Analysis: More drilling hasn't lowered gasoline prices
Analyzing 36 years of gasoline prices and U.S. oil production, the Associated Press finds no statistical correlation between how much is pumped out of the ground and how much is paid at the pump.
AP says four independent statisticians came to the same conclusion.
As it was four years ago, the price of gasoline is an issue in the presidential campaign. This year, it's Republican candidates -- notably Newt Gingrich -- claiming that more domestic oil production would lower pump prices. AP writes, "If more domestic oil drilling worked as politicians say, you'd now be paying about $2 a gallon for gasoline. Instead, you're paying the highest prices ever for March."
When you put the inflation-adjusted price of gas on the same chart as U.S. oil production since 1976, the numbers sometimes go in the same direction, sometimes in opposite directions. If drilling for more oil meant lower prices, the lines on the chart would consistently go in opposite directions. A basic statistical measure of correlation found no link between the two, and outside statistical experts confirmed those calculations.
As one energy economist put it: "Drill, baby, drill has nothing to do with it."
