BURLINGAME, Calif. – The fast-rising cost of gasoline has become a primary theme of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign, as he has promised audiences from coast to coast that they will pay $2.50 per gallon for gas under his administration.
It’s a potent pledge at a time when gas has soared past $3.60 a gallon in Georgia and nationwide, according to AAA.
“If you would like to have an American energy policy, never again bow to a Saudi king and pay $2.50 a gallon, Newt Gingrich will be your candidate,” the former U.S. House Speaker from Georgia said Saturday in an energy-focused speech at the California Republican Convention.
But is it just a tailpipe dream? Independent experts – even those supportive of Gingrich’s plans – will not make the same claim.
Jack Gerard, the head of the powerful American Petroleum Institute oil lobby, said he is thrilled with Gingrich’s plan to allow more drilling offshore and on federal land. But in a conference call with reporters last week, asked about the specific prospect of returning to $2.50 gas, Gerard said: “As an industry we wouldn’t predict price, but clearly more supply in the marketplace puts downward pressure on price.”
Gingrich frequently cites the fact that gas cost less than $2 when President Barack Obama took office, which he uses to counterattack those who say his plan is far-fetched.
“I’m not trying to take us to some magic land,” he said last week in Spokane, Wash. “I’m trying to get to a world we can call pre-Obama.”
But that $1.89 a gallon in Jan. 2009 was amid a demand-sucking recession. Gas prices were at an all-time high just a few months earlier, in July 2008 when regular unleaded cost an average of $4.11.
A hypothetical Gingrich administration could preside over $2.50 gas, but not for reasons he would prefer, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service.
“It’s very possible -- if we plunge ourselves into a recession,” he said.
Gingrich’s strategy to reduce prices is based on increasing domestic supply. Even though, as Obama pointed out in his own energy speech last week, U.S. oil production is at an all-time high, it could be higher. Most federal land and coastal waters are off limits to drillers.
Gingrich said as president he will immediately authorize the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Houston, a project the Obama administration recently blocked due to environmental concerns and has become a major political football this year. In addition, Gingrich told the California GOP, he would open up more of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska for drilling with executive orders.
“In three signatures you would have 2.3 million barrels a day of additional energy in the United States – three signatures,” Gingrich said. "So I would say we’re not looking for silver bullets. We’re looking for presidential leadership.”
Charles Ebinger, director of the Energy Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution think tank, said he supports the Keystone pipeline but it will have “no immediate impact” on gas prices. He added that it would take three to five years before opening up new areas to drilling could bring about a meaningful increase in production. And even then, Ebinger said, the real problem with gas prices is domestic refining capacity.
Oil consumption in the U.S. has been flat, while developing markets such as China are booming, so that is where the refineries are going, Ebinger said. And the increased overseas demand is driving up prices.
“We’re not going to go back to $2.50 gasoline for a significant time, if ever,” he said. “Growing demand elsewhere and even in the U.S. if we really came roaring back with the economy getting hot again, then we’d see upward pressure on gasoline prices rather than downward pressure.”
Nonetheless, Gingrich is largely betting his political comeback on $2.50 at a perilous time for his campaign.
His only primary victory came Jan. 21 in South Carolina and he is not contesting the two states voting Tuesday: Michigan and Arizona, where former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum are battling and dominating the national political discussion.
Gingrich is spending most of his time in states that vote on Super Tuesday March 6, primarily Georgia, where he campaigned Sunday and is scheduled to return Tuesday through Thursday. And though his Republican rivals mention gas prices, they have not made them a centerpiece as Gingrich has in recent weeks.
Gingrich debuted the gas prices focus Feb. 13 in the Los Angeles area, when he declared he would reduce gasoline to $2 per gallon. He has since allowed a price hike, telling audiences he can bring the price down to between $2 and $2.50.
Gingrich encourages crowds to donate $2.50 to his campaign online and spread the simple message through social media of “Newt = $2.50 gas.”
He recorded a 28-minute energy speech – with no notes in one take, according to the campaign – that the Gingrich campaign is paying to run on television in its entirety in key states. Macon’s WMAZ will air it March 3. “It means you will have more money in your pocket because at $2.50 a gallon, you can figure out for yourself: What does that save you annually?” Gingrich says in the video.
In Burlingame, Gingrich brought notes as he rebutted Obama’s energy speech Thursday point by point, accusing him of offering a misleading picture of American energy and digging up prior statements about Obama's distaste for fossil fuels.
Gingrich said he supports research into alternative fuels, but it is unrealistic to expect them to take the place of oil anytime soon. Gingrich talked about the Bakken shale oil boom in North Dakota – “it was on private land, and the Obama administration couldn’t stop it” – as one of the new domestic resource discoveries shattering past predictions of dwindling North American fossil fuel reserves.
“We can be the largest oil producer in the world before the end of this decade – bigger than Saudi Arabia, bigger than Russia,” Gingrich said. “We have vastly more resources.”
Former presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Congresswoman, made $2 gas into a campaign plank last summer but none of the other candidates has made a specific price prediction.
Gingrich hopes the pitch will help secure the votes of people like Leslie Barta, of Spokane, Wash., who after a Gingrich rally there said she remained torn between Gingrich and Romney ahead of Washington’s March 3 Republican caucus. She said she likes Gingrich’s ideas, including the price pledge.
“I think that it’s reasonable … we had $1.89 gas when Barack Obama came in,” Barta said. “I don’t think [those] days are passed.”
About the Author
