Gas Has Never Cost More on Labor Day — $4.14 a Gallon, With Diesel at a Record $5.85 — and Asked on CNN Where Prices Go Next, the Energy Secretary Says "I Don't Want to Have an Opinion on That"
Americans paid more for gasoline over Labor Day weekend 2026 than on any Labor Day on record. AAA put the national average at $4.14 a gallon heading into the holiday — nearly a dollar above a year earlier and well past the previous Labor Day record of $3.82 set in 2012 — and diesel hit an all-time high of $5.85 on Friday, September 4. Before the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, gas was $2.98. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has collapsed since, U.S. refineries are running at 98 percent of capacity, and Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries have tightened the world diesel market. Energy Secretary Chris Wright made the rounds of all four major Sunday shows on September 6 to argue that relief is coming. On CNN's "State of the Union," Dana Bash reminded him he had said five months earlier that prices had peaked and asked whether they could rise further; Wright answered, "Well, I don't want to have an opinion on that," before allowing that "if I had to guess, they're more likely to go down than go up." On ABC he said, "Yes, they're higher today, but we're doing everything we can to push them down," pointing to November futures about 35 cents below the pump price. On CBS he called prices "headed downward" a "not unreasonable expectation," and on Fox he blamed California's fuel standards and said the Navy "is winning that battle" in the strait. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox on Saturday that diesel prices were about "Russia and Ukraine" and that "it's only President Trump who's trying to drive these prices down." Democrats spent the weekend pinning the record on the war. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted that "$5.84 a gallon for diesel is a new all-time high. Donald Trump and JD Vance own this." Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said New Yorkers "will be paying record high prices this Labor Day weekend" because of "Trump's reckless war in Iran" while "all this administration is focused on is bombs, ballrooms, and billionaires." Trump himself, in August, had asked Americans to accept paying "a tiny, little bit more" so that "a very evil country" could not get a nuclear weapon. The midterms are nine weeks away, and polling puts approval of the president's handling of inflation in the mid-20s.
“It's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done. Remember that. It's a little more. Frankly, even if it was a lot more. But that's going to come tumbling down.”