As oil prices continue to rise in the shadow of the war with Iran, Americans can expect the cost of all kinds of products to slowly increase, according to experts. By Friday, crude oil prices were approaching and for Brent crude exceeding $100 a barrel, with gas prices averaging around $3.91 nationwide, according to AAA.
Those increases will have an impact across the economy, according to Heather Boushey, a professor of practice at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, but they’ll impact those with low incomes the hardest.
“Oil shocks have historically had an outsized economic impact—one that Americans are already starting to see,” she said.
Boushey emphasized that no sector of the economy is completely immune to oil price increases caused by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran. From the price of nitrogen fertilizer that impacts corn prices to the price of shipping that influences costs for all consumer goods, the longer the crisis continues, the greater impact consumers will feel in their pocketbooks, she said.
In the past, fuel price shocks have often led consumers, businesses and governments alike to think more deeply about investments in renewable energy.
“This tends to be a trend when gas prices are going up, that tends to drive more interest in purchasing or leasing electric,” said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank.
Signs of that dynamic are beginning to emerge internationally, Jacquez said, with storefront visits to electric vehicle dealers already increasing in Asia, where price shocks from the Iran war are more pronounced.
So what is holding back a renewable and EV surge across the U.S.? Fossil fuel misinformation may be partly to blame, said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
“There is a massive and very concerted campaign in which the Trump administration is a major participant to falsely convince the public that electric vehicles, clean energy are all more expensive,” Whitehouse told Inside Climate News on Friday.
Whitehouse said the suggestion that fossil fuels are cheaper than renewable energy is part of a propaganda strategy to prevent the adoption of energy sources that would diminish the bottom line of Trump’s major donors.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the White House claimed without evidence that green energy sources are “too unreliable and unaffordable” to support America’s energy infrastructure.
