Ron DeSantis vows to lower gas prices: Even though there’s no way the president can set gas prices, presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’ energy plan has been released, including a promise of $2 gas.
Ron DeSantis and the Gas Question
Presidents often get blamed when gas prices go up, whether they’re George W. Bush, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden.
While actions taken by presidents can have limited effects, presidents do not set gas prices, which are typically dependent on global factors, whether it’s the price of oil, wars, or weather emergencies that affect supply and demand.
But that hasn’t stopped various presidential candidates from making promises about gas prices. Newt Gingrich, when he ran for president in 2012, promised “$2.50 gas,” even authoring a book called “$2.50 a Gallon: Why Obama is Wrong and Cheap Gas is Possible Now.”
Gas prices would get down below $2 a gallon, during Obama’s presidency in fact, in late 2015, with the average remaining below $3 for a few years, into the Trump era. The average went below $2 a gallon again during the depths of the pandemic, as oil demand slipped down to historic lows, although it has risen since, due to everything from the Russia-Ukraine war to cut production in Saudi Arabia to the return of demand as the pandemic receded.
Now, one presidential candidate is taking a page from the Gingrich playbook and offering a specific gas price as a campaign promise.
Bloomberg News this week obtained presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’ proposed energy policy, which is “laser-focused on reducing gas prices and energy costs.” The Florida governor, later in the day, laid out his energy plan in a speech in Texas, as reported by CNN. The speech was delivered, the CNN report said, in front of two oil rigs.
The goal is $2 a gallon gas by 2025, the report said. It will also entail pulling out of global climate pacts, building more pipelines, doing more drilling, and “end all commitments for the country to cut net greenhouse emissions to zero.”
Ron DeSantis would also roll back electric vehicle subsidies, which have been a key Biden Administration priority.
The winner of the 2024 presidential election will become president in 2025, making that goal fairly immediate.
“As your president, I will restore our freedom to fuel. I will ensure that the United States of America is the dominant energy producer in the entire world. I will ensure that this country does not have to rely on hostile nations for its energy needs ever again,” DeSantis said in the Texas speech on Wednesday.
Both Bloomberg and CNN noted that DeSantis will participate in fundraisers during his trip to Texas.
The governor also railed against what he called “climate change ideology.”
The Problem With the Ron DeSantis Gas Plan
CNN noted that Ron DeSantis’ promise to bring down gas prices is “a lofty goal that would be tested by international complexities that typically drive oil prices.”
In order to achieve any of that, however, DeSantis would have to win, and all indications are that he is far behind in the Republican nomination contest. According to the most recent Morning Consult tracking poll, released earlier this week, the Florida governor remains in a distinct second place, with 13 percent support, more than 40 points behind Donald Trump. The poll also has DeSantis far behind President Biden in a hypothetical head-to-head presidential matchup.
A report this week by The Daily Beast stated that Trumpworld is beginning to “move on” from DeSantis, no longer seeing him as a threat to the former president’s march to another Republican nomination.
“He still comes up in conversation, but the fire is gone because he’s already toast,” a Trump adviser told the publication in reference to DeSantis. “It was fun nuking him, though.”
Politico also wrote this week that Trump is moving to put his Florida rival’s campaign in the “coffin,” with more planned visits to the early caucus state of Iowa.
Author Expertise and Experience
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Stephen has authored thousands of articles over the years that focus on politics, technology, and the economy for over a decade. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
