More Drilling Won’t Shield U.S. Consumers From Oil Price Shocks

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Another month, another distressing Consumer Price Index report. As the war in Iran drags on, inflation in the United States is remaining stubbornly high, driven in large part by…

Haley Zaremba is an energy journalist and researcher with more than a decade of professional experience covering global energy systems, land and natural resources, and…

Another month, another distressing Consumer Price Index report. As the war in Iran drags on, inflation in the United States is remaining stubbornly high, driven in large part by sky-high food and energy costs. Overall, prices rose four-tenths of a percent over the last month, and are expected to finish the year at a four percent increase as compared to 2025 – a blistering increase that reflected itself at the polls in last week’s midterm elections, where a blue wave has largely been viewed as a rebuke of Trump, his war in Iran, and his policies’ overall impact on the economy.

At the same time, despite relatively strong jobs numbers, wages have remained stagnant. “That paints a dreary picture for Americans struggling with high costs, who likely won't feel any relief at the pump in the near future — especially as more potential military action looms [in Iran],” Business Insider reported in response to October’s Consumer Price Index report. “For everyday Americans, all of these international strains amount to what is, essentially, a pay cut,” the article goes on to say.

In an interview with PBS News, Austan Goolsbee of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago spoke with a high degree of concern about the persistence of inflation in the economy, indicating that ongoing impacts from the war in Iran are to be expected – especially where high energy prices are concerned – but says that other impacts, such as high prices from tariffs, should have faded by now. And, worryingly, they simply have not.

“Now, what we have been dealing with is a series of shocks – some from oil prices, some from tariffs, now some from the demand side, and a lot of those things were supposed to go away,” Goolsbee told PBS.

The demand-side issues that Goolsbee refers to include the mounting issue of skyrocketing energy demand to power the…

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