Earlier this week, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain sent out a tweet hailing the Biden administration for overseeing the highest domestic oil production in U.S. history:
Lots of assertions on this website about why gasoline production is not keeping up with demand, but here’s a fact about US oil output: pic.twitter.com/VP0Rf95eP8
— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) June 12, 2022
“Here’s a fact.”
So the Biden administration thinks more oil is good now? We can’t keep up!
Anyway, as it turns out, there’s no point in trying to keep up. Because Klain and the Biden administration are lying to us. Shocker, we know.
Good lord
That graph is a textbook case of lying with statistics
— The H2 (@TheH2) June 15, 2022
Textbook:
New: Contrary to White House claims, domestic oil production was far higher under former president Trump. In fact, domestic oil production was higher in November of *last* year than in March — a month after Russia invaded Ukraine.https://t.co/1VLwnmRNze
— Joe Gabriel Simonson (@SaysSimonson) June 15, 2022
More from the Washington Free Beacon:
The claim from Democrats that domestic production is higher now than during the Trump administration is based on a comparison of four-year averages that includes the tremendous drop in economic activity at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Domestic oil production under Biden has yet to come close to the pre-pandemic levels reached under the prior administration, a more detailed Free Beacon analysis found.
The Free Beacon analysis of domestic crude oil production data shows that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States produced just under 13 million barrels of oil per day at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020. For comparison, that figure is more than 20 percent higher than the amount of oil the United States produced per day in September 2021. Energy industry expert James Wilson, who runs an oil and gas economics consulting firm, says the White House is abusing statistics to fit a narrative.
“You can claim anything with statistics,” Wilson told the Washington Free Beacon. “When COVID hit, the price of oil dropped and then production dropped. Surprise, surprise.”
The White House’s insistence on repeating the oil production claim bolsters the impression increasingly held by the public and some Democrats that the Biden administration is out of ideas to tackle rising prices. Even as the cost of gas skyrockets, the White House is sharing a months-old graph from liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias, a symptom of an office “defined by insularity,” as Politico has described it.
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You mean blaming high gas prices on the “Putin price hike” isn’t playing well with an increasing number of Americans? Go figure!
Joe, thank you for doing @GlennKesslerWP's job for him.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) June 15, 2022
the origin of their claim is literally a chart made by matt yglessias's intern
— Joe Gabriel Simonson (@SaysSimonson) June 15, 2022
That definitely tracks.
There are lots of reasons for the decline in production over the last two years, but a White House presenting misleading statistics is indicative of an unserious plan to lower the cost of gas.
— Joe Gabriel Simonson (@SaysSimonson) June 15, 2022
Well, these are not serious people.
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