Neighborhood Ministries

President Biden has been talking up how gas prices are dropping slightly. While he is responsible for the price drop, I wouldn’t be proud of it if it were me. Prices are dropping because people are driving less. They are being hurt by the high price of gas and by inflation, so they are limiting their driving. Gas stations are lowering their prices to encourage people to drive more. President Biden has been draining our oil reserves to bring down oil prices but it is leaving us short on reserves if we face another hurricane like Katrina that shuts down the offshore oil wells. The Canadian pipeline was supposed to provide a backup but President Biden shut that down as well so we have no backup if our oil supply is threatened. President Biden has figured out another way to control the price of gas and that was to extend the time allowed to use fuels containing ethanol.  It creates a lot more pollution than regular gas, so it is restricted in summer when people do the most driving.  Gas with 70% ethanol was promoted in the beginning because ethanol is made from plants which are renewable so we would use less gas but it required that engines be specially made to handle it so it can’t be used in older cars that weren’t made for it. It gained a lot of support from environmentalists concerned about us running out of oil, but they turned against it when they found it created more pollution. Many embraced it because it was 40-50 cents less a gallon until they realized they got a lot less miles per gallon, so it really wasn’t the bargain it appeared to be. I used it for a while because it was cheaper until I found it was actually costing me more for gas every week due to the reduced gas mileage. Not many people use it anymore, so few stations carry it. Some stations use gas with 10% ethanol. There is usually a sticker telling you but most people probably don’t notice it. Overall, it probably won’t have much effect on gas prices and most people won’t realize the reduced gas mileage, so it is mainly a publicity stunt before the elections to make it look like he is trying to solve it in order to counter his failing popularity.