Campaign

DeSantis on new energy plan: ‘We want to give people relief at the pump’

by Tara Suter - 09/19/23 4:47 PM ET

Florida Governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said on Tuesday that his energy plan aims to “give people relief at the pump.”

“We need to embrace the resources that we have, both in terms of hydrocarbons but also in terms of having an auto industry that makes sense,” DeSantis said in an interview on Fox Business Network. “We’re going to get rid of the EV mandates, so that people can buy the cars they want.”

DeSantis is expected to drop his energy plan on Wednesday. His comments come as the average price for gas hit $3.88 earlier this week, up about 20 cents from a year ago.

In states like California, Washington, Nevada, Hawaii and Oregon, gas prices are well over $4.00, according to AAA data. States like Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina, meanwhile, all have average gas prices lower than $3.50. In DeSantis’s Florida, average gas prices are somewhere in the middle: around $3.70 per gallon.

Gas prices remain lower than they were last June, when the national average was $5.01 per gallon.

“Biden’s energy policy benefits China, Iran, Russia and Venezuela,” DeSantis said. “We’re going to restore energy dominance. We’re going to be so dominant, that all those hostile regimes are going to have a disadvantage and that’s, I think, what the American people want.”

As well as an uptick in gas prices, Florida has suffered record heat in recent months and in late August was hit by a major hurricane. This summer, two major insurance companies left the Sunshine State due to increasing weather risks.

As governor of a state severely threatened by climate change, DeSantis has taken some action to build up Florida’s resilience against rising sea levels. But he has been dismissive of efforts to actively reduce green house gas emissions and, like most of the GOP presidential field, he has mostly shrugged off the issue on the campaign trail even as this year’s slew of extreme weather events has underscored climate change’s impact.