Gas prices have been rising over the last several weeks. According to AAA, the national average is currently $3.67 per gallon.

During Donald Trump’s presidency, the average price of gas was $2.57 a gallon. Its peak during Trump’s term was $2.81. Indeed, of the last four presidents, only Trump and George W. Bush saw average gas prices stay below $3 a gallon.

When Joe Biden first took office on January 20, 2021, the national average was $2.39. But it didn’t take long for things to change. From day one of his presidency, Biden embarked on an anti-fossil fuel agenda that not only sent pump prices skyrocketing but also raised America’s energy prices across the board.

Beginning with his day one executive order canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, Biden has handicapped America’s energy industry and ushered in his extremist and nonsensical “green energy” agenda.

Recently, the Institute for Energy Research released a list of the “200 Ways the Biden Administration and Democrats Have Made it Harder to Produce Oil & Gas.” If anyone needed further evidence that Biden is indeed seeking to hurt America’s fossil fuel industry, here it is. As the report bluntly states, “President Biden and Democrats have a plan for American energy: make it harder to produce and more expensive to purchase.”

Headlining Biden’s energy malfeasance has been his use and abuse of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The SPR currently sits at roughly half the volume it was when Biden took office. And Biden depleted it for purely partisan reasons.

Biden drained it “for political reasons, and it’s long overdue to fill the SPR back up,” argued Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma. “Like many other politically driven decisions from this administration that distort energy markets, the government will have to spend more taxpayer money than if it had rational energy policies.”

Ed Longanecker, president of the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association, echoed Sgamma’s views. Biden is “embracing insanity by putting the green agenda ahead of our families and our national security,” he said. “Only in Joe Biden’s head does it make sense to lower costs by raising fees.”

Now, with Iran’s recent attack on Israel and tensions in the Middle East rising, U.S. energy independence is not merely a nice thought. It’s increasingly becoming a necessity. As Texas Oil & Gas Association President Todd Staples points out, “With so much uncertainty in the world, the need for reliable, responsibly produced energy from a stable trading partner has never been more crucial.”

Biden is harder on American oil producers than he will be on Iranian ones.

The trouble is Biden’s stubborn and myopic crusade to force-feed his green pipe dream to the nation. The only thing that has slowed down the insanity has been GOP lawmakers in Congress and Republican-led states pushing against the Biden administration’s systematic destruction of America’s reliable energy future.

So, as prices at the pump continue to rise, remember that it doesn’t have to be that way. Trump proved that.