President Biden reignited his attacks on energy companies Wednesday by demanding they boost refined oil output, but industry leaders said his bombastic rhetoric only exacerbates America’s refining capacity woes that have inflated gasoline prices.
Energy producers and analysts rejected the president’s assertion that high pump prices can be boiled down to the notion refineries are simply sitting on untapped potential.
Amanda Eversole, chief operating officer and executive vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, said industry investments are made over the course of decades, not news cycles.
“Tone matters here,” she said. “Unfortunately, our industry is not something where you can just flip a switch and turn things back on.