GREENSBORO, N.C. — Americans continue to feel pain at the pump as nationwide gas prices average $4.22 a gallon. In Greensboro, the current average is $3.94 a gallon.
To help ease the pain, President Biden announced Thursday that he will tap into the country's massive oil reserve. He's ordering the release of one million barrels of oil per day from the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This will continue for the next six months. Biden said it will bring gas prices down 10 to 35 cents a gallon.
Todd McFall is a professor in the department of economics at Wake Forest University. He said tapping into the reserve will only help consumers in the short term.
"Anytime you can have a little increase in supply, prices are going to fall,” McFall said. “It's going to help households become a little more comfortable with their budgets, but at the end of the day we just need more petroleum out there, and given the bottleneck we see from the conflict in Ukraine it's not going to happen."
In addition to bringing gas prices down, McFall said the decision to tap into the reserve could help Biden politically. Especially with Mid-term elections coming up in November.
"Biden needs to reach out to the public and be able to say, ‘Look I know that you're hurting right now,” McFall said. “‘I am doing what I can to help you. Please come vote for Democrats in the Fall. I'm here to help you, you can remember what I did with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.’"
This release of one million barrels per day marks the largest reserve release in U.S. history. Biden released oil from the reserve in November of 2021. In the days following the release, the average price of gas dropped two cents and the relief did not last long.
