Look to Canada for Proof that Neither Presidents Nor Pro-Drilling Policies Control Gas Prices

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Another Spring, another round of totally uninformed and illogical arguments about gas prices.

You could be forgiven if youโ€™re feeling some deja vu. As conservatives and Congressional Republicans scramble to blame the president for rising gas prices, you might have the feeling that weโ€™ve been here before.

Oh, thatโ€™s right. It was just last year (almost exactly a year ago, actually) that prices were pushing towards $4 per gallon, and everyone from Sarah Palin (in a ludicrously misguided and ill-informed Facebook rant) to Speaker Boehner were misplacing blame for pumpย prices.

Anyone who takes the time to actually look into it can pretty easily learn that the president alone canโ€™t do much about rising gas prices, through expanded drilling or approving pipelines or whateverย else.

The AP just ran a definitive piece that looked at 36 years of data, and found โ€œno statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.โ€

And here are twenty experts from across the political spectrum (including the staunchly conservative American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute) stating clearly that domestic drilling has no real effect on gas prices.

A full 92% of economists surveyed replied that gas prices are set by external market forces, and not domestic policies. Even Fox News reported in 2008 that โ€œno President has the power to increase or to lower gasย prices.โ€

Still, the disinformation flies, and so Iโ€™ll throw another fact-based argument in the mix. You want more proof that we canโ€™t drill or pipeline our way to lower gas prices? Look north, toย Canada.

Remember, Canada exports more oil than it imports. If only we could get more of that โ€ethical oilโ€ (cough cough) weโ€™re always told, Americansโ€™ pain at the pump wouldย ease.

Except, it wouldnโ€™t. It would actually raise the price of gas for many Americans by as much as 20 cents per gallon.

Letโ€™s start with a very revealingย chart:

The red line is the average price of gasoline in Canada, and the blue line represents the price in the United States. The green line is the price of crude oil. See for yourself on GasBuddy.com. As even a first grader could tell you, the three linesโ€”while not equalโ€”follow the sameย track.

But there is more to it. The United States and Canada are both big oil producers, but Canadians actually export a lot of the oil that theyย produce.

NRDC‘s Deron Lovaas, who originally posted a link to these charts last year (when the hype was the same), explains:

And Canada? Canada produces about 3.3 million barrels a day, and consumes almost 2.2 million barrels daily. Canada is a big net-exporter, sending a lot of fuel, for example, into U.S. gasย tanks.

But prices at Canadian pumps have tracked ours (setting aside a regular gap due mostly to higher Canadian fuel taxes) since 2007. And both have been pulled up and down and up again by a spiky, scary global crude oil price rollerย coaster.

Canada, with its vast resources and small population, canโ€™t drill its way out of price runups because theyโ€™re shackled to a global oil marketplace. And we areย too.

So if we really want to know what would happen to U.S. gas prices were we not only to drill more, but to somehow drill so much more that we were able to produce more than we consume, we simply look toย Canada.

โ€ฆCanada, where the vast tar sands oil reserves and net exports of oil are doing nothing to ease their own pain at theย pump.

โ€ฆCanada, that nation to our north where people pay more for gasoline than we do, and where their gas prices have tracked oursโ€”up and down, on the wild OPEC โ€œroller coasterย ride.โ€

Don’t expect the โ€œblame Obamaโ€ talking point to go away, but please do spread the word that it is a total farce. Just ask a Canadian.ย 

Image credit: Gas nozzle-cide | Shutterstock

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Ben Jervey is a Senior Fellow for DeSmog and directs the KochvsClean.com project. He is a freelance writer, editor, and researcher, specializing in climate change and energy systems and policy. Ben is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. He was the original Environment Editor for GOOD Magazine, and wrote a longstanding weekly column titled โ€œThe New Ideal: Building the clean energy economy of the 21st Century and avoiding the worst fates of climate change.โ€ He has also contributed regularly to National Geographic News, Grist, and OnEarth Magazine. He has published three booksโ€”on eco-friendly living in New York City, an Energy 101 primer, and, most recently, โ€œThe Electric Battery: Charging Forward to a Low Carbon Future.โ€ He graduated with a BA in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College, and earned a Masterโ€™s in Energy Regulation and Law at Vermont Law School. A bicycle enthusiast, Ben has ridden across the United States and through much ofย Europe.

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