Most companies don’t go telling consumers that their product is too expensive – but that’s exactly what the energy industry is doing. Reverse psychology is an interesting phenomenon, and most people are aware when people try it on them. Yet that is one way to describe the newest trick the energy industry is trying to pull on the American people. Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-funded oil-industry front group, is embarking on a bus tour to remind everybody that gas prices are very high – and that President Obama and too much regulation are to blame.

It’s a novel strategy: find a straw man to bear the brunt of consumer frustrations, so that the energy industry seems like it’s on their side. Then, they will be able to make a populist argument to eliminate regulations, encourage pro-corporate policies and increase their profits. Brilliant!

However, the AfP and their energy-industry funders must be crossing their fingers, hoping that Americans don’t understand the way the oil market actually works. The reality is that because gas prices are dependent on the price of oil, and oil is priced and sold on a global market, less regulation – or more domestic drilling for that matter – wouldn’t help significantly bring down prices at the pump, especially in the short term. What it would do is make oil barons such as the Koch brothers even richer.

Speculation is the likely real cause of high prices, but you won’t be hearing about that on AfP’s tour. A new Think Progress investigation shows how heavily involved the Koch brothers are in artificially manipulating oil prices – and surely they would like to keep it that way. And just a couple of weeks ago, Rep. Elijah Cummings and the other Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a report on the increasing role of speculation on rising gas prices.

If Americans really want relief from high gas prices, we should demand a different narrative from AfP and their “drill, baby, drill” creed. The pain at the pump is too severe for another self-serving bus tour.