Grand Canyon Times

An online news portal reported in February, two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, that President Joe Biden "owns" rising electricity prices.

Heisenberg Report, a market and politics news portal founded in 2016, made the assertion in a Feb. 10 Twitter post.

"Biden now owns the second-largest monthly increase in electricity prices in U.S. history," the tweet said.

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. 

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that in 2021, U.S. residential electric customers paid 4.3% more in average nominal retail electricity prices than they had the year prior, the fastest increase since 2008. 

EIA also reported that this past January the average price of electricity in Arizona was 12.37 cents per kilowatt hour, a dramatic increase over the 11.70 cents paid in January of last year, a 5.7% year-over-year increase.

The national index for electricity rose 11.1% over the 12-month period that ended in March, with a 2.2% increase in the index between February to March alone, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index report. The same report over the same period found an 8.5% annual increase on all items, the largest increase in more than 40 years. 

The average residential electricity bill in Arizona is $137.80 per month, according to data from SaveOnEnergy.

A recent national poll by the Senate Opportunity Fund found that six in 10 Americans blame Biden for the nation's ongoing inflation. The poll, conducted March 15-17, surveyed 800 likely voters in this year's national general election, asking them, "Thinking about the job that President Biden has done with regard to inflation, how would you describe the job he has done on this issue?" About 60% of the respondents said Biden has done a poor job, 35% said he has done a good job and 5% had no opinion.

The president blames rising prices in the United States on Russia's war in Ukraine, FoxNews reported last month, as well as the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In a Facebook post April 20, Biden said he knows "that families are still struggling with higher prices."

"I grew up in a family where if the price of gas went up, we felt it," Biden said in the post. "Let's be absolutely clear about why prices are high right now: COVID and Vladimir Putin. Putin's invasion of Ukraine has driven up gas prices and food prices all over the world."