Gas Prices Under Biden: Peak, Causes, and Historical Context

Gas prices under Biden started at about $2.39 per gallon when he took office in January 2021, climbed to a record $5.01 in June 2022, and then eased back to roughly $3.08 to $3.22 by the time he left office in January 2025.¹²³ The swings were driven mainly by forces outside any president’s direct control: a global demand rebound after COVID-19 shutdowns, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a smaller U.S. refining base, and OPEC+ production choices.

The Starting Point in January 2021

The national average of about $2.39 the day Biden was inaugurated was not a normal price. The pandemic had cut U.S. gasoline demand by roughly 40% in the spring of 2020, sending consumption to its lowest weekly level since the early 1990s.⁴ A price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia briefly pushed crude futures below zero in April 2020, and retail gas bottomed out at $1.77 that month.⁵

The low prices Biden inherited reflected economic collapse, not favorable policy. As the economy reopened, prices were always going to rise. What was uncertain was how fast, and how high.

The Climb Through 2021 and Into 2022

Prices moved up steadily through Biden’s first year. The all-grades national average went from $2.42 in January 2021 to $3.49 in November.⁶ Global oil consumption jumped from 93.9 million barrels per day in 2020 to 99.2 million in 2021, outrunning the recovery on the supply side.⁷

Supply was tight for structural reasons too. Six U.S. refineries had permanently closed between 2019 and early 2021, trimming domestic refining capacity by 4.5%, or about 800,000 barrels per day.⁸ The shutdowns reflected pandemic demand destruction, weak margins, and conversions to renewable diesel.⁹ Even when crude was available, turning it into gasoline was harder than it had been two years earlier.

The June 2022 Peak

Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022 hit an already tight market. Brent crude surged past $130 per barrel, and the national average price of regular gasoline reached $5.01 in June 2022, the highest ever recorded by the EIA.² AAA recorded the peak at $5.00 on June 16.¹⁰

Several forces pushed at once. War-related sanctions and uncertainty threatened Russian oil supplies. U.S. refinery utilization was still below pre-pandemic norms as summer driving demand picked up, keeping gasoline inventories low.² The country was operating with 11 fewer refineries than before the pandemic, a gap that could not be closed quickly.¹¹

Diesel spiked even harder, hitting a record $5.58 per gallon in May 2022, a 76% jump from a year earlier.¹² Because diesel moves 83% of U.S. agricultural products, the increase rippled through the supply chain.¹³ Target alone estimated it would absorb about $1 billion in extra fuel costs that fiscal year.

What Biden Did to Try to Lower Prices

The biggest intervention was an unprecedented drawdown of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Starting in March 2022, Biden authorized the release of 180 million barrels over six months, the largest in the reserve’s history. International Energy Agency partners added another 60 million.¹⁴

The effect is contested. A Treasury Department analysis estimated the combined U.S. and international releases reduced gasoline prices by 17 to 42 cents per gallon; a separate methodology put the figure near 38 cents.¹⁴ National gas prices still rose about 68 cents between late March and late July 2022, showing how much global forces dwarfed the release.¹⁵

The drawdown left the SPR at about 347 million barrels in June 2023, down from 588 million at the start of 2022.¹⁶ The administration later repurchased 59 million barrels at an average price under $76, roughly $20 below the average 2022 sale price, and worked with Congress to cancel mandated future sales covering about 140 million more barrels.¹⁷

Biden also proposed a three-month federal gas tax holiday in June 2022, which would have suspended the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal tax through September.¹⁸ Republicans called it a gimmick, and key Democrats worried about the Highway Trust Fund. Congress never enacted it. Several states, including Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Georgia, and Florida, suspended their own gas taxes temporarily, with what Senator Ben Cardin described as “mixed results.”¹⁹ Other measures included expanding sales of E15 ethanol-blended gasoline and a July 2022 presidential visit to Saudi Arabia aimed at boosting output.¹¹

Meanwhile, U.S. crude oil production climbed to record levels, going from under 10 million barrels per day in early 2021 to 13.4 million by mid-2024, keeping the country the world’s largest oil producer.²⁰

The Decline Through the End of the Term

Gas prices fell sharply in the second half of 2022 as refineries ramped back up and demand softened. Gasoline consumption actually dropped below 2021 levels.² The monthly national average slid from $5.03 in June to $3.32 by December 2022.⁶

Prices then settled into a more moderate range. The monthly average moved between roughly $3.26 and $3.96 in 2023 and between $3.14 and $3.73 in 2024.⁶³²¹

Either measure still left gas about 30% to 35% more expensive than on Biden’s first day, well below the 2022 peak but well above the pandemic baseline.

How Much of This Did Biden Actually Cause?

Most analysts land in the same place: presidents matter at the margin, but not nearly as much as the global oil market. OPEC and its allies produce about 35% of global crude and hold nearly all the world’s spare production capacity, giving them outsized influence over prices.²²

Hoover Institution economist David Henderson concluded in a 2022 analysis that Biden was responsible for “somewhat” of the increase, but not most of it. Henderson pointed to a 111% rise in global crude prices between January 2021 and May 2022, driven largely by the post-pandemic global recovery, and noted that Federal Reserve monetary policy, which monetized $2.7 trillion of pandemic-era federal debt, added to broader inflation. He argued that Biden’s signals of hostility toward the fossil fuel industry discouraged long-term investment, while also placing that alongside other governments’ sanctions, OPEC decisions, and Wall Street’s preference for capital discipline over aggressive drilling.⁷

FactCheck.org, reviewing viral posts that compared Biden and Trump pump prices, found the comparisons typically cherry-picked individual months. The average price of regular gasoline across the whole Biden term was about $3.50, versus $2.48 under Trump, but the pandemic suppressed the end of Trump’s term and the Ukraine war inflated Biden’s, distorting any direct read.²³

How Biden-Era Prices Compare Historically

Adjusted for inflation, Biden-era prices were elevated but not unprecedented. The inflation-adjusted annual average in 2022, the worst year, was about $4.25 per gallon, below the inflation-adjusted peaks of 1981 ($4.85), 2008 ($4.89), and 2012 ($5.06). The long-run inflation-adjusted average since 1918 is around $3.61. By 2024, the annual average was $3.19, below that historical mark.²⁴

Among recent presidents, Biden’s nominal average of $3.60 was the highest, followed by Obama’s first term at $3.12 and his second at $2.95.²⁵ Measured differently, though, the percentage rise from inauguration to the three-year mark was steeper under Obama, whose prices were 89% higher at that point than on his first day, because he too inherited a price crash, this one from the 2008 financial crisis.²⁶

The pattern that emerges across Biden’s four years is one presidents on both sides have learned the hard way. When the global market tightens because of a war, a pandemic rebound, or an OPEC+ decision, the White House can nudge prices with releases, waivers, and diplomacy, but it cannot set them. The record high of June 2022 and the drop that followed both happened for reasons that had far more to do with Ukraine, refineries, and worldwide demand than with anything signed at the Resolute Desk.

1
AAA. Gas Prices, January 2021
2
U.S. Energy Information Administration. Gasoline Prices Tend to Have Little Effect on Demand for Car Travel
3
Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Motor Fuel Prices, January 2025
4
U.S. Energy Information Administration. COVID-19 Mitigation Efforts and U.S. Petroleum Consumption
5
NACS. When Were Gas Prices Low
6
U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. All Grades All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices
7
Hoover Institution. What Caused Gas Prices to Jump
8
U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. Refinery Capacity Decreased During 2020
9
Inspectioneering. US Refining Capacity Dropped by 4.5% in 2020
10
AAA. Gas Prices, June 2022
11
NBC New York. Sky-High Diesel Prices Squeeze Truckers, Farmers and Drive Up Costs for Consumers
12
CNBC. Fuel Is a Problem for Business and Consumers
13
USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. Impact of Rising Diesel Prices and Truck-Driver Availability on Food Transportation and Distribution
14
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Treasury Analysis of the Impact of the SPR Release
15
USAFacts. Did Releasing Oil From the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Impact Gas Prices
16
U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. Ending Stocks of Crude Oil in SPR
17
U.S. Department of Energy. Biden-Harris Administration Makes Final Purchase for Strategic Petroleum Reserve
18
The American Presidency Project. Fact Sheet: President Biden Calls for Three-Month Federal Gas Tax Holiday
19
E&E News. Democrats Cool to Biden’s Gas Tax Holiday Plan
20
Politico. US Oil Output Hits Record
21
U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. All Grades All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices, Weekly
22
U.S. Energy Information Administration. OPEC and Crude Oil Prices
23
FactCheck.org. Viral Posts Cite Misleading Economic Data to Compare Biden, Trump Presidencies
24
InflationData.com. Inflation Adjusted Gasoline Prices
25
Forbes. Average Gasoline Prices Under the Past Four Presidents
26
WLRN. PolitiFact Florida: The Biden vs. Trump Economy