“Yes, I’m thinking about it,” Biden told reporters after a walk on the beach near his Delaware vacation home. “I hope to have a decision based on the data – I’m looking until the end of the week.” The administration is increasingly looking for ways to save the public from higher pump prices, which began to rise last year and have risen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. Nationwide gas prices are on average just under $ 5 a gallon, according to the AAA. Biden said members of his team were to meet this week with CEOs of major oil companies to discuss price increases. Biden criticized the oil companies, saying that they make excessive profits when people feel the difficulty of rising costs in the pump and inflation. But Biden said he would not meet with oil officials himself. “I want an explanation for why they do not refine more oil,” Biden said. The Biden government has already released oil from the US strategic stockpile and increased ethanol mixing for the summer, in addition to sending a letter last week to oil refineries urging them to increase their refining capacity. However, these efforts have not yet substantially reduced price pressures, so the administration is now considering a holiday for the gas tax. Taxes on petrol and diesel help pay for highways. The Penn Wharton Budget Model released estimates Wednesday showing that consumers were saving on the pump because of tax cuts in Connecticut, Georgia and Maryland. Most of the savings went to consumers, instead of gas stations and others in the energy sector. In an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”, Finance Minister Janet Yellen expressed her willingness to go on a federal gas tax holiday to give motorists some relief. Oil refineries say their capacity to produce extra gas and diesel fuel is limited, which means prices could remain high unless demand starts to fall. The American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers sent a joint letter to Biden on Wednesday stating that the refineries were already operating at near full capacity and that almost half of the capacity removed was due to the conversion of plants into renewables. “The current situation did not materialize overnight and will not be resolved quickly,” the letter said. “To protect and enhance US energy security and refining capacity, we urge you to take steps to encourage more domestic energy production,” including new infrastructure and reducing regulatory burdens. Taking a walk on the beach with Ashley’s daughter, granddaughter Naomi, and his granddaughter’s fiancé, Biden often stopped to chat with beachgoers who spent their June federal vacation on the beach. It took some time to provide assurances about inflation – the consumer price index rose to a 40-year high of 8.6% in May from the same month a year ago – and growing warnings from economists that a recession was imminent. “We will do it, guys,” Biden told a group of seafood. Last week, the US Federal Reserve stepped up its efforts to tame inflation by raising its key interest rate by three-quarters of a unit – its biggest rise in nearly three decades – and signaled more major interest rate hikes. Former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that in his estimation, “the predominant probability would be that by the end of next year we would see a recession in the US economy.” Biden said he spoke with Summers, who served as finance minister in the Clinton administration, on Monday morning. “There is nothing inevitable about a recession,” Biden said. ——— Boak reported from Baltimore.
