Yesterday morning, on the way into Birmingham for business, I saw the above sign at the local Stop and Rob—$1.98 for Regular Unleaded…Cash or Credit. This is not the first time this has happened in my neck of the woods since the Community Organizer retired from the Presidency and took up a new career as a producer of Netflix content. Back in December 2018, after a year of Trump deregulation and the encouragement of fracking, including on Federal leases, the price dropped to $1.94/gallon in my area.

Gas Price, Birmingham Alabama, December 11, 2018. CREDIT Mike Ford/RedState. Used with permission.

Of course with changing demand and other market forces, the price eventually rose, but nowhere near the $4.00/gallon peak during the Obama administration. But again, due to two major factors, fracking on the part of the U.S. companies, coupled with a Saudi attempt to flood the world market and lower the price enough to discourage fracking, the price per gallon once again dropped to $1.99 in February 2019.

Gas Price, Birmingham, AL, February 24, 2019, CREDIT: Mike Ford/RedState, Used with permission

Interestingly enough, that attempt by the Saudis to undercut prices of American fracked oil did drive out some of the smaller U.S. companies, but the ones who remained were able to survive that assault. The companies that did survive were actually able to innovate and develop additional efficiencies in the fracking procedure, thus lowering their extraction costs and pushing back on the Saudis.

During the 2008 Vice Presidential debate, Republican candidate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin responded to a dig by Vice President Biden saying,

“The chant is ‘drill, baby, drill.’ And that’s what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into.”

Palin kept up that mantra throughout the Obama presidency and to the present day. It wasn’t as though she didn’t have adherents. During the 2011 presidential primary season, Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said:

“The day that the President became President, gasoline was $1.79 a gallon. Look at what it is today. Under President Bachmann, you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again. That will happen.”

Of course, President Obama, attempting to cover up his gross economic malfeasance noted

“It was just three years ago that gas prices topped $4 a gallon. I remember because I was in the middle of a presidential campaign. Working folks certainly remember because it hit a lot of people pretty hard. And because we were at the height of political season, you had all kinds of slogans and gimmicks and outraged politicians — they were waving their three-point plans for $2 a gallon gas.  You remember that — ‘drill, baby, drill’ — and we were going through all that. And none of it was really going to do anything to solve the problem. There was a lot of hue and cry, a lot of fulminating and hand-wringing, but nothing actually happened. Imagine that in Washington.”
— President Obama, March 30, 2011

Fast forward to November 27, 2018. Former President Obama attempts to take credit for an energy boom that he did everything but blow up oil derricks to prevent. From National Review Online

I was extraordinarily proud of the Paris Accords because, look I know we’re in oil country and we need American energy. And by the way, American energy production, you wouldn’t always know it, but it went up every year I was president. And you know that whole suddenly America’s like the biggest oil producer … that was me, people.

Read: Obama Claims Credit for Boom in U.S. Oil Production, Praises Paris Climate Accords

So here we are in 2020, assuming an average annual inflation rate of 2.5 percent and a continuation of Obama policies that had no effect good or bad. The $3.52/gallon price of gas in 2009, should be at least $4.76 today. Yet, here we are in Birmingham, Alabama, enjoying Regular Unleaded Gas at $1.98 per gallon. I’d say President Obama owes Governor Sarah Palin and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann an apology. Good luck with that ladies.