Fox Debunks Fox On Winter Heating Costs

Two hours after correctly explaining that home heating costs are rising because of the upcoming winter is predicted to be colder than the last one, Fox pinned the blame for the increase on President Obama.

On Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said: the Obama administration is being blamed for higher heating bills this winter “for refusing to approve the Keystone pipeline or reopen our federal lands” to drilling.

But two hours earlier on Fox & Friends First, Fox Business reporter Lauren Simonetti accurately noted that heating costs are “likely to rise more because of colder weather than higher energy prices.”

According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, colder winter temperatures compared to last year's unusually warm winter are the main cause of the heating cost increase:

The forecast for higher household expenditures primarily reflects a return to roughly normal winter temperatures east of the Rocky Mountains compared with last winter's unusual warmth. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) most recent projection of heating degree days, the Northeast, Midwest, and South will be about 2 percent warmer than the 30-year average (1971 - 2000), but still 20 percent to 27 percent colder than last winter, while the West is projected to be only about 1 percent colder than last winter.

In a Christian Science Monitor report, an energy analyst from the Energy Information Agency explained that increased consumption of heating fuels because of the predicted colder weather will cause demand for heating fuel to increase. By contrast, there have been only “very small changes in price” for the fuels. The Monitor also noted that increased exports from U.S. refiners are playing a role:

US refiners are exporting a large amount of diesel to Europe and Latin America, says Sandar Cohan, a principal at Energy Security Analysis Inc. (ESAI) in Wakefield, Mass. Diesel and home heating oil are closely related from a refining perspective.

“The export demand for diesel has been astronomical,” says Mr. Cohan. “The refineries are pushing hard to meet demand.”

Cohan says the big oil exporters are dipping into inventories to meet demand. Nationally, the inventories of diesel are down by 20 percent compared with last year. In the Northeast they are down by 30 percent compared with last year.

“Inventories are relatively low going into winter,” he says.