White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein said on Sunday he expected gas prices to continue falling through the end of July but cautioned that he couldn’t predict the cost too far into the future.
“Nobody can see reliably around the corner when it comes to those prices falling a couple of quarters away,” Bernstein, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, told CNN “State of the Union” co-anchor Dana Bash.
Gas prices had peaked at more than $5 a gallon before falling in recent weeks to a national average of $4.53 as of Sunday, according to AAA.
But an internal Treasury Department analysis, reported by The Washington Post, indicates that a planned partial ban of Russian oil shipments to European Union countries set to take effect on Dec. 5 could send the price of oil soaring 50 percent above today’s levels. Bernstein on Sunday cast doubt on that projection.
“I would say, really don’t pay a lot of attention to those forecasts, because it’s just too much volatility,” Bernstein said. “What I can say is that I think it’s very likely that gas prices continue to track down, say for the rest of this month.”
Meanwhile, annual inflation ending in June soared to a nearly 41-year high of 9.1 percent, with a surge in oil prices helping drive the increase.
The Biden administration has cast the report as “out-of-date,” noting the recent drops in both oil and gas prices that the report did not factor in.
“We have more work to do in that space,” Bernstein said on Sunday, adding that President Biden does not view the recent drop as a “mission accomplished.”
“But it gives Americans a little bit of breathing room at the pump,” he said.