What They Are Saying About Misguided Price Gouging Legislation

News Overnight: You may have heard a controversial energy “price gouging” bill was pulled from House Rules Committee consideration Monday. Here’s what the experts have to say.
 
 President Biden: “The problem we’re facing with gas prices has two roots. First, the pandemic. When COVID struck, demand for oil plummeted so production slowed down worldwide, and because of the strength and the speed of our recovery, demand for oil shot back up much faster than the supply. That’s why the cost of gas began to rise last year. The second route is Vladimir Putin.”
 
 Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers: “The price gouging at the pump stuff…is dangerous nonsense. There is no material prospect that in any enduring way gauging legislation can have any substantial effect on inflationary pressure, but it can cause and contrive all kinds of shortages. It can distort a complex network of flows between crude and refined product. It can inhibit the supply responses that are what’s ultimately the best way to overcome inflation. This gauging talk is a diversionary confusion…All of this gouging talk is a pandering diversion from all of that.”
 
 Dr. Jason Furman, professor of economic policy at Harvard University and former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama:“When more people want to buy things than companies are capable of making, prices go up. That’s just the law of supply and demand. Companies always want to maximize their profits. I don’t think they’re doing it any more this year than any other year.”
 
 Washington Post Editorial Board: “Mr. Biden is also berating businesses for price gouging. But it has long been true that gas prices have a tendency to rise much faster than they fall, and presidential tweets are unlikely to change that.”
 
 Dallas Fed Economist Garrett Goulding: “It’s not price gouging or a grand plot by the industry. This is how the business functions.”
 
 Washington Post Columnist Catherine Rampell: “The solution to the broader increase in prices, then, is ramping up supply (e.g., getting more workers in the labor force, removing trade barriers, encouraging oil-drilling); and/or, tamping down demand (e.g., raising interest rates) … It may feel good to throw red meat to the anti-corporate populist left. Righteous fury about evil businesses earns plenty of retweets. But it has also hampered Democrats’ efforts to get inflation under control — and in so doing, sabotaged their reelection prospects.”
 
 MIT Economics Professor David Autor: “Price controls can of course control prices — but they’re a terrible idea.”
 
 Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy and former energy advisor to President George W. Bush: “Republican presidents do it, Democratic presidents do it. To my knowledge, there’s never been any gouging found.”
 
API represents all segments of America’s natural gas and oil industry, which supports more than 11 million U.S. jobs and is backed by a growing grassroots movement of millions of Americans. Our nearly 600 members produce, process and distribute the majority of the nation’s energy, and participate in API Energy Excellence®, which is accelerating environmental and safety progress by fostering new technologies and transparent reporting. API was formed in 1919 as a standards-setting organization and has developed more than 800 standards to enhance operational and environmental safety, efficiency and sustainability.
 
 To learn more about API and the value of oil and natural gas, please visit API.org.