Pain at the pump can start with a refinery fire in California, a drone strike in Russia, or a regulation written by someone who never worries about the cost of filling a gas tank. Right now, Americans are paying for all three — and government policy helps determine how much each one hurts. Gasoline and diesel prices reflect the cost of crude oil, the capacity to refine it, and the ability to deliver fuel where it’s needed. Wars, refinery outages, taxes, and regulations can all affect the bill. Government can help keep that system working — or make every disruption more expensive.
That’s why energy independence belongs at the center of the affordability debate.
And it's an issue on which the overwhelming majority of Americans agree.
In a recent nationwide poll, 89% of registered voters agreed that producing domestic energy would help lower prices and give Americans greater control over their economy. Another 78% supported increasing domestic oil production and removing regulations that prevent refineries from converting it into inexpensive gasoline.
To achieve energy independence, we must have sufficient domestic production, refineries, pipelines, storage, and transportation; since oil is traded in a global market, issuing another domestic drilling permit won’t instantly lower the price on the corner station’s sign. But without taking these steps, the price we pay at the pump is quickly impacted by global events. For instance, energy accounted for 60% of the Consumer Price Index spike this spring:
Consumer prices rose 4.2 percent from a year earlier in May, the highest annual reading since April 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Consumer Price Index increased 0.5 percent during the month, matching what economists had forecast. One number explains most of it: Energy accounted for more than 60 percent of the overall increase.
Californians have been living that lesson for years. When gasoline prices surged in 2022 despite falling crude prices, Gavin Newsom blamed “greedy oil companies.” His proposed solution? Another tax. Apparently, making gasoline more expensive to produce was going to make it cheaper to buy.
An actual refinery executive offered Newsom's Energy Commission a more useful explanation: California's burdensome regulations have led to refineries in the state either completely closing or shutting down major units, leaving the supply chain vulnerable to any interruption, even through planned and required refinery maintenance. Pretty simple supply and demand. And it doesn't just affect California.
In October 2025, a fire knocked Chevron’s El Segundo refinery offline as Phillips 66 was already shutting down its Los Angeles refinery. As my coverage explained, Arizona and Nevada and, to a lesser extent, Oregon, also depended on California’s production. Those drivers didn’t have to vote for Newsom to help pay for his policies. Since then, two more refineries have closed in California.
Earlier this year, the Energy Information Administration warned that declining refinery capacity could offset some benefits of lower crude prices, particularly on the West Coast. Cheap raw materials only get you so far when the facilities needed to turn them into usable products keep disappearing.
That capacity also matters when confronting hostile regimes. When Americans depend on fuel supplies vulnerable to hostile regimes, those regimes gain leverage over our economy and our foreign policy. Producing, refining, and moving more energy ourselves makes it harder for them to turn a supply disruption into financial pain for American families. Understanding this, the Trump administration, through both Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Sec. of State Marco Rubio, is targeting the shadow fleet sustaining Iran’s petroleum revenues. Oil prices could go down to $40 or $50 a barrel "on the other side" of the Iran conflict, Bessent said in early September, noting that at that time the Iranian regime only had about 30 million barrels of crude oil remaining outside the blockade to sell. A stronger domestic energy system gives Washington more room to pressure Tehran while limiting Americans’ exposure to disruptions abroad.
Diesel brings the international stakes home. Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries have consequences beyond Russia’s ability to wage war. As President Trump said on October 5,
Leading some to ask the question, why should the U.S. keep exporting diesel when Americans are paying so much for it?
Because stopping exports doesn’t create the storage tanks, pipeline capacity, or transportation arrangements needed to get that fuel to American buyers. As an industry expert explained:
[W]e don't have the midstream capacity to just shut off exports and store/move diesel domestically fast enough to keep from slowing refinery output.
Exports can be throttled enough to redirect some supply to domestic consumers, but best case is half of export production before things start breaking in long term ways.
The refineries are a runaway freight train - hitting the emergency brakes all at once impacts refiner margins, refinery output, crude extraction, lenders, buyers of co-products.
Everyone across the value chain for the molecule has to make an abrupt, expensive pivot - from the upstream crude oil producers, to the midstream logistics providers, to the wholesalers, to the consumers at the pump.
In addition to ensuring we have the necessary infrastructure in place, Congress should either reform the Jones Act or allow targeted waivers of its restrictions on domestic energy shipping in order to cut transportation costs, and take action to limit the types of regulations individual states can place on oil drilling, refineries, and fuel blends.
Americans can’t prevent every refinery fire or control where a foreign leader sends his drones. But we can stop making our own fuel supply more vulnerable through policies that discourage production, close refineries, and obstruct delivery.
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats desperately try to stop it.
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