Program:  Cavuto Coast to Coast
Date:  11/10/2021
Station:  Fox Business News
Time:  12:00PM

NEIL CAVUTO: All right, let’s get to read on all this from Scott Martin. Scott, I’m just wondering, let’s say the administration goes through with plans to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a lot of at least 11 Democratic senators have urged without looking at increasing oil production in this country. Isn’t that like a Band-Aid approach? In the meantime, yeah.

SCOTT MARTIN: Just what I was thinking, Neal. A temporary fix to a long term problem is you and Dan just talked about. I mean, sure, you can tap the SPR and maybe alleviate some of the price pressures that we’re seeing in the holidays. But come January, February, March and beyond, you’re going to see the administration’s attack on fossil fuels, especially oil. So you’re going to still have price problems next year. And you’re right about just the process by which the administration has attacked the pipelines and just driven up price. And we’re starting to see that now come through.

CAVUTO: Let’s talk a little bit about the general inflationary picture oil coming a little bit down today. It’s still eye-popping at more than 82 bucks a barrel gas, now increasingly costing over $4 in some locations over $5 a gallon. How long do you see all of this dragging on

MARTIN: A long time? Because demand is there now, see, that’s the problem. Not only have we had obviously reasons that we mentioned just a second ago about price pressures to the upside, but now we’ve got demand really coming in with the economy fully reopening. So I see Neal some real issues at the pump and some real issues with respect to prices of oil prices at the barrel because you have demand coming back where that’s going to drive up price, even if we do to tap the SPR or actually increase production, which is probably unlikely anyway.

CAVUTO: You know, Scott, I notice in the latest quarter, you know, consumer spending was running at about a one point six percent clip that is down from more than 12 percent in the prior quarter. So it’s very clear that Americans are slowing down a little bit. When does slowing down become nothing? I mean, with no change reversing,

MARTIN: It could be soon. I mean, you see these price pressures with the energy side of things, you see some of the other pressures that we’re seeing at the grocery store. Obviously, consumers are feeling the pinch here, so it definitely could turn into something maybe a little bit more of some sort of malaise, especially with now the Federal Reserve question marks going on with Jay Powell and whether he gets renominated or not, Neil. So therefore, you’ve got some pressures on the consumer now that weren’t there, as you mentioned just even six months ago.

CAVUTO: All right, Scott, be talking to you in a bit. Thank you, my friend.