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      ‘Groundswells of change’: Black activists welcome evolution in gun violence debate

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      ‘Groundswells of change’: Black activists welcome evolution in gun violence debateThe Safer Communities Act finally addressed prevention efforts with $250m dedicated to funding violence interrupters In 2013, a month after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, a group of Black pastors and other activists visited the Obama White House to press the administration to do more to prevent gun violence in communities of color.Obama had just released his post-Newtown gun violence prevention plan, which did not include any funding for community violence prevention efforts, and which made no mention of the disparate impact of gun violence on Black Americans.When the clergy members expressed their frustration at the White House’s lack of response, an Obama staffer told them that there was no support nationally to address urban gun violence, and that Americans’ political will was focused on “the issue of gun violence that affected suburban areas – schools where white kids were killed”.Some of those same Black pastors who visited the White House in 2013 were invited back for a ceremony on the South Lawn earlier this week.Senate breakthrough clears way for toughening US gun lawsRead moreCongress had finally passed a modest set of gun violence prevention compromises in the wake of yet another school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. This time, community violence prevention efforts were fully on the agenda, with Congress endorsing $250m dedicated to funding violence interrupters and other community-based efforts.“This is a full circle moment,” said Pastor Michael McBride, the national director of the Live Free Campaign, which works to reduce gun violence and mass incarceration. McBride was one the clergy members who had spoken out publicly about his disappointment with the Obama administration, including then-vice-president Joe Biden, after Newtown.Both Democrats and some Republicans were now willing to dedicate federal dollars to “targeting interventions and resources at those at the highest risk of shooting and being shot”, McBride said.And the $250m in federal funding for community programs was desperately needed, he added: “Many violence interrupter programs in cities are usually funded seasonally, or unevenly, and certainly not to the scale of the problem.”Biden’s speech at the South Lawn ceremony touting the country’s progress in preventing gun violence was interrupted by an objection from Manuel Oliver, who lost his 17-year-old son Joaquin Oliver in the Parkland school shooting in Florida in 2018, and who insisted that more needs to be done.‘Partial victories’For many violence prevention activists, the struggles of the continuing gun violence crisis were balanced against the value of marking the fact that they had made progress. Some activists who have worked for decades on the issue said they saw changes worth noting in political rhetoric and action, from the White House.The Rev Jeff Brown, a Boston-based minister who was one of the collaborators in “the Boston miracle”, a successful effort to reduce gun homicides in the 1990s, was also at the event on Monday, and said it was good “feeling that hope, that you know, we’re being heard”.It had been an “abject disappointment” to Brown in 2013 that the country’s first African American president had, in his view, ignored the calls for more action and funding to prevent daily gun violence.The federal funding for community violence interventions in the post-Uvalde violence prevention compromise bill that Congress passed, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, was “just the start”, Brown said, and “the honest truth is that we really need more”.In his speeches on gun violence, Biden, a longtime booster of police departments, now sometimes highlights the importance of prevention work by violence interrupters, many of whom are formerly incarcerated or have other criminal justice system involvement in their past.To hear the president of the United States legitimize the contributions of violence interrupters is powerful, said Teny Gross, a longtime violence intervention advocate who runs the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago.Eddie Bocagnegra, who worked for years as an outreach worker in the streets of Chicago, has become a senior adviser to Biden’s justice department, an appointment that recognizes the expertise of on-the-ground violence prevention workers with deep ties in the community.“These are groundswells of change,” Gross said.Advocates say the shifts they have begun to see in the gun debate are bigger than the Biden administration. In the past decade, McBride said, organizers have pushed well-funded national gun control groups, which have often been led by wealthier white activists, to raise awareness about community intervention programs, not simply fight for new gun laws. They have also tried to win allies in law enforcement, and convince some police officials that civilian intervention programs can benefit public safety.McBride said there was some progress in reframing the debate, from a “crime and punishment framework”, to a “public health framework”, that is no longer as focused on defining violence as an issue of “personal moral ineptitude”.At the same time, advocates said, the past months have been heavy for anyone working in gun violence prevention. Gun sales spiked during the pandemic. In between brutal mass shootings, a conservative-dominated supreme court dramatically expanded the scope of gun rights, in a ruling that is expected to eviscerate existing gun control regulations.Gross, who runs a violence intervention organization in Chicago, says he feels like the sorcerer’s apprentice in Disney’s Fantasia: the small progress they make is overwhelmed by a situation that has spiraled out of control.Over the Fourth of July weekend in Chicago, the daughter of one of his staff members was shot, multiple staff members were shot on multiple days, and then, on 4 July itself, there was a mass shooting targeting a parade in Highland Park that left seven people dead and 30 others wounded.“We are drowning in guns,” Gross said.Still, Gross said, it was important to take a moment to acknowledge the progress that organizers had made, through years of meetings in church basements, knocking on doors, and flying from city to city across the country.“Organizing – the power of the people – it still works, even if there are partial victories,” McBride said.TopicsUS gun controlGuns and liesUS politicsTexas school shootingNewtown shootingJoe BidenBiden administrationObama administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden defends human rights record ahead of Saudi visit

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      Joe Biden defends human rights record ahead of Saudi visitPresident says he will not avoid rights issues but skirts commitment to discuss Khashoggi murder00:47Joe Biden has defended his imminent trip to Saudi Arabia, saying he will not avoid human rights issues on the final leg of his Middle East tour, despite refusing to commit to mentioning the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi when he meets the kingdom’s crown prince.Speaking during a news conference with the interim Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, in Jerusalem on Thursday, the US leader said his stance on Khashoggi’s killing was “absolutely” clear.US intelligence services concluded last year that Khashoggi’s 2018 killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was approved by the powerful heir to the throne, Mohammed bin Salman. On the campaign trail, the president vowed to turn the conservative Gulf kingdom into a “pariah state”, but the turmoil in global oil markets unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced a U-turn.“I have never been quiet about talking about human rights,” the president said. “The reason I am going to Saudi Arabia though, is much broader, it’s to promote US interests.“And so there are so many issues at stake, I want to make clear that we can continue to lead in the region and not create a vacuum; a vacuum that is filled by China and/or Russia.”Biden embarked on his first visit to the region as president with engagements in Israel on Wednesday, a trip dominated by the threat posed to the region by the growing military capabilities of Iran and its proxies around the Middle East.Joe Biden arrives in Middle East at time of rapid changeRead moreThe Biden administration hopes that Israel’s new relationships with several Arab states – including a gradual warming of ties with Saudi Arabia, which vies with Tehran for regional hegemony – will strengthen a fledgling regional alliance against Iran.After a cursory meeting with Palestinian leaders in Bethlehem on Friday, the president will fly to the Saudi city of Jeddah with the aim of convincing Gulf oil producers to increase supply, as well as lobbying for fully integrating Israel into the emerging regional defence architecture.Iran was top of the agenda for Israeli officials on the second day of Biden’s visit, during which the president pledged that the US was prepared to use “all elements of its national power” to deny Iran nuclear weapons.The “Jerusalem declaration”, a joint communique issued by Biden and Lapid after their meeting, reaffirmed an “ironclad” US commitment to Israel’s security, as well as Israel’s right to defend itself.The two countries, however, continue to disagree on the utility of rescuing the landmark nuclear deal with Iran, abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018. Talks to revive the accord began in April 2021, but have made little progress.The Islamic Republic could still be prevented from enriching uranium to the level needed to manufacture a nuclear bomb, Biden said, and “Diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome”, although the US is “not going to wait forever”.Lapid, on the other hand, said: “The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear programme, the free world will use force.”The Jerusalem declaration offered little to the Palestinians other than a brief reaffirmation of Biden’s commitment to a two-state solution to the conflict. Israel made no mention of the peace process, instead promising to improve the economy and quality of life for the 5 million people living in the occupied Palestinian territories.Biden has declined a request for an audience from the family of the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, who the US state department concluded was accidentally killed by the Israeli army in May.The family, who accused Biden’s administration of siding with Israel by not calling for a criminal investigation, have instead been invited for talks in Washington. Protests demanding justice for Abu Aqleh are planned for Friday morning outside a US-funded hospital in East Jerusalem which Biden is scheduled to visit.Palestinian expectations for Biden’s trip to Bethlehem are low; Washington has not pressured Israel to return to the peace process, nor moved to curb Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank.The administration has also not fulfilled a promise to reopen a US mission to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which was closed by Trump after he recognised the divided city as Israel’s capital in 2017.TopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationIsraelSaudi ArabiaJamal KhashoggiPalestinian territoriesIrannewsReuse this content More

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      Democratic voters say Biden could be doing a lot more for the climate crisis

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      Democratic voters say Biden could be doing a lot more for the climate crisisA Pew survey found more Americans favor stricter environmental laws and regulations – even at an economic cost More than 80% of Democrats think the government is not doing enough to tackle the climate crisis, according to a large nationwide survey that found younger voters across both parties are most frustrated with the pace of political action on green issues.Overall, Americans are largely split along party lines in how they view Joe Biden’s record on pressing climate and environmental challenges like clean water and air quality, according to the Pew Research Center survey of more than 10,000 adults.Just 15% of Republicans think the president’s climate policies are taking the country in the right direction compared with 79% of Democrats.Global dismay as supreme court ruling leaves Biden’s climate policy in tattersRead moreBut worryingly for Biden, whose popularity among his own party has fallen steeply according to recent polls, almost two-thirds of those broadly supportive Democrats think he could be doing a lot more to tackle the climate crisis. As it stands, the US is unlikely to meet its pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as Biden’s climate legislation has been stonewalled by fossil fuel friendly Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and the entire Republican party.The political stagnation is shocking given that 71% of those polled by Pew said their community had suffered an extreme weather event in the past year. This included severe floods or storms (43%), heatwaves (42%), droughts or water shortages (31%), large wildfires (21%), and shoreline erosion due to rising sea levels (16%). Overall, more than eight in ten of those affected by extreme weather believe the climate crisis contributed to the event.The survey was conducted over the first week of May – before the supreme court’s monumental decision limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to set standards and emissions. In another sign that the conservative justices do not reflect the views of most Americans, Pew found that 72% of Americans favor requiring energy companies to use more renewable sources such as wind and solar, while 68% support linking corporate taxes to carbon emissions.The results are an indication of Biden’s struggle to translate rhetoric – he has called climate change “the existential threat to human existence as we know it” – into tangible action. Any hopes of passing significant climate legislation could be essentially snuffed out within weeks if the Republicans come out on top in the November midterms, with dire long-term implications for people suffering worsening heatwaves, droughts, floods and other impacts in the US and overseas.Yet the need for urgent transformative political action could not be clearer. The US was battered by 20 separate billion-dollar climate and weather disasters in 2021, one of the most catastrophic climate years on record, which led to at least 688 deaths, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).After a myriad of dangerous backward steps under Donald Trump, climate action was expected to be a top priority of the Biden administration after the US rejoined the Paris climate agreement and passed a major infrastructure bill with funding for adaptation and renewables.But Biden’s Build Back Better bill, championed as the most aggressive action ever proposed to combat global heating, has been sunk by the opposition of Manchin, who holds a crucial swing vote in an evenly split US Senate.Democrats still hope to scramble about $300bn in clean energy spending in a separate bill before the Senate begins its summer recess in August, after which focus will switch to midterm elections that are expected to go badly for the party. But there is no guarantee Manchin will agree to this, given his objections to support for electric vehicles and a reluctance to do anything that sidelines fossil fuels, an industry in which he is personally invested in via a coal trading company.“If there’s people that don’t want to produce more fossils, then you got a problem,” Manchin said on Monday, citing fears that reduced oil production will further add to inflation.Scientists have said the world must cut emissions in half this decade if disastrous heating is to be avoided, and there is little chance this will happen without swift action from the US. Biden’s administration is now reportedly contemplating allowing various polluting projects, such as a gas pipeline in West Virginia, as well as oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, in return for Manchin’s support to bolster renewable energy.This previously unthinkable trade-off by the White House has dismayed climate activists already critical of Biden’s call for increased oil production to bring down gasoline prices and his failure to meet a campaign promise to halt fossil fuel leases on public land.“Locking in decades of deadly, planet-heating fossil fuels is an outrageous trade that negates the benefits of an ever-weaker climate bill,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Pandering to Manchin has proven disastrous, and continuing to do so will have catastrophic consequences.”Despite Manchin’s fear mongering, according to the Pew survey 53% of Americans believe stricter environmental laws are worth any associated cost to the economy – though this is down from 65% in 2019. On this issue, the partisan divide is actually widening: three-quarters of Republicans say stricter environmental laws would hurt jobs and the economy – up 20 percentage points from 2019. Among Democrats, only 21% have a negative view of stricter environmental laws and regulations, up from 14% in 2019.There is some common ground across the political divide. The vast majority of Americans (90%) say they favor planting a trillion or so trees to absorb carbon emissions to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and 79% favor tax credits to encourage businesses to develop technology to capture and store carbon.But despite record high fuel prices Biden, and whoever succeeds him in the Oval Office, has an uphill battle persuading Americans to give up gas-guzzling cars. Pew found that 55% of people oppose phasing out new gasoline cars and trucks by 2035.TopicsClimate crisisBiden administrationJoe BidenDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Why is US inflation so high – and how long will it last?

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      Why is US inflation so high – and how long will it last? Soaring prices a top concern for many Americans, and likely influencing many voters in a midterm election year Inflation in the US is at a 40-year high – an astounding 9.1% year-over-year, according to a government report released Wednesday.Prices have climbed every month, while consumer confidence has hit record lows. Inflation is now a top concern for many Americans, and is likely influencing many voters in a midterm election year.What is driving this inflation, however, is not new: rather, it is largely the fallout of two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Here is what we know.Why is inflation in the US so high?The Covid-19 pandemic strapped the US economy on to a rollercoaster. In early 2020, nationwide lockdowns caused millions of Americans to be temporarily laid off from their jobs. Then president Donald Trump responded by signing a $2tn aid package aimed at directly helping businesses and individuals, including stimulus checks that put money directly into people’s pockets. It would ultimately be the first of three stimulus packages, together pumping an eye-watering $5tn into the economy.That summer, businesses slowly started to reopen. But it would take another year and a half for the unemployment rate to fall back to where it was before the pandemic, and with wages rising due to a tight labor market, consumer spending started to climb: people wanted new homes, restaurant meals, appliances and furniture.As the demand for goods soared, supply remained constrained – because of the infamous supply chain crisis, which is only just now starting to ease. At the peak of the crisis, ports were clogged with ships trying to dock, containers were falling into the ocean and there was a shortage of truck drivers. The war in Ukraine, along with China’s own coronavirus lockdown in the spring of this year, also played roles in keeping supply tight during 2022. That means higher prices.What sectors are driving inflation?Gas, food and housing prices have all soared, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Year-over-year, gas prices are up 7.5% – though Joe Biden has called the inflation rate “out-of-date”, as gas prices have been falling the last few weeks.Prices have also gone up at grocery stores, particularly for fruit, vegetables and non-alcoholic beverages. Grocery prices over the last year have risen 12.2% – the highest increase since April 1979. Home prices and rent have increased too – up 5.6% compared with last year.How long will inflation last?No one can really predict, nor do we know if it has peaked, because so many factors are at play. Gas prices are going down, it’s true, but it’s unclear whether that will be enough to send inflation downward as well.The Federal Reserve, headed by Jerome Powell, has been aggressive in its response to inflation, raising interest rates twice this year. Early reports indicate that the Fed is looking at yet another three-point interest rate hike at the end of the month.What are the lasting effects of inflation?High, long-lasting inflation is worrisome because it decreases the value of currency, weakening the purchasing power of the American dollar and eroding savings.The Fed’s control of interest rates is its most powerful tool to curb inflation. But it is a tough balancing act, as it risks a recession. A slowdown in investments could have a cascading effect on jobs and spending, though it remains too early to predict any recession – not that that has stopped certain people, and banks, from doing so.And there are some things inflation doesn’t necessarily affect. The unemployment rate has held steady at 3.6% – around the same rate as before the pandemic. And the economy has shown other signs of resilience – particularly in jobs, which grew 372,000 in June.TopicsUS economyEconomicsConsumer spendingFederal ReserveBiden administrationUS politicsexplainersReuse this content More

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      Migrant deaths show Biden needs to change immigration policy: Politics Weekly America

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      At the end of June, authorities in San Antonio, Texas, opened the back of an abandoned truck to find the bodies of more than 50 migrants inside – people who had made the journey across the southern border in extreme heat. The news led to scrutiny, from all sides, of the Biden administration’s approach to immigration, with Republicans saying it was too weak and Democrats, too harsh.
      Jonathan Freedland speaks to Silvia Rodriguez Vega and Pedro Gerson about the steps the US government could take to prevent further deaths at the border

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      Follow Silvia’s work on her upcoming book here Buy tickets for a Guardian live event where John Harris and John Crace discusss the end of the Johnson era Subscribe to The Guardian’s Women’s Football Weekly podcast on Apple, Spotify, and Acast Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

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      Environmentalists condemn Biden administration’s offshore drilling plan

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      Environmentalists condemn Biden administration’s offshore drilling planPolicy would ban new ocean drilling but allow up to 11 lease sales in Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s south coast Joe Biden’s administration on Friday unveiled a five-year offshore oil and gas drilling development plan that blocks all new drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans within US territorial waters while allowing some lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s south coast.The plan, which has not been finalized, could allow up to 11 lease sales but gives the interior department the right to make none. It comes two days after the US supreme court curbed the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to respond to the climate crisis.Environmental groups criticized the plan, and some expressed concern that the administration was backing away from the president’s “no more drilling” pledge during a March 2020 one-on-one debate with Bernie Sanders.Biden at the time said, “No more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore – no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill – period.”Environmental groups also argued that new leasing would impede the Biden administration’s goal to cut carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2030 in an effort to keep global heating under the threshold of 1.5C (2.7F).“President Biden campaigned on climate leadership, but he seems poised to let us down at the worst possible moment,” said Brady Bradshaw, senior oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The reckless approval of yet more offshore drilling would mean more oil spills, more dead wildlife and more polluted communities. We need a five-year plan with no new leases.”Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water Watch said: “President Biden has called the climate crisis the existential threat of our time, but the administration continues to pursue policies that will only make it worse.”On Friday, the interior secretary, Deb Haaland, said she and the president “had made clear our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy”. The department’s proposal, she said, was “an opportunity for the American people to consider and provide input on the future of offshore oil and gas leasing”.California passes first sweeping US law to reduce single-use plasticRead moreThe proposal to sell off 11 leases must go through a series of reviews and a period of public comment that is likely to be contentious. Most of the new leases would be offered in parts of the western and central Gulf of Mexico, far from where legislators have outlawed new drilling near Florida.The executive director of Healthy Gulf, Cyn Sarthou, said the organization was troubled by the apparent change of policy.“Now is not the time to continue business as usual,” Sarthou said. “The continuing threat posed by climate change requires the nation to focus on a transition to renewable energy.”Nearly 95% of US offshore oil production and 71% of offshore natural gas production occurs in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. About 15% of oil production comes from offshore drilling.The proposed leases come after sales in two regions of the Gulf were abandoned because of legal challenges.Advocates for the oil industry welcomed the new proposal, including the Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.“Our allies across the free world are in desperate need of American oil and gas,” Manchin said in a statement. “I am disappointed to see that ‘zero’ lease sales is even an option on the table.”One of the proposed new leases could be granted in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, an area that is already highly vulnerable to the effects of climate breakdown. “This decision is incredibly disappointing in the face of ongoing climate impacts that are already being deeply felt by our community around Alaska,” said the advocacy director at Cook Inletkeeper, Liz Mering.Mering added: “Alaskans have worked to ensure that Lower Cook Inlet remains this incredible place for our fisheries and tourism industry, which support a thriving local economy. Thirty-three years after the horrific Exxon Valdez disaster, Alaskans still remember and recognize the risk of more oil fouling our waters, killing our fish and hurting Alaskans.”The proposal came a day after the administration held its first auction of onshore lease sales, drawing bids of $22m from energy companies seeking drilling rights on about 110 square miles of public land across Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.After the sale, the Western Environmental Law Center attorney Melissa Hornbein said: “Overwhelming scientific evidence shows us that burning fossil fuels from existing leases on federal lands is incompatible with a livable climate.”TopicsBiden administrationJoe BidenOilGasUS politicsCommoditiesClimate crisisnewsReuse this content More

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      A quarter of Americans open to taking up arms against government, poll says

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      A quarter of Americans open to taking up arms against government, poll saysSurvey of 1,000 registered US voters also reveals that most Americans agree government is ‘corrupt and rigged’ More than one quarter of US residents feel so estranged from their government that they feel it might “soon be necessary to take up arms” against it, a poll released on Thursday claimed.This survey of 1,000 registered US voters, published by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics (IOP), also revealed that most Americans agree the government is “corrupt and rigged against everyday people like me”.The data suggests that extreme polarization in US politics – and its impact on Americans’ relationships with each other – remain strong. These statistics come as a congressional committee is holding public hearings on the January 6 insurrection.This deadly attack on the US Capitol stemmed from the false, partisan, pro-Donald Trump belief that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election. Rioters attempted to thwart certification of the election, in an effort to keep Trump in office.Although the violent insurrectionists targeted Republicans and Democrats alike, GOP Trump loyalists have insisted that the committee is illegitimate. These attacks on the committee intensified after Trump staffers themselves – including former attorney general Bill Barr – publicly described his efforts to push “the big lie” that the presidential election was stolen.The survey indicates that distrust in government varies among party lines. While 56% of participants said they “generally trust elections to be conducted fairly and counted accurately”, Republicans, Democrats and independents were dramatically split on this point. Nearly 80% of Democrats voiced overall trust in elections, but that number dipped to 51% among independents and a mere 33% of Republicans.Per the poll, 49% of Americans concurred that they “more and more feel like a stranger in my own country”. Again, this number reflected sharp political divisions: the sentiment was held by 69% of self-described “strong Republicans”, 65% of self-described “very conservative” persons, and 38% of “strong Democrats”.Of the 28% of voters who felt it might soon be necessary “to take up arms against the government”, 37% had guns in their homes, according to the data.One-third of Republicans – including 45% of “strong Republicans – hold this belief about taking up arms. 35% of independent voters, and 20% of Democrats, also agreed, the poll said.Meanwhile, those polled voiced negative sentiments about persons from opposing political parties. Seventy-three per cent of self-described Republican voters agreed that “Democrats are generally bullies who want to impose their political beliefs on those who disagree,” and “an almost identical percentage of Democrats (74%) express that view of Republicans”.“While we’ve documented for years the partisan polarization in the country, these poll results are perhaps the starkest evidence of the deep divisions in partisan attitudes rippling through the country,” said the Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducted the survey in May with and Democratic pollster Joel Benenson.The survey also stated that almost half of respondents expressed averting political talk with other people “because I don’t know where they stand”. One-quarter described losing friends, and a similar proportion claimed to have avoided relatives and friends, due to politics, per the survey.TopicsBiden administrationRepublicansDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden’s proposed federal tax cut on gas could cost dearly in the future

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      Biden’s proposed federal tax cut on gas could cost dearly in the futureExperts warn cutting the 18 cents will take a toll on highway upkeep and cause prices to rise further when the holiday ends America’s hard-pressed drivers may be about to receive a holiday. On Wednesday Joe Biden called on Congress to suspend the federal tax on gas and diesel until September as the country struggles with soaraway costs at the pump. But experts warned the tax holiday is unlikely to have a major impact on prices and will probably further harm the US’s already battered roads and bridges. If the tax cut even gets passed.Biden’s ‘cursed presidency’: gas prices are latest headache as midterms loomRead moreBlaming Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the surge in gas prices Biden proposed cutting the 18-cents-a-gallon federal taxes on fuel until September and called on states to cut their gas taxes too. “Together, these actions could help drop the price at the pump by up to $1 a gallon or more. It doesn’t reduce all the pain, but it will be a big help,” said Biden.The tax cut’s first obstacle may be its last. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, called the plan an “ineffective stunt” and other critics in his own party may join Republicans in blocking any cut.But with prices still soaring and midterm elections looming the administration is increasingly looking for ways to spare the public from prices at the pump, currently averaging at just under $5 a gallon.The non-partisan Tax Foundation called the plan a “uniquely ill-suited policy for addressing rising prices”. Pointing out that the money from the tax is the primary funding source for highway construction and its suspension could cost $10bn in funding.“Anything that could help the price at the pump is good, but it’ll come at a significant cost to the federal government that supposedly uses that money for the highway fund to maintain highways,” said Mark Finley, fellow in energy and global oil at the center for energy studies at Rice University.US energy economists also warn that dropping taxes on gasoline – a similar program has been suggested in the UK and other countries – does not address the fundamental issues of high demand.In a February report, the committee for a responsible federal budget found a federal gas tax holiday could “further increase demand for gasoline and other goods and services at a time when the economy has little capacity to absorb it”.“Gas prices are high because supply and demand are tight in the US and around the world both for oil and refined products. The prices are a signal that producers should produce more and consumers should consume less. You don’t fix the problem and you may exacerbate it, if you try to hide those signals,” said Finley.Moreover, prices may surge when the tax is lifted, according to a study released from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier this year, Maryland introduced a month-long gas tax holiday. The study found that prices rose when it expired and the tax may have cost the state $100m.Other states have tried similar measures. New York suspended its 16-cents-a-gallon tax this month for the rest of the year. Others, including Georgia, Florida and Connecticut, are cutting the tax but for shorter periods. California may send $400 to every registered vehicle owner.The debate over energy prices threatens to become one of the most contentious of the election season. This week, Exxon Mobil said global oil markets may remain tight for another three to five years, largely because of a lack of investment since the pandemic began. Biden has responded to rising prices at the pump – and a decline in his approval rating – by lobbying Opec+ countries, which include Russia, to accelerate production increases.Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia next month to ask the kingdom to turn on the spigots. But studies indicate that the Saudis are themselves at the limits of current capacity. The venture comes with a political cost, undercutting the administration’s commitment to renewable energy and an election pledge to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state after the murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Other measures that the administration has undertaken to reduce energy costs, including releasing millions of barrels of crude oil from the strategic petroleum reserve and greater ethanol blending, have not turned the tide on rising prices. According to Ed Hirs at the University of Houston’s department of economics, Biden’s actions, including a stern letter to refiners to produce more gasoline and diesel, will not keep the average price at the pump from reaching $6 by September.The debate over energy has in a sense been misframed, said Hirs. “We don’t see lines at the pump, there is no shortage of oil, all we see is a higher price and that’s in essence because Opec wants a higher price,” Hirs says.The message to the US consumer is equally blunt. After 2008, when oil hit $147 a barrel, US automakers had to accept government bailouts as the consumers jumped away from gas-guzzling SUVs and pick-up trucks.“If the war in Ukraine continues we could easily see the same thing by this time next year,” Hirs predicted. “We have to think of this in a different way. A lot of folks in the west think we’re entitled to gasoline and diesel, in the same way we’re entitled to iPhones. But we haven’t operated the economy like that.”Put plainly, there’s little the administration can do. “We’ve reached a point where supplies of gasoline, diesel and crude oil are below our five-year averages, so it appears we’ve been exporting as much as we can,” said Hirs. “As long as the conflict, really between the US and Russia, persists, the EU nations will be additional buyers. So the fellow in London looking to fill his car, and the woman in France, are competing with someone on I-95.”TopicsOilUS politicsBiden administrationanalysisReuse this content More