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Granite Staters are paying more at the pump, paying double the price for electricity, and are now getting slammed with heating oil costs heading into winter.

And according to the American Energy Alliance (AEA), the state’s top Democrats have done nothing to help. 

New Hampshire’s federal delegation, Democratic Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas, and Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, all scored a “zero” on the 2o21-2022 AEA report card on energy policy.

“All the proof of their rejection of affordable energy policies will show up in the energy bills for people in New Hampshire this winter,” said AEA President Thomas Pyle. “New Hampshire is not California and yet the entire delegation votes for California-style energy policies.”

The energy debate isn’t an abstract one in New England, where ISO New England Inc., has warned that an extremely cold winter could potentially result in rolling blackouts due to lack of supply.

“If we get a sustained cold period in New England this winter, we’ll be in a very similar position as California was this summer,” said Nathan Hanson with LS Power Development, which operates two gas-fired power plants in the region.

The AEA looks at what lawmakers have done to “promote affordable, abundant, and reliable energy,” as well as the steps they have taken to “expand economic opportunity and prosperity, particularly for working families and those on fixed incomes.”

In her debate with Republican Don Bolduc on Tuesday, Hassan was asked for her solution to rising energy costs. She touted her support for green energy spending, government subsidies to help consumers pay the higher prices, and her call for President Joe Biden to release more oil from U.S. reserves. She did not mention increased domestic energy production, and she repeated a debunked claim that “Big Oil” was manipulating energy prices.

Democrats have been scrambling ahead of the midterms to do something about the high prices. This week, Biden announced he was releasing 15 million gallons of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a last-ditch ploy to tamp down prices before people vote. His use of the SPR is being applauded by Hassan and Pappas as they fight for their political lives in tight races.

Hassan signed on to a letter asking Biden to do more, like release oil from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve.

“With lower inventories of crude oil, propane, and natural gas and the continued global disruption caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine contributing to a sharp rise in residential energy costs, we urge the administration to closely monitor the energy needs of the Northeast and release stock from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve,” Hassan’s letter states.

But as The Wall Street Journal reports, the problem isn’t Russia’s drop in exports — just 560,000 barrels a day out of a global supply of 101 million — but “a lack of investment, especially in the U.S., which had been the world’s swing producer.”

“Now the swing producers are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. OPEC countries and their allies, which account for 45 percent of global oil production, accounted for 85 percent of new supply in September,” WSJ reports. That new production cannot come from the U.S., in part because Biden has slashed the number of new oil and gas leases by 97 percent.

Pappas is pushing for more funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program to help people through the winter. But, like Hassan, he has a record of opposing expanded oil and gas production.

Don Bolduc, Hassan’s GOP challenger, said Democrats are hurting the country with short-sighted energy policies that ultimately drive up the cost without addressing the need for energy independence.

“Now, facing the brutal consequences and with a midterm election looming, their only solution is releasing more of our emergency supply of oil, leaving us vulnerable to future supply shocks and whims from evil despots (in Venezuela.) It never had to be this way: America has the resources to power our country right here at home,” Bolduc said. “For those facing tough choices between heating and eating, you’ve got Joe Biden and Maggie Hassan to blame.”

Craig Stevens, spokesman for the GAIN Coalition, blamed Biden.

“With each passing week, it grows more evident that President Biden has no real strategy for lowering energy prices. From Day One, the president has put American energy producers and pipeline operators in his crosshairs,” Stevens said. “Now, with gas prices up 59 percent since his inauguration and electricity prices set to double this winter, every American is dealing with the consequences of his unprecedented hostility to the energy sector.”

Gasoline prices have soared since President Joe Biden took office, setting new records with an average national price above $5 a gallon. Biden and his fellow Democrats, including Sen. Maggie Hassan and Rep. Annie Kuster, blame oil companies and retailers for “price gouging.”

While gas still costs twice as much as it did when Biden was sworn in, the price has been steadily falling for a month. The New Hampshire average on July 17 was $4.55 and the national average was $4.53. Some stations are selling gas below $4 a gallon for the first time since February 2022.

Did Biden’s bullying work? Or has the supply of gasoline recently surged? What is behind the declining prices?

“Honestly, I can’t figure it out,” said Phil Abirached, owner of the Metro Mart Exxon gas station and convenience store in Derry. “I just dropped it another 30 cents a gallon to $4.29, today,” Abirached said on Friday. “It’s mind-blowing. I don’t know why it’s going down 10 cents to 20 cents every day.”

While gas prices are now falling sharply in New Hampshire and across the country, it does not seem to be because of Biden. For example, his recent fist-bumping trip to Saudi Arabia failed to get the oil-rich nation to significantly increase its oil production. 

The reason the price of unleaded gasoline has come down from a high of more than $5 a gallon a month ago to around $4.50 throughout the state is basic economics, experts say: Less demand today, and fears of a recession tomorrow.

“It’s changing, because people are driving less, that’s the big reason behind it,” said John Dumas, former president and CEO of the New Hampshire Grocers Association. “It’s supply and demand, that’s really all it is.”

Chris Ellms, New Hampshire’s Deputy Energy Commissioner, said there is now about as much refined gasoline available for the market as before prices soared. The falling prices are mostly tied to supply and demand.

“No national energy policy changes have led to the decreases we’ve seen recently, not for natural gas or oil production,” he said.

Global issues like the war in Ukraine, higher interest rates, and a stronger dollar, are all factors. But the available gas supply is largely unchanged. When consumption slows down, so do prices.

“A lot of the issues we have been seeing are related to a big spike in demand coming out of the COVID pandemic,” Ellms said. “There was a lot of demand without a corresponding rise in the supply. It’s really a supply and demand connection.”

It was certainly not local gas stations artificially raising prices, despite Biden’s claims. Most gas stations in New Hampshire are small, locally-owned businesses like Abirached’s store in Derry. Far from pushing higher prices, according to Jeff Lenard at the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), higher gas prices drive down local businesses’ profits. That is because stations cut into their own profits in an attempt to soften the price-hike blow.

And gasoline has never been the primary profit center for these businesses.

“Convenience stores, which sell an estimated 80 percent of the fuel purchased in the U.S., rely on in-store sales, not fuel sales, to drive profits,” according to a statement from the NACS. “But high gas prices are hurting customer traffic in stores and ‘basket’ size: Nearly half of all retailers (49 percent) say that customers coming inside the store are buying less compared to three months ago when gas prices were $1.50 a gallon lower.”

And yet New Hampshire elected officials continue to point the finger at the petroleum industry and local retailers. Both U.S. Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas are still pushing a so-called “anti-price-gouging” bill that would allow the federal government to declare an energy emergency and set prices for fuel.

Multiple investigations by both Republican and Democratic administrations have found no evidence of widespread price fixing for gasoline.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports economists fear another gas price spike could be coming this fall.

“Economists across the ideological spectrum warn that the measures the White House is promoting— allowing Russian oil into the global market at reduced prices, taxing oil company “windfall” profits, cutting the federal gas tax—could ultimately aggravate the energy crunch in the United States rather than ease it,” the paper reported. And, it said, when the most serious sanctions on Russian oil take effect later this year, the price of gasoline could surge above $6 a gallon.

Could the U.S. offset the impact by adding to global supplies? According to Reuters, the U.S. does not have the capacity to increase the supply by drilling more oil and gas.

“Capacity for U.S. oil refiners fell in 2021 for the second year in a row, the most recent government data showed (last month), as plant shutdowns kept whittling away on their ability to produce gasoline and diesel,” the news agency reports.

In the end, the price at the pump both reflects and influences the overall economy. Abirached said.

“We all became very aware of where we’re going and where [the economy] is heading. People are asking if it’s worth even turning the car on.”