Congressman Krishnamoorthi Urges President Biden To Reduce Gas Prices Through Eliminating Oil Refinery Bottlenecks By Any Means Necessary, Including The Defense Production Act

SCHAUMBURG, IL – Last night, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of the House Oversight Committee wrote to U.S. President Joe Biden expressing his concern about the current shortage of oil refining capacity within the United States and around the world, which has created supply chain bottlenecks and contributed to increasing gas prices for consumers. While oil companies continue to report near-record profits and Americans suffer from unprecedented gas prices, oil companies are sitting on shuttered refineries capable of processing nearly 1 million barrels of oil per day. These refineries were shut down as demand for gas dropped during the pandemic, but they now remain idle, further reducing the supply of gasoline and diesel and driving up prices at the pump. To head off potential fuel shortages and reduce retail gas prices, the Congressman called upon President Biden to use all means necessary to bring these refineries back online, including invoking the Defense Production Act.

"The shortage of refining capacity has exacerbated the supply and demand imbalance in gasoline markets and threatens to cause such severe diesel shortages that it could necessitate rationing over the coming months," Congressman Krishnamoorthi wrote. "New oil wells will not produce oil in time to bring down gas prices this year, but expanding refining capacity could have a very real impact on gas prices in the near-term. We should rightly be concerned about the long-term impacts of increasing oil production as we face the looming, existential threat of climate change, but targeted government interventions to increase refinery capacity in the near-term could help alleviate the current energy crunch without derailing decarbonization efforts."

Congressman Krishnamoorthi's full letter to President Biden is available here.