Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said there was a “good chance” gas prices will be lower in a few months.
Host Kristen Welker said, “Are you confident that gas will be back under $3 a gallon by the busy summer travel season, Mr. Secretary?”
Wright said, “There’s a very good chance that’ll be true. You know, there’s no guarantees in war. The timeframe’s still not entirely clear. But I think that’s certainly a goal of the administration and very possible.”
Welker said, “Well, the price of a barrel of oil closed above $103 on Friday. And the Iranians are warning of prices hitting $200 a barrel. Mr. Secretary, should Americans be bracing for, should they be worried that this war will actually drive the price of oil above $200 a barrel?”
Wright said, “So Iran for 47 years has called the United States ‘the Great Satan.’ So, because they call us ‘the Great Satan,’ I don’t think we are ‘the Great Satan.’ In fact, clearly we’re not. So I don’t listen much to Iranian projections of what’s going to happen.”
Welker said, “Is that a no?”
Wright said, “I would pay no attention to what Iran says. But there is a lot of energy that flows through the Strait of Hormuz. And depending upon the timing and the manner in which this conflict comes to an end, we’re going to see some elevated pricing until we get there. Where it’s going to go? We have done many, many actions to mitigate that price rise. You saw the announcement of a coordinated release of 400 million barrels of oil, with over 30 nations participating. We’ve had allies in the Middle East that moved oil overseas before the conflict started. Heck, we just announced yesterday bringing on a meaningful amount of oil production in the State of California from off-shore that California has fought foolishly to prevent new American oil to go into their own state. And we said, ‘Enough is enough.’ And we’ve got new oil production coming on in California. So lots of actions we’re taking to mitigate this price rise.”
Follow Pam Key on X @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.