White House: Task force will work to ensure lower oil prices mean lower gas prices

A Justice Department task force examining potential oil-market manipulation will work to ensure falling oil prices result in lower gas prices, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Friday.

Carney's comments come a day after oil prices dropped below $100 a barrel for the first time since mid-March. Gas prices went down slightly Friday, but the change was very small. According to AAA, the average gallon of gas in the United States cost $3.985 Thursday and $3.984 Friday.

Carney pointed to what he called a “rockets-and-parachutes phenomenon,” in which gas prices soar up like a rocket when oil prices rise, but fall slowly when oil prices drop.

"[O]ne of the things the attorney general task force will be looking at is coordinating with state attorneys general to make sure that we don’t have a what I’ve heard described as a “rockets-and-parachutes phenomenon,” where prices at the pump rocket up when oil prices rocket up, and yet they come down in a parachute fashion when oil prices go down," Carney told reporters en route to Indiana, where President Obama will make a speech on energy policy. "So we want to make sure that a drop in oil prices is appropriately reflected in a drop in gas prices at the pump."

But Carney declined to make any predictions about oil and gas prices.

"We don’t predict markets here, obviously. And we have seen a drop. We have — but they go up and down," he said.

President Obama announced the formation of the oil-market manipulation task force last month.