![]() ![]() But when it hit that level again in early March, there was little impact on new-vehicle sales in the U.S., where about three-quarters of vehicles sold are SUVs and trucks. When gasoline went past $4 per gallon in the summer of 2008, American auto buyers quickly switched away from pickup trucks and large SUVs to smaller, more efficient vehicles. “It likes to eat gas,” he said of his truck, which he said gets around 15 miles per gallon. It’s about $200 a week for Pat Blevins, 42, a carpenter from Waterville, Ohio, who was filling the tank of his 2016 Chevrolet Silverado at a gas station west of Toledo, Ohio, on Tuesday. “People tend to focus on the pain points.” “The fact is there’s been a lot of studies on this - it’s just psychologically that how people tend to view the economy is through inflation,” said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster who has worked for Biden. That’s not something for us to make a judgment on.”īiden confidants know high gas prices hurt people and the president politically. Asked whether conservation should play a greater role in adjusting to high prices, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Americans are going to do what they feel is right for themselves and for their family. People who must drive, he said, “are trying to find ways they can combine some of their errands or perhaps if they are able to carpool for work they’re finding ways to reduce the amount of gas they have to buy and put in their vehicles.”īiden has frequently said he doesn’t want high gas prices, attacked oil companies ’ multi-billion dollar profits, proposed new offshore oil and gas drilling despite campaign promises and proposed a gas tax holiday, which congressional leaders said won’t fly. Her daughter, a college student, now walks 10 minutes to work and takes public transportation to school rather than driving.Įven though the July 4th holiday weekend saw record number of people on the road, they were not driving as far “because they can’t afford the cost of gas,” said American Automobile Association spokesperson Devin Gladden. In San Diego, where gasoline runs more than $6 per gallon, Simmi Paul said her family also has reduced driving. He wants Biden to open up more drilling and predicts that engineering will eventually solve climate change. He blamed the high gasoline prices on President Joe Biden’s policies. The towing still takes place because he doesn’t want to give up family vacations, Gowan said. To save money, he has subbed a small Jeep Renegade SUV, which gets substantially better fuel economy than the 24 miles per gallon he gets with the pickup, which he bought to tow a travel trailer. “That one doesn’t come out of the driveway near as much as it used to,” he said while pumping gas near work. But with gas close to $5 per gallon, he’s cut one-quarter of the truck trips. Richard Gowan, 56, of Brighton, Michigan, used to commute 26 miles to his Ann Arbor workplace twice per week in a 2021 Ford F-150 pickup. Now people are paying more when they hit the gas station and some are changing their habits. Carbon emissions are causing harm, especially to future generations, but for decades cheap gas has meant “no one is paying for that harm,” he said. High gas prices are “unequivocally” good for fighting climate change because people use less fossil fuel and emissions go down, but the poorest people, who don’t have other options also “suffer the most,” said climate economist Solomon Hsiang, director of the Climate Impact Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. “So prices that are high and expected to stay that way have more of a longer term ability to cut demand and my guess is the administration wouldn’t mind seeing that, but the problem is that people hate it.” “High fuel prices are a really difficult thing because they’re a double-edged sword,” said Samantha Gross, director of the energy security and climate initiative at the centrist Brookings Institution. climate goal is to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Yet, a 6% drop in driving roughly translates to only a 1% drop in overall U.S. That 6% drop is tiny compared to the 40% plunge in driving miles in April 2020 as the pandemic kicked in. Americans in April, the last month data was available, drove 6% fewer miles than the same month in 2019, according to transportation analyst Michael Sivak, a former University of Michigan professor who is a long-time tracker of driving and car-buying habits.
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