PENNSYLVANIA, USA — Prices at the pump have been climbing since the start of the year, and the Biden administration is trying to pump the brakes.
White House officials announced on Tuesday plans to tap into Northeast gas reserve to steer prices in the opposite direction.
THE QUESTION
Will that make a difference for your Memorial Day weekend plans?
OUR SOURCES
Chair Professor of Global Business at Penn State University Smeal College of Business Dr. Fairborz Ghadar
The U.S. Department of Energy
AAA Central Penn spokesperson Doni Lee Spiegel
GasBuddy
WHAT WE FOUND
One million barrels may sound like a lot, but it's not as much as you think.
According to GasBuddy, the amount to be released only adds up to about 2.7 hours of total U.S. gasoline consumption.
And just this weekend, Doni Lee Spiegel with AAA Central Penn says Americans are expected to burn through a lot more.
"We're estimating drivers will use about 37 million barrels of gas traveling for Memorial Day," Spiegel said.
Dr. Ghadar with Penn State University says this won’t have a drastic impact on the price you pay.
"I don't think you can count on $0.25 or something like that," he said. "We are talking about one or two or three pennies or something like that."
And, the release isn’t happening all at once, but rather in increments of 100,000 barrels
Officials from the Department of Energy say they will be “strategically releasing this reserve in between Memorial Day and July 4th."
"It is not a significant amount," Dr. Ghadar said. "And the fact that they're doing it in chunks of 100,000 that also is not a significant amount."
So no, the Biden administration's release from the gas reserve will not have a drastic impact on the price you pay at the pump, especially this weekend.
Prices have dipped a tiny bit in the week leading up to the holiday, though that is because the price of crude oil has fallen.
Dr. Ghadar says the only thing that could drive gas prices down is a bigger drop in the cost of crude oil.
"The easiest answer is crude prices have to go down," Dr. Ghadar said. "If crude prices go down, gasoline prices will quickly fall."
