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Browse major news stories and see what officials have said.

Sep 24, 2026· Updated

Diesel Hits a Record $6.51 and Farm-State Republicans Tell Trump to Stop Exporting It — Chuck Grassley Posts That Prices "ARE KILLING FARMERS INCOME," Trump-Backed Senate Nominees in Iowa and Michigan Say the Iran War "Needs to End," John Cornyn Calls a Ban "a Gimmick," and Trump Says "I've Called for It Within My People"

The national average price of diesel reached a record $6.51 a gallon on September 21, 2026, up roughly 80% on the year, as the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, together with the war in Ukraine, cut refinery output and fuel shipments worldwide. Iowa diesel passed $6.50 and Michigan reached $6.81. Farm-state Republicans have spent the past week pressing President Trump to embargo U.S. diesel exports to keep more supply at home. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) filed two bills on September 17, one banning diesel exports through January 2027 and one that would trigger a ban whenever the national average tops $5. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on September 15 that he was "open to exploring it," and later that the export ban "makes probably more sense to me" than suspending the federal gas tax. On Saturday, September 19, Sen. Chuck Grassley posted that "High diesel prices ARE KILLING FARMERS INCOME" and asked why Trump didn't embargo diesel the way 1970s presidents embargoed farm exports. On Monday, September 21, two Trump-backed Republican Senate nominees, Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa and former Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, each called for a diesel export pause and a gas-tax suspension, and each said the Iran war needed to end. Hinson has voted against every House resolution to halt the war. Their Democratic opponents, Josh Turek and Abdul El-Sayed, answered that the two were reversing themselves weeks before the election. Oil-state Republicans and the administration's own energy officials pushed back. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas called a ban "a gimmick," Sen. Lisa Murkowski said it "doesn't really move the needle," and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the administration would consider one only "if we thought that actually might lower prices, but that's not the case." Refiners and analysts warned that the United States already produces more diesel than it uses, so a ban could glut the Gulf Coast while prices rose elsewhere. Then on September 22, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Trump said he had pushed for a ban inside his administration, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration was "examining" whether it was feasible.

“We are working with the industry … to increase the supply of diesel … without using blunt instruments. … Nobody wants a full blanket ban or zero exports of diesel. … What's being discussed is what's the most efficient way to get more diesel into the United States.”
Chris Wright (R-CO) · Sep 24, 2026

Sep 16, 2026· Updated

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.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Sep 16, 2026

Eight Months After U.S. Troops Seized Maduro, Trump Announces "THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY" — a 100-Year Lease on 65 Billion Barrels of Venezuelan Crude

On Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, President Trump announced on Truth Social that the United States had "secured majority US control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer" — calling it "THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY." As described by the administration, the arrangement covers 17 oil fields across Venezuela's main petroleum basins. A newly formed private company — the U.S. government partnering with a private operator the White House has not named — receives 100-year development rights. The United States takes what officials describe as 55 percent effective output, comprising an ownership stake plus the right to buy oil at cost, with the crude earmarked for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and military use. The administration projects roughly $100 billion in private investment into Venezuela's oil industry and more than $209 billion in tax revenue for Caracas. Trump said the deal "more than doubles American oil reserves" and "will substantially lower gas prices for all Americans." Trump said the agreement was negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth with Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodríguez, who called it a "historic milestone in bilateral relations." Rubio called it "a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people." The announcement lands roughly eight months after the January 2026 U.S. military operation that captured Nicolás Maduro and flew him to the United States to face narcoterrorism charges — an operation Congress never authorized, and one Democrats had argued from the start was about oil. Their reaction on Friday was to say the deal proved the point. Sen. Chris Van Hollen wrote that "this isn't a win," calling it "proof Trump put our service members at risk to get Venezuelan oil for his billionaire buddies." Sen. Tim Kaine, of the Foreign Relations Committee, said "Using our troops for a private oil grab is corruption at epic scale!" Republicans framed it as vindication: Sen. Bernie Moreno said that "if it were up to DC Democrats, Maduro would still be in power." Neither Trump nor Rubio disclosed specifics of the arrangement — the identity of the private operator, the production timeline, or who bears the cost of rebuilding Venezuela's degraded oil infrastructure. Major U.S. producers have kept their distance: ExxonMobil's CEO said earlier in 2026 that Venezuela was "uninvestable" in its current state, and ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips both remain wary years after their assets there were expropriated.

“The United States did no cost, zero cost to American taxpayers, but we’re going to get massive amounts of discounted oil price and ownership interest.”
Chris Wright (R-CO) · Sep 6, 2026

Aug 28, 2026· Updated

The Government Has Paid Nearly $4 Billion to Kill Offshore Wind — and $900 Million of the Latest Settlement Goes Straight to a Private Equity Firm Run by a Trump Donor Who Lives Near Mar-a-Lago

On August 6–7, 2026, the Trump administration announced a $1.22 billion settlement with the German utility RWE. In exchange for the money — drawn from a federal fund — RWE gave up offshore wind leases off New York, California and Louisiana, roughly seven gigawatts of planned capacity, and agreed to reinvest the proceeds in oil, gas or nuclear "conventional energy." It was the latest in a series of buyouts, beginning with a roughly $1 billion deal with TotalEnergies in March 2026, that has now cost taxpayers close to $4 billion. On August 27, 2026, reporting revealed where most of the RWE money is going: $900 million of it will buy a stake in a Louisiana LNG project from Stonepeak, the private equity firm co-founded and run by Australian billionaire Michael Dorrell. Dorrell owns a mansion near Mar-a-Lago and gave a combined roughly $1 million to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee after the 2024 election. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, who had already called the settlements "an insane waste of taxpayer funds and a ridiculous charade that seems to be blatantly illegal," said the Stonepeak connection "now adds the stench of corruption," and said he would expand his existing investigation to cover it. The White House called the reporting "a brazen attempt to insinuate a conflict-of-interest that does not exist," and the Interior Department said "no one at the Department directed which company RWE was to invest in." The buyouts were already under scrutiny. In June 2026, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James led a seven-state lawsuit calling the arrangement a "pay-not-to-play scheme." In July 2026, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) led fourteen senators — including Schumer, Schatz, King and Heinrich — in an investigation of the deals. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called the buybacks "an enormous money pump, pulling billions of dollars out of consumers' pockets." Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended them, saying Americans "deserve an energy system built on common sense, not one dependent on costly subsidies."

“The Trump Administration’s backroom buyout with Golden State Wind to stop offshore wind development in favor of gas and oil drilling is, unfortunately, a classic playbook for them to line the pockets of their Big Oil donors.”
Rob Bonta (D-CA) · Aug 28, 2026

Administration Admits in Court It Canceled $7.6 Billion in Clean Energy Grants Based Solely on Recipients’ States Voting for Harris

In a July 15, 2026 filing in a class action lawsuit, the Trump administration acknowledged that the Department of Energy sent the Office of Management and Budget a list of more than 600 grants recommended for cancellation drawn from recipients in states that Kamala Harris won in 2024 and that are represented by two senators who caucus with Democrats. OMB terminated 284 of those grants in October 2025, totaling roughly $7.6 billion across hundreds of clean energy projects. The filing stated the terminations were made "based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state." Affected projects were located in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. The admission contradicted repeated public assertions by Energy Secretary Chris Wright that the cuts were routine "business decisions" about whether projects were a good use of taxpayer money. Democrats seized on the filing when it was reported on July 25, accusing the administration of weaponizing federal spending to punish voters in states that opposed the president.

“Money "to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled."”
Russell Vought (R-VA) · Jul 25, 2026