First, to be fair, the unpredictability of the Biden admin on oil and gas is slowing down domestic production rebound. Uncertainty is bad for any market. No argument.
That said, there's not a ton policy wise out there that has impacted or is impacting current prices. Drillers stockpiled permits before the current administration, and believe it or not, the Biden admin is outpacing the Trump admin on issuing Federal drilling permits. Drillers can drill - they just aren't. Keystone got the Fox talking points, but that thing would still be under construction right now - not helping your $500/mo.
The issue as it see it is the producers are sitting on the permits happy to recover lost profits before making any further capital investments. I get it. They got hammered with the demand bottom fell - mothballed a bunch of stuff to ride it out - and now are slow to catch back up to demand while building back up cash reserves. That kills us at the pump, but I get why they are doing it for now. Eventually, we will get equilibrium after the unprecedented pandemic disruption. But if there's any beef for Biden, I'd say it needs to be focused on him not breaking away from progressives during unprecedented times. If he would come out and say "Look, I'm all for climate change reforms, but the global economy just got its **** kicked and markets are confused and reacting slowly. I can't rock the boat right now and families are pinched - expect no policy changes from this admin until we recover fully". How much would that help? I don't know, but it would provide a little more certainty and needs to happen.
But this whole "Biden made the gas go up! Trump made us independent!" is silly.
Just look at the trends over time. Pretty steady since '06, then COVID.
EIA expects U.S. petroleum trade to shift toward net imports during 2022 - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
