Democrats worry about their high gas price strategy

 Thomas Lifson:

The wealthy, mostly white environmental activists who donate so much to Democrats want high gasoline prices because it helps force people out of cars and encourages the purchase of electric vehicles, diminishing the Original Sin of CO2 emissions.  Joe Biden started pandering to them on Day One of his presidency by canceling the Keystone XL pipeline.  Predictably, as gasoline prices soared, most people got angry about seeing their budgets busted at the gasoline pump.

Apparently, this came as a surprise to the taxi-, Uber-, and limousine-riding elites who command Democrat party policies, who are reportedly tormented by the blizzard of "I did that!" stickers appearing at gas pumps, distributed by grassroots activists who buy the stickers themselves.

Their first reaction was to squander a chunk of the strategic oil reserve built up under President Trump when oil prices were low, getting a one-time minor price decrease, and then gaslighting the public with a misleading graph pretending that a significant price decline was underway.  Biden pathetically begged the petrocrats of OPEC to increase production (they declined) and started pretending oil companies were price-gouging.

It's gotten so scary for the Democrats that

[t]he Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed reducing the amount of ethanol and other biofuels that must be blended into gasoline this year and retroactively lowered last year's mandate, in a win for refiners who warned that raising the requirement would lift prices at the pump.

The decision comes as the price of ethanol, the most-dominant biofuel, has risen to its highest level in a decade. While U.S. gas prices are driven by the price of crude oil, refiners say ethanol prices have contributed to higher prices at the pump, though gasoline has dipped from recent highs.

The ethanol blending requirement is a boon to corn farmers in Iowa but is hardly the core concern of the greenies because its combustion produces CO2.  Nonetheless, there will be a political cost for Biden.

Yesterday, in a speech in Kansas City aimed at touting his infrastructure bill, Biden returned to the theme that oil company price-gouging, not supply restriction by curtailing fracking and stopping pipelines, is why prices are up.  But at the same time he was claiming no responsibility for prices going up, he contradictorily claimed credit for prices going down — all of 7 cents a gallon.

But then he committed a major gaffe, invoking the expression Democrats use to justify raising taxes:

"We're making progress. We're going to keep at it to ensure the American people are paying their fair share for gas, not being gouged for gas," he said [emphasis added].

...

I was one of the first to report that the Democrats were deliberately raising the price of gas to try to use it as an excuse for pushing their Green New Deal and expensive electric cars.  They are now discovering that the consumers have figured it out and they are angry with the Democrats so Biden is pretending to be angry about the results of his own policies.  

Every fill-up is now a reminder to vote against every Democrat on the ballot.