Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis participated in a CNN town hall Tuesday in Iowa ahead of the state’s caucuses next month.
The GOP presidential contender — who’s been in a race with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to be the main alternative to former President Donald Trump for the party’s nomination — made some claims that deserve scrutiny.
DeSantis pledged to “open up” domestic energy production “so that you pay less for gas.”
Facts First: As he did on Tuesday, DeSantis’ frequent campaign claim that the US can lower gas prices by producing more domestic oil is misleading.
Under President Joe Biden, US oil production has reached a new record this year, even surpassing output under former President Donald Trump. As CNN has reported, the US currently produces more oil than any other country on the planet, at about half a million barrels per day more than the prior annual record set in 2019.
Prices at the pump in the US are highly dependent on the global oil market and the US cannot be truly energy independent when it comes to gas prices, energy experts have told CNN. Oil is a global commodity; the global price of oil determines US gas prices and it’s simply impossible to separate that price from shifting global dynamics like Russia’s war on Ukraine or OPEC’s recent decisions to cut oil production.
There’s also the fact that the US consumes a different kind of oil than it produces, Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, and a former George W. Bush White House official, told CNN last year. McNally compared the light crude the US produces to champagne, and the heavy crude it imports to coffee. US oil refineries are specifically built to separate out the “heavy and gunky” crude we consume, McNally said.
From CNN’s Aaron Pellish and Ella Nilsen
DeSantis claimed…
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