This week, President Joe Biden called on Congress to punish oil companies with higher taxes on their high-price generated profits. Consumers are understandably unhappy with these prices. In turn, loud political persuasion tends to carry the day one week before highly contested midterm elections. Biden would nonetheless be wise to give energy markets more patience and perhaps even a pat on the back.

Just a few months ago, Western leaders — horrified when Vladimir Putin cut off the flow of natural gas to Europe in the wake of his escalated Ukraine invasion — called for massive political action to cushion the serious harm that winter would bring. When Putin closed the valves in September, natural gas prices rose six-fold from the year before. There is little doubt that high heating costs are plaguing hard-pressed Europeans. Still, it is equally clear that the market process and those high prices are beginning to deliver massive improvements. Europe has seen all of its liquified natural gas (LNG) storage locations filled, with fuel-filled tankers stacked at ports waiting to unload. Markets work, and not just in the sense that higher-priced LNG is still much preferred to chopped wood in an open fireplace or no heat at all. The news fortifies the notion that higher prices are a solution to higher prices. Suppliers worldwide responded to profit opportunities, and now the sudden glut is, as one report put it, “sending prices lower and easing fears of winter fuel shortage and rationing.”