had risen by 20 percent since they took office and have generally been on an upward trajectory. While the inflation rate dropped below three percent in July 2024 for the first time since 2021, it remains almost 50 percent higher than the typical target of two percent, which economists often consider a healthy rate.
Since becoming the Democratic nominee, Harris has reversed her position on fracking, a method of extracting oil and gas. Previously, she supported a ban on fracking but has recently shifted her stance.
In her first interview as the nominee, Harris explained on CNN, “We have set goals for the United States of America and by extension, the globe, around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. That value has not changed.”
She added, “What I have seen is that we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.”