Grading PolitiFact: Fred Upton and "rising gas prices"

Context matters -- We examine the claim in the full context, the comments made before and after it, the question that prompted it, and the point the person was trying to make.
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

 The issue:

Right away one wonders:  Is Upton saying the bill will "help" stop rising gas prices (top) or is he saying saying the bill "will" stop rising gas prices?  Doesn't PolitiFact detect a difference?

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Bill Adair:  editor

Analysis:

The question that arose from the title blurbs is magnified and expanded right away in the following story:

To hear Reps. Fred Upton and Ed Whitfield talk about their new energy bill, you'd think it will prevent gas prices from increasing before your next fill-up.

Upton, the Michigan Republican who chairs the influential Energy and Commerce Committee, and Ed Whitfield, the Kentucky Republican who heads the Energy and Power subcommittee, recently argued in a letter to fellow lawmakers that one way to stop rising gas prices would be to pass the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 (H.R. 910).

PolitiFact views the statement from Upton and Whitfield as claiming that prices would pretty much immediately freeze with passage of the bill.

I'll try to interpret that as hyperbole.  Which, of course, leaves the ambiguity from the title blurbs intact unless the hyperbole explanation falls apart.

PolitiFact:

The bill grows out of longstanding frustration by industry groups and lawmakers who believe that Environmental Protection Agency regulations unnecessarily burden many companies.

The measure -- which Whitfield’s subcommittee approved on March 10, 2011, and which now heads to the full committee -- would prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases for the purpose of addressing climate change.

The above two paragraphs represent an oasis of accuracy.  It's always nice to run across such things in a PolitiFact story.

Now for the nuts and bolts of Upton's claim and the associated fact check.  PolitiFact uses three paragraphs to quote material from the Upton/Whitfield letter.  The quotations contain ellipses, so rather than quoting all three paragraphs I'll instead quote directly from the letter, using yellow highlights to identify the portions quoted by PolitiFact:

Concerned About High Gas Prices?
Cosponsor H.R. 910 and Make a Difference Today!
March 8, 2011

Dear Colleague:

We write to draw your attention to a recent Rasmussen Poll indicating three-quarters of Americans believe this country does not do enough to develop its own oil and gas resources. This finding should come as little surprise to lawmakers – for the past two years, the Obama Administration has engaged in a destructive campaign to embargo our own domestic fossil fuel supplies from ourselves. Whether through greenhouse gas regulation, permit delays, or permanent moratoriums, the White House takes every opportunity to decrease access to safe and secure sources of oil and natural gas.

Gasoline prices have climbed dramatically over the past three months. American consumers deal with this hardship every day, and as this poll indicates, the majority of respondents do not see the pain subsiding anytime soon. Americans also understand the realities of supply and demand as it relates to oil prices. Unfortunately the White House does not.

Each time this Administration has had an opportunity to open up sources of oil and gas, it has refused, and relied on alternative policies that do nothing to increase American-made energy supplies. This is evidenced by recent calls by some Administration officials, possibly out of desperation, to open up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to calm prices. Curiously enough, the 727 million barrels in the SPR attracts the attention of some policymakers while the 50 billion barrels of oil currently off-limits in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Alaska’s North Slope and outer continental shelf, and Rocky Mountain Basins are conveniently ignored. Another significant oversight includes the stalled approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would bring over a million barrels a day from Alberta’s oil sands and North Dakota’s Bakken formation to U.S. consumers. These facts, however, are not lost on the 76% of American consumers who understand more production should occur in this country.

It is time for the Administration to listen to the American people. While the President recently called oil “yesterday’s energy,” American consumers realize their cars, trucks, and livelihoods will depend on oil and gas for the foreseeable future. Arbitrarily denying access to North American reserves does not usher in green technologies – it only hampers job creation, compromises energy security, and pushes us closer toward the point at which the price of oil sends the economy into another recession.

This poll has a message for the President which we can help deliver. In coming weeks, we will scrutinize the Administration’s energy policies and priorities. We will develop legislation to responsibly unleash our resource potential. And we will hold the Administration accountable for the cavalier nature in which it holds American jobs and energy production hostage.

H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, is the first in this legislative series to stop rising gas prices by halting EPA’s Clean Air Act greenhouse gas regulations. As one small refiner testifying before the Committee on Energy and Commerce put it: “EPA’s proposed [greenhouse gas] regulations for both refinery expansions and existing facilities will likely have a devastating effect on… all of our nation’s fuels producers…. If small refiners are forced out of business, competition will suffer and American motorists, truckers and farmers will be increasingly reliant on foreign refiners to supply our nation’s gasoline and diesel fuel.”

We, along with Reps. Rahall and Peterson, have taken the first steps in attempting to restrain this regulatory overreach that will restrict oil supplies and cause gasoline prices to rise. If you wish to join us, sign up as a cosponsor H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, by contacting Katie Novaria with the Committee Staff at 6-0056. Stop rising gasoline prices today.

Note immediately how PolitiFact's version of Upton's argument is supported by by a pair of thin reeds.  The hook in the title does hint at an immediate effect on gas prices.  But that implication dissolves in the broader context of the letter.  The use of Upton's next-to-last paragraph to emphasize the attempt to "stop rising gas prices" likewise ignores the surrounding context--especially the paragraph that follows.  The portion PolitiFact quoted does imply that the legislative series holds the promise of stopping any rise in gasoline prices.  The subsequent paragraph, also considering the letter as a whole, clarifies Upton's intent as dealing with those policies of the administration that encourage a rise in gasoline prices:  "We ... have taken the first steps in attempting to restrain this regulatory overreach that will restrict oil supplies and cause gasoline prices to rise."

PolitiFact cannot plausibly claim that its evaluation considers the full context including "the comments made before and after it" along with "the point the person was trying to make."

The failure to follow its own standards does not bring PolitiFact's fact check to a screeching halt:

But can the bill really stop gas prices from going up, as the letter says?

We’ll look at two key questions. Could the proposed EPA regulations on oil refineries actually increase prices at the pump? And when would the impact of the regulations be felt?

PolitiFact finds that its experts disagree on the first question.  The final ruling ("False") apparently means that those experts who thought the EPA regulations would increase gas prices had their opinions ignored for purposes of the "Truth-O-Meter" reading.  The story claims there is "no certainty" that gas prices would go up because of the regulations.  That's true.  Space aliens might come to our planet and share an easy way to make many trillions of gallons of gas out of old toothpaste dispensers.  Gas prices would drop like a rock.  As to how other factors keep the EPA regulations from encouraging higher gas prices, that will remain a PolitiFact mystery.

PolitiFact:

As for the second question -- when any impact might be felt -- the rules wouldn't take affect (sic) for months or years.

I suppose that's relevant if we're still trying to insist that Upton was saying gas prices would immediately freeze.  That angle remains desperately in need of supporting evidence in light of the full context of Upton's letter.

PolitiFact:

Another factor: the regulations targeted by the House bill are new ones. So if the House bill passes, it would essentially protect the status quo -- not take any explicit action to stop price hikes.

Again, this is worrying at the straw man's leg.  The point of Upton's letter is not an immediate reduction in present-day gas prices, but the rescinding of Democratic Party policies that encourage higher prices for gasoline.

This supposed fact check reads like Democratic Party apologetics right up through the conclusion:

So where does this leave us?

While Upton and Whitfield's letter is carefully worded, it frames the argument for the bill in the context of today’s trend of rising gasoline prices. Yet the impact of the bill -- if there is an one -- would be years away. And there's no proof that the law would actually stop gas prices from rising. The added regulations now being planned may hamper U.S. refiners, but the international free market could just as easily end up keeping refining costs low. And it’s hardly assured that any changes in refining costs -- up or down -- will influence gasoline prices, which are subject to a wide array of influen(c)es. We find their claim False.

Jacobson is incorrect that the letter "frames the argument" in terms of today's rising gasoline prices.  The argument is framed repeatedly in terms of policies that will have the future effect of increasing gas prices if nothing is done to mitigate those effects.  Accordingly, noting that the effects may be "years away" is irrelevant.  Upton doesn't need "proof" that the law would stop gas prices from rising.  He just needs a reasonable expectation that the policies would have that effect and the experts PolitiFact ignored affirmed that.

The grades:

Louis Jacobson:  F
Bill Adair:  F