The Magical Gas-Price Knob

      It doesn't exist.  The President of the United States -- any President -- has no direct control over gasoline and oil prices.  Oh, they can release some from the Strategic Reserve (the oil equivalent of government cheese); they can signal greater or lesser friendliness to the oil industry, and that nearly always divides neatly along party lines.  But prices are driven by global production (OPEC being a huge player, and a friend to no one but itself) and global demand, with Red China being the biggest net importer of oil.  Domestic production and demand affects price, of course; but it's not the only driver and can be swamped by external factors.  And we're driving more these days; with the pandemic in decline, more people are traveling, business has picked up and we're burning more gas and oil.

      Want cheap gas?  Hope that OPEC gets hungrier for dollars and China continues their draconian COVID-19 lockdowns as the more-infectious Omicron variant tears through that country.  Hope the war in Ukraine is brought to a swift end; while boycotts of Russian petroleum have some effect on price, I strongly suspect the tendency of countries to increase military fuel reserves when war is in the air has considerable impact, too.

      But don't look for any magical Presidential gas-price powers.  They don't exist.  Presidents love to take credit when prices are low and evade blame when they are high, but it's like Buster Keaton expertly creating the impression he is starting or stopping a freight train by sheer muscle power: no matter how convincing it looks, that's not how things really work.  Correlation is not causation.