Stephen Moore Sounds the Alarm on 'Fuel Mandates and Loopholes'

"Fuel mandates and loopholes are distorting U.S. energy markets and raising costs for consumers," tweets Stephen Moore. "Exemptions should be based on real hardship, not lobbying muscle."

Fuel mandates and loopholes are distorting U.S. energy markets and raising costs for consumers. Exemptions should be based on real hardship, not lobbying muscle.

My latest in @RealClearPolicy:https://t.co/W7HRqGF9cW

— Stephen Moore (@StephenMoore) February 1, 2026

Consumers need relief, not more price hikes. They have had to pay prices that have been on the rise for years, and economic relief to remedy that problem has not yet been fully realized. As a result, consumers have yet to be made whole.

From what have consumers yet to be made whole, it might be asked. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the Consumer Price Index on a monthly basis, with the exception of October of 2025, "Due to the 2025 lapse in appropriations." This collection of figures includes an "All Items" as well as price increases broken down by various commodities, including "Gasoline" and "Fuel oil." A third of all CPI "All Items" recordings in the past 20 years have read at or below 2 percent, 80 of 240 months. All of those were prior to March of 2021. So before then, the CPI results were often, more than 40 percent of that time, at or below 2 percent. Since then, not one time has it been recorded at or below 2 percent. In addition, it has been recorded at very high levels in recent years. The majority of the 2022 recordings were higher than 8 percent, and it was recorded at 9 percent in June of that year. That equals a lot of high and rising prices for consumers to have to pay.

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Grateful Calvin

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The power-hungry, eager to divide the United States of America and use government and whatever other power they can grab their hands on to do it, should not be allowed to suffocate the U.S. economy through various means and ways, such as high taxes, regulations, and spending taxpayer dollars. The U.S. goes forward as the U.S. economy goes forward. It may take some humility to come to that realization, and it may take some serious economic study to understand why. Freedom means freedom, and it can only be considered so when a few are not deciding what goes and what does not.