The writer is managing partner at TWG Global and a former senior adviser to former president Joe Biden
In June 2022, I was serving as the White House’s senior energy adviser when the national average for gasoline prices crossed $5.02 per gallon for the first time in American history. I know precisely what that number does to an administration: the calls, the scramble, the acute political anxiety that descends when a price that every American sees crosses a threshold that feels symbolic as much as economic.