Prices hit the $4.50 benchmark late on Tuesday morning, according to Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, a website that tracks real-time price data from more than 150,000 gas prices nationwide. Gas has not been this expensive since July 2022. 

The price of crude oil is the largest determining factor in the cost of gasoline at the pump. Global oil prices have fluctuated with the back-and-forth news on the war and attempts to broker a long-term peace. On Tuesday afternoon, the global benchmark Brent traded at about $110 per barrel, while the standard U.S. crude price (WTI) sat above $102. Oil has been on an upward swing since mid-April when initial peace talks failed. 

The increasing gasoline prices are a daily sign for Americans of the cost of war, as Iran has restricted tanker passage through the Strait of Hormuz. This week, cracks started to show in the ceasefire deal that started on April 8. The U.S. struck six small Iranian boats and Iran attempted to strike ships under U.S. protection in the strait, according to the U.S. Central Command. Despite efforts to unleash more oil supply, the price trajectory remains largely dependent on the outcome of the war. 

“The longer the Strait remains closed with very little chance of it reopening in a significant way, the more I think oil prices will continue to go up,” De Haan told Straight Arrow.

How is the US trying to open the Strait?

On Monday, U.S. officials announced Project Freedom, an effort to use the U.S. military to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. 

In a social media post, U.S. Central Command said ”2 U.S.-flagged merchant vessels have successfully transited through” the strait, assisted by “U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers.” 

The status of the two merchant vessels is unclear. Straight Arrow analyzed marine traffic data from global analytics platform Kpler and did not identify any U.S.-flagged commercial ships that crossed the Strait of Hormuz on May 3 or May 4. In an email, U.S. Central Command declined to provide further information. 

Naval escorts were one of the first solutions proposed by President Donald Trump in early March. At the time, experts told Straight Arrow that the risk-averse shipping industry would be hesitant to take up the offer. Two months later, the same dynamic holds true. 

Global shipping groups including the United Nations-backed International Maritime Organization had previously advised vessels against attempting to cross the Strait, even after the ceasefire was announced. Since the announcement of Project Freedom, the IMO and related organizations have not revised their public guidance for ships. 

“Shippers are probably not going to jump at the opportunity,” De Haan said. Even the promise of U.S. military support “doesn’t change the risk calculus.” 

Where is the shift in gas prices? 

Since the war began, De Haan estimates that Americans have spent at least $24 billion more on gasoline, compared with what they would have paid with steady prices. While some of that is normal seasonal price swing, De Haan said about 85% of it can be attributed to the war-induced oil supply shock.

In half of the country, $4.50 prices for gasoline are already everywhere. The West Coast leads with average prices over $6.13 per gallon in California, according to data from AAA. But increases are hitting the entire county, and according to De Haan’s analysis, about 14 states from the Midwest to the South are driving the latest increase. 

However, some relief may be in store around the Great Lakes region where problems at a refinery have been resolved. The increased refining capacity should — barring more upheaval in the Persian Gulf — translate to a 20-40 cent drop from Wisconsin to Ohio, according to De Haan. 

Those decreases could help keep the national average steady for a few days, De Haan said.

Round out your reading

• First, it was the schools. Now they’re coming for your cellphone at work.
• Why one of America’s top economic forecasters is worried about a recession.
• AI companies may not be adhering to their own guidelines — with potentially deadly outcomes.
• Data centers are a thorny issue for Democrats. Maine shows us why.
• We’re building a new Straight Arrow. Help us shape our future by taking our survey.

Maine became the first state to pass a moratorium on building new data centers through its Legislature. But in the 11th hour, Gov. Janet Mills vetoed the bill. Four days later, Mills dropped out of the race to be the Democrats’ nominee for the U.S. Senate. 

Mills was already down in the polls and losing the fundraising battle to the more left-leaning challenger Graham Platner, a Marine Corps veteran and oyster farmer. The decision to veto the data center moratorium did not lead to Mills dropping out, but it did “perhaps foreshadow” it, according to Andrew Rudalevige, a professor of government at Bowdoin College. 

“She could easily have played up signing the bill to the pro-Platner left, but instead went with her notion of centrist locally-centered politics,” Rudalevige said, in an email to Straight Arrow. “It did show the limits of what she was willing to do to campaign in a primary electorate that had already decided to roll the dice on a complete unknown.” 

The data center fight is playing out well beyond Maine. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed a national moratorium on data center construction. Supporters of a moratorium often cite concerns about the environmental impact of water use and air pollution, and the potential for increased consumer electricity bills. Opponents argue that full-on moratoriums are too broad and could jeopardize local tax revenue and jobs. Often, those are union jobs, which heightens the tension with a core Democratic constituency. 

Backlash to the data center boom

Electricity demand projections show how rapidly the tech industry wants to construct data centers to create and run AI systems. 

A forecast from BloombergNEF at the end of 2025 estimated that data centers will need 106 gigawatts of power by 2035. That’s more than twice the all-time peak power demand for the entire state of California. 

Most data centers are in the development and construction phase, with proposed projects in nearly all corners of the United States. Data centers’ reliance on gas power plants for electricity and water for cooling computers has triggered backlash from environmental groups. And local communities often oppose projects in their area. 

READ MORE: A data center is moving into a small town. Residents say it will ruin their history

Half of Democrats polled in January said data centers are “mostly bad” for the environment, according to the Pew Research Center. In December, 230 environmental groups pushed for a national moratorium on data centers. 

“We cannot sit back and allow a handful of billionaire Big Tech oligarchs to make decisions that will reshape our economy, our democracy and the future of humanity,” Sanders said while introducing a national moratorium on data centers co-sponsored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

Moratoriums are intended to be temporary, allowing lawmakers to pass regulations that can put guardrails on data center development and use of resources. 

Maine’s moratorium fallout

In Maine, the data center moratorium was opposed by Maine Building Trades, a union representing construction workers across the state, according to the Bangor Daily News. 

In an announcement of her veto, Gov. Mills mentioned a specific project in Jay, Maine, a town of fewer than 5,000 people. The closure of a mill in 2023 led to the loss of over 100 jobs, but for the past two years, local officials have worked to bring a $550 million data center project to the site, according to Mills’ office. 

READ MORE: It’s not just data centers. Cities are fighting back against detention centers, too

“I believe it necessary and important to examine and plan for the potential impacts of large-scale data centers,” Mills said in a press release, but because of the project in Jay, she was unwilling to support a full moratorium. The Jay project is expected to create 800 construction jobs and 100 permanent positions. 

The national picture

The national construction union, North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), has been supportive of data center development. In April, the group representing 3 million workers signed an agreement with Oracle and OpenAI to have union labor build a 1.4-gigawatt data center in Michigan. 

NABTU president Sean McGarvey said the agreement is “an important step for our industry and for America’s AI future,” adding that it should become a “national benchmark for how data centers should be built.”

Sanders, who is often viewed as among the most pro-union members of the Senate, has faced pushback from organized labor over his proposed data center moratorium.

United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters General President Mark McManus said Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez “would rather punish the hardworking American workers who build our nation’s infrastructure than work with all stakeholders to craft common sense regulations.” 

Both NABTU and the plumbers union endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024. 

As the midterm elections come ever-closer, the issue of data centers is becoming more prominent in Americans’ daily livesThe moratorium push started with a city in Missouri, and continues at the local level, with Seattle as the latest example. In total, at least 13 states besides Maine are now considering such legislation.

Round out your reading

• First, it was the schools. Now they’re coming for your cellphone at work.
• Why one of America’s top economic forecasters is worried about a recession.
• AI companies may not be adhering to their own guidelines — with potentially deadly outcomes.
• Data centers are a thorny issue for Democrats. Maine shows us why.
• We’re building a new Straight Arrow. Help us shape our future by taking our survey.

The now 11-member OPEC bloc has historically exerted control on the global economy by either expanding or holding back oil production. Its members include Saudi Arabia, Iran, other Gulf states, Venezuela and several African countries. The UAE’s decision to leave after nearly 60 years of membership reflects frustration with production quotas and a calculated wager that the window for maximizing oil revenues is closing fast.

Why now?

For years, the UAE’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s dominant force, has been increasingly strained. The two countries have backed opposing forces in Yemen, and they compete economically for tourism and regional investment between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. 

The UAE’s departure from OPEC was “discussed behind closed doors for several years,” according to an article by William Weschler, senior director of Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council. 

The Iran war turned an inevitable decision into an urgent one. 

"The war suddenly made job one for the UAE: 'Take the money and run,'" Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University who served on the UAE's Financial Advisory Council, told Fortune. 

The UAE has invested billions of dollars to grow its production capacity from 3 million barrels a day to a target of 5 million by 2027. But under OPEC's quota system, it was allowed to produce no more than 3.2 million barrels per day. Although not all forecasts agree, many projections of global oil demand have shown a plateau in the 2030s, which gives the UAE motivation to maximize its oil profits sooner rather than later. 

During the war, Iran has repeatedly attacked the UAE, while simultaneously choking off the Strait of Hormuz, through which most of the Emirates’ oil exports flow. When the strait eventually reopens, the UAE — freed from OPEC's production ceiling — will be positioned to rapidly ramp up exports.

What does a smaller OPEC mean?

The UAE was second only to Saudi Arabia in terms of spare production capacity — the idle output that can be brought online quickly to respond to supply shocks and stabilize prices. Its departure "removes one of the core pillars underpinning OPEC's ability to manage the market," leaving the cartel “structurally weaker,” Jorge León, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, told CNBC.

The exit is exposing fractures that go beyond one country's frustrations. Iraq and Kazakhstan have historically exceeded their quotas, while Iran, Libya and Venezuela have been exempt from them entirely — fueling resentment among members that have played by the rules. Some experts see the UAE’s exit as an event that could trigger a larger fracture in OPEC and possibly more departures. 

Other non-OPEC regions are also in ascendance. The U.S. is a top oil producer, and it's now exercising control over Venezuela. And from Guyana to Greenland, the oil industry's footprint is growing, as companies look for new supply outside the Gulf states, further diminishing OPEC’s influence. 

“World markets both in oil and economies are teetering right now because of the unpredictability of the Strait of Hormuz,” said Robert Price, CEO of Greenland Energy Company, a Texas-based company with rights to drill 70% of a major oil basin in Greenland. The company plans to drill its first wells in October.

“We might be a solution not only to U.S. energy security but also European energy security,” Price told Straight Arrow. 

Round out your reading

• First, it was the schools. Now they’re coming for your cellphone at work.
• Why one of America’s top economic forecasters is worried about a recession.
• AI companies may not be adhering to their own guidelines — with potentially deadly outcomes.
• Data centers are a thorny issue for Democrats. Maine shows us why.
• We’re building a new Straight Arrow. Help us shape our future by taking our survey.

Plus, gas prices top $4 and keep climbing. The Iran standoff is tightening supply and hitting drivers where it hurts.

And a selfie taken just minutes before the chaos. New filings reveal what the suspected gunman did before rushing the White House Correspondents’ dinner.

These stories and more highlight your Unbiased Updates for Thursday, April 30, 2026.

House clears path for ICE funding, unlocking billions for enforcement

House Republicans are one step closer to unlocking billions of dollars to fund immigration enforcement. The House voted late Wednesday to adopt a budget framework, setting up a path to fund ICE and Border Patrol without Democratic support.

The plan could free up about $75 billion for those agencies using a process that only requires a simple majority in the Senate. 

The vote was close and messy. Lawmakers kept it open for hours as Republicans pushed through internal disputes before finally passing it along party lines. 

Democrats oppose the funding without new restrictions, pointing to recent deadly incidents involving federal agents.

Now, Republicans can move forward on a final bill. President Donald Trump wants it on his desk by June 1.

This marks just the initial step toward ending the partial shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, which has now lasted over 10 weeks.

Oil prices hit wartime high amid Iran standoff

Oil prices have spiked as Trump doubles down on his military blockade against Iran. Brent crude jumped above $125 a barrel overnight — a new wartime high — before easing back, though it still held well above $100.

In the U.S., the national average for gasoline has climbed to about $4.30 a gallon, the highest in nearly four years.

This comes as Trump warned Iran it “better get smart soon.”

According to NBC News, his national security team has presented multiple options as Iran continues to disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. But the president is holding firm, saying the blockade will remain in place until Iran agrees to a deal addressing its nuclear program.

"Well, the blockade is genius, okay? The blockade has been 100% foolproof. It shows how good our Navy is, I can tell you that. We're not going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon, and we've knocked out their Navy, we've knocked out their Air Force. We've knocked out their anti-aircraft. Everything, apparatus, everything they have, their radar. They have very little left. And they have some missiles, a small percentage. They have a small percentage of missile-making facilities. We've knocked out about 80% of them; the rest could come very quickly, if we don't make a deal."

— President Donald Trump

Iran warned it will not tolerate the blockade and said it will respond if it continues.

Meanwhile, the USS Gerald R. Ford heads home after a record deployment of more than 300 days, and American officials said it will leave the region in the coming days.

Plus, new tensions with Europe have emerged. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently said the U.S. is being "humiliated" by Iran and criticized what he called a lack of strategy.

Now, Trump has threatened to pull U.S. troops out of Germany as that dispute escalates.

Florida passes new congressional map giving GOP up to four more seats

Florida state lawmakers passed a new congressional map Wednesday, pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, that could give Republicans as many as four additional seats in the U.S. House. The vote was contentious.

Democrats blasted the plan as a power grab, even interrupting the floor, with one lawmaker shouting through a megaphone as the final vote came down.

The new map redraws districts across the state, including areas around Tampa, Orlando and South Florida, potentially squeezing out Democratic-leaning seats.

DeSantis and his allies argue the plan is legally sound, pointing to a Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that, they say, changes how states can address race in redistricting. That decision, Louisiana vs. Callais, is already sparking similar moves in other states. But it’s also setting up what could be a lengthy legal fight.

"Their new plan, that will undoubtedly face a state court challenge,” said David Becker, executive director at the Center for Election Innovation and Research. “I'm not sure whether it will face a federal court challenge now, given Callais. But that leaves things up in the air in Florida as well."

Democrats and voting rights groups have promised to sue, arguing the map violates Florida’s constitutional limits on gerrymandering.

The bill heads to DeSantis’ desk. If he signs it, the legal battle will begin almost immediately.

Correspondents' dinner suspect took selfie with weapons ahead of attack

New details have emerged about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting involving the suspect accused of attempting to assassinate Trump. New court filings show Cole Tomas Allen took a selfie in his hotel room just minutes before the attack, armed with guns, knives and ammunition.

Prosecutors said he had tracked the president’s movements that night, watching live coverage as Trump arrived at the Washington Hilton. Investigators also said Allen sent scheduled emails with an “apology and explanation,” suggesting he planned the attack in advance.

Moments later, hotel surveillance video shows Allen sprinting past security toward the ballroom, where the president and hundreds of guests had gathered. He fired a shotgun, sparking an exchange of gunfire with Secret Service agents. A bullet struck one officer in their bulletproof vest, but the agent survived.

Prosecutors said Allen “intended to kill” and described him as a serious danger if released. He now faces a charge of attempted assassination. A hearing on whether he should remain in custody will take place Thursday.

DOJ proposes rollback of gun rules, targeting background checks and dealer penalties

The Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced 34 proposed changes related to Trump’s executive order on gun policy.

Officials said the focus is on easing regulations for law-abiding gun owners and businesses and on shifting enforcement toward criminal activity.

One key change under review: rolling back a Biden-era rule that expanded background checks for gun-show purchases. The ATF also said it will scale back penalties for minor paperwork violations by licensed dealers.

Gun control groups have already pushed back, arguing that the proposal weakens safeguards amid heightened security concerns. The public will have 90 days to comment before any of these changes are finalized.

Mississippi students stop runaway school bus after driver collapses

A group of Mississippi students is being hailed as heroes after stepping in when their school bus driver lost consciousness. The 46-year-old driver had just left a middle school in Hancock County with about 40 students on board when she suffered an asthma attack and passed out.

The bus began to swerve along a four-lane highway. A sixth-grader sitting behind the driver grabbed the wheel, while another rushed forward and slammed on the brakes. The students steered the bus into the median, shifted it into park and brought it to a stop. Another student called 911.

Once the student secured the bus, they located the driver’s nebulizer and helped her use it until first responders arrived. The driver is expected to recover, and no students were harmed on board.

Local officials praised the students for their quick thinking and calm under pressure.

More from Straight Arrow News:

Why a growing number of US adults feel more anxious this year than last

It has been six years since the world stopped spinning. Six years since the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way Americans do seemingly everything — from grocery shopping to sneezing into elbows.

“Things haven’t been the same since,” nurse Trinity Walker told Straight Arrow. “I do sometimes wonder where I would be in my life if it weren’t for the trauma I went through during that time.”

For Walker and many others, something fundamental broke during those years. And it never quite reassembled. Millions of Americans continue to live in “survival mode,” a state in which a person’s nervous system remains activated, awaiting the next crisis. According to a recent report, 43% of adults say they feel more anxious than they did the year before — a steady climb from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022. 

“I’m still struggling to put myself back to where I was,” said Jessina Allen, an Atlanta-based personal trainer. During lockdown, the 39-year-old faced the inability to work since gyms were closed. 

“It’s hard to explain, but sometimes I grieve who I might’ve been if all this hadn’t happened,” Allen said.

Read the full story now>

In May 2025, President Donald Trump issued four executive orders aimed at expanding the nuclear power industry. Trump called for 300 gigawatts of new nuclear power plants by 2050 — enough to power Texas three to four times over. The executive orders also mandated faster reactor testing, licensing, fuel recycling and expanded fuel production.

One executive order required an overhaul of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). 

“Instead of efficiently promoting safe, abundant nuclear energy, the NRC has instead tried to insulate Americans from the most remote risks without appropriate regard for the severe domestic and geopolitical costs of such risk aversion,” the May 23, 2025 executive order said. 

While the industry and lawmakers push ahead for a new era of nuclear power, skeptics warn that the U.S. must maintain stringent regulation. In a Thursday blog post, Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, warned that the U.S. appears “anxious to unlearn” lessons from Chernobyl. 

“Complacency is the enemy of safety, and that is the main lesson that's being unlearned now,” Lyman told Straight Arrow. 

What happened at Chernobyl in 1986?

A chain of problems led to the explosion of Reactor 4, which had been brought online in 1984. Two years later, it had not passed a safety test to determine that in the event of a shutdown, the slowing spin of the plant’s main turbine would provide enough energy to operate cooling liquid pumps for an interim period while diesel generators kicked in. 

The night crew on April 25 was ordered to perform the test. But according to a summary report from the World Nuclear Association, the test was carried out “without a proper exchange of information and coordination between the team in charge of the test and the personnel in charge of the safety of the nuclear reactor.”

Problems started when the power output from Reactor 4 dropped to about 30 megawatts — way below the 700 to 1,000 megawatt threshold for optimal testing conditions. Since the nuclear reaction had slowed too much, operators decided to remove some control rods from the reactor. With fewer rods — which typically stop a nuclear reaction from becoming too powerful — the power output increased to 200 megawatts, and operators could start the test. 

Once the test started, a characteristic of the Soviet RBMK reactor design that’s more pronounced at low power sealed Chernobyl’s fate. Known as a “positive void coefficient,” when coolant boiled and turned to steam, it increased the nuclear reactivity. In the early hours of April 26, this led to rapid power surges. 

Operators attempted to re-insert the control rods, which should have acted as a brake, but instead made things worse. While the main control rods are made of a material that helps stabilize nuclear reactions, the graphite tips, which entered the reactor first, can briefly cause reactivity to spike.

The reactor exploded. 

In the aftermath, 8.4 million Soviet citizens were exposed to radiation, according to the United Nations. The official death toll is 31, but the real number of people who died as a result of the radiation is likely well in the thousands. 

Today, a massive steel structure has enclosed Reactor 4. But fighting in the war between Russia and Ukraine has again raised the risk of radiation. In August 2025, a Russian drone attack hit the enclosure. 

How did regulators respond after Chernobyl?

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a report in 1989 examining whether the U.S. nuclear power industry could face similar risks. The report concluded that an accident like Chernobyl could not happen in the U.S., in part because the country did not have RBMK reactors. 

But coming just a few years after the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island nuclear site in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl gave American regulators another reason to focus on safety.

“Although a large nuclear power plant accident somewhere in the United States is unlikely because of design and operational features, we cannot relax the care and vigilance that have made it so,” the report said.

The NRC maintained that vigilance by formalizing a few rules around safety culture and risk assessment, but Chernobyl did not lead directly to any significant regulatory changes.

Where is nuclear power headed today? 

The nuclear power industry has undergone cycles of hype that a nuclear renaissance is just around the corner. This time the signals are strong, but mixed.

The tech industry is investing heavily in nuclear power as a means to provide electricity to data centers that run artificial intelligence tools. Meta agreed to a deal that will extend the life of an aging nuclear plant in Illinois, while Microsoft has a contract to help restart one of the reactors at the Three Mile Island nuclear site in Pennsylvania.

But building new nuclear power plants remains costly and slow. The newest large-scale nuclear power plants in the U.S., two new units at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, took 15 years and $36 billion to complete.

Small modular reactors that can be mass-produced rather than custom-built for each site have garnered a lot of attention, but none have been constructed in the U.S. The Trump administration’s push to reform the NRC aims to make small reactors a reality and expand the fleet of conventional reactors by bringing down costs.

The Nuclear Energy Institute said in a 2025 report that NRC reform efforts are “not about replacing the agency but transforming and modernizing it to meet the demands of today and the future.”

Is Chernobyl still relevant today?

Some scholars, however, are not on board with proposed changes to the NRC. 

“Regulation has always been the scapegoat for the nuclear industry,” said Sonja Schmid, a science and technology studies professor at Virginia Tech University. 

Schmid told Straight Arrow that the NRC approval has long been a “gold standard” for companies to show investors that their reactor designs are viable. But “if you have a weak regulator, your safety is worth nothing.” 

In an interview with Straight Arrow on Friday, Lyman drew several direct lines from what went wrong 40 years ago to deregulatory actions pushed at the NRC. 

That includes a carve out that would exempt some companies from building thick concrete and steel-lined containment structures around reactors, if they can demonstrate on paper that foregoing the shell will not compromise safety. Lyman also said that some small modular reactor designs also have a positive void coefficient, and that the NRC is considering exempting nuclear plants from off-site emergency planning steps designed to mitigate the fallout of potential accidents. 

Referring to the 1989 report on the Chernobyl accident, Lyman said, “many of the aspects of reactor design, operation and oversight that the NRC singled out as flaws of the Soviet system are now being undertaken here.”

The IEA’s annual Global Energy Review, a publication looking back at the previous year’s data on power production, shows that renewable energy production increased by 8.5% in 2025. Across the world, coal power produced the most electricity of any source, with 10,858 terawatt-hours. Renewables, which include wind and solar, produced 10,808 terawatt-hours.

U.S. policy toward renewable energy has undergone a sharp turn over the past few years. Motivated by concerns over climate change, the Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provided long-term subsidies for wind and solar power and electric vehicles, and it doled out grant money for renewable projects. The Trump administration rescinded billions in grants, axed the EV subsidy, and shortened the time frame that renewable energy companies have to qualify for tax credits. 

President Donald Trump and other federal officials have emphasized the need to invest in coal, gas and nuclear power plants that generate around-the-clock wattage. Nevertheless, renewable power — solar in particular — has continued to grow, but not as fast as electricity demand. 

How much has renewable energy increased globally? 

Last year, the worldwide gap between coal and renewable power production was only 50 terawatt-hours — enough to power about 4.6 million American homes for a year. In 2024, that gap was 960 terawatt-hours, and in 2021, it was more than 2,200. 

Solar power drove much of the growth. The world produced 600 terawatt-hours more solar power in 2025 compared to the previous year, and the number of solar installations continued to climb, with the IEA saying solar now has a higher installed capacity than any other single technology. 

The European Union and China lead the world in renewables, which generated 48.2% and 36.7% of their total electricity in 2025. Combined, the additions of new nuclear power and new renewables exceeded global growth in electricity demand, meaning the growth in zero-emissions power sources is actively replacing other fuel types, such as coal. 

What is the energy mix in the US?

The United States is unique because, rather than coal, the primary source of electricity is natural gas, which accounted for 39.8% of power generated in 2025. The global average is 21.2%. 

Renewable power at 24.5% already exceeds coal at 17.3%, but 2025 broke a years-long pattern in the U.S. of declining coal power and increasing gains in wind and solar. In year-over-year terms, coal power increased by 10%, while renewables continued to climb, but the amount of new renewable energy added to the grid fell by 10% compared to 2024.

Coal’s gains are due to a combination of higher natural gas prices that made coal more competitive and increased demand for electricity. 

U.S. electricity demand grew 2% in 2025 — more than three times the average annual growth rate of the prior decade. Data centers alone accounted for roughly half of all electricity demand growth in the country, consistent with IEA projections that data centers will drive half of US electricity demand growth through 2030.

Round out your reading

• First, it was the schools. Now they’re coming for your cellphone at work.
• Why one of America’s top economic forecasters is worried about a recession.
• AI companies may not be adhering to their own guidelines — with potentially deadly outcomes.
• Data centers are a thorny issue for Democrats. Maine shows us why.
• We’re building a new Straight Arrow. Help us shape our future by taking our survey.

On Friday, the Treasury Department posted on its website a license authorizing the delivery and sale of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia through May 16. This waiver replaces one that expired on April 11, and does not include Iran, Cuba or North Korea.

"As negotiations [with Iran] accelerate, Treasury wants to ensure oil is available to those ⁠who need it," a Treasury Department spokesperson told Reuters.

Lawmakers criticized the move amid Russia's war with Ukraine, especially after Bessent said Wednesday at a White House press briefing that the U.S "will not be renewing the general license on Russian oil."

The U.S. and Israel's war against Iran sent oil prices soaring with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran declared that the strait was open on Friday, leading to lower oil prices. However, it later decided to close it again because of a U.S. maritime blockade on ships entering or exiting Iranian ports and coastal areas.

A U.S. source said to Reuters that its partner countries on the sidelines of the Group of 20, World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings requested the U.S. prolong the waiver.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. issued a statement saying the Treasury Department's decision is "shameful."

"This week, Putin launched the largest aerial attack of the year so far on Ukraine, killing 18 and the Administration’s response is to relax sanctions on the Kremlin yet again," they said. "What kind of message does this move send?"

The senators said Putin has been one of the "biggest beneficiaries" of the war in Iran, as it has seen its main oil revenue double.

Russian oil sanctions started after the country invaded Ukraine in 2022. The United States and countries in Europe leveraged their influence over the shipping industry to stop Russia from raking in huge profits from the oil industry. 

The sanctions effectively capped the price that Russia could sell oil at by penalizing vessels transporting Russian crude to be sold at a higher price.

This method was designed to “take revenue away, but keep barrels on the market,” Catherine Wolfram, a former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury who had a hand in crafting the policy, told SAN in March. 

"Enough is enough. President Trump needs to stop letting Putin play him for a fool and impose additional sanctions on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who is clearly not feeling sufficient pressure from this President," the senators said. "If President Trump does not change course, the war in Ukraine will continue and more innocent people will die."

Bessent argued last month that permitting countries to purchase oil would not provide a significant financial benefit to the Russian government, because it "derives the majority of its energy revenue from taxes assessed at the point of extraction.”

“In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire,” Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi announced Friday morning. 

The ceasefire negotiated between Israel and Lebanon will last for 10 days. The two-week ceasefire between the U.S., Israel and Iran is scheduled to end on April 21. Talks for a long-term end to the conflict are still ongoing, and President Donald Trump has said that the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports will continue until an agreement is reached.

The war has wreaked havoc on energy markets, pushing up consumer gasoline prices. With Iran’s announcement that the strait is open, oil tankers are already making their way toward the narrow waterway on Iran’s southern border. But the uncertainty afflicting the oil industry has not fully dissipated, and the risk premium associated with moving oil around the Persian Gulf remains. 

How many tankers are in transit? 

Iran’s announcement has already had an effect on oil tanker traffic, according to a Straight Arrow News analysis of marine traffic data from global analytics company Kpler.

For weeks, tankers idled in clusters off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, near the mouth of the strait. In the hours following Friday morning’s announcement, SAN identified more than a dozen vessels carrying oil that started moving toward the narrow opening that leads to the Gulf of Oman and then the open ocean. 

Tankers elsewhere in the Gulf, such as off the coast of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait also showed movement. 

How does maritime insurance work? 

When the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran on Feb. 28, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz slowed, but it was not solely because of the threat of Iranian drones and missiles. It was also because of higher insurance costs. 

A total of 22 ships have been attacked since the beginning of March, including four on March 1, according to data from Kpler. The insurance market that underpins the global shipping industry responded quickly, with many policies canceled before being re-priced.

Cargo ships and oil tankers alike need various types of insurance coverage. 

“Everything that moves needs to be insured: the ship, the cargo, the crew, you name it,” said Jean-Paul Rodrigue, a professor of maritime business administration at Texas A&M University. “When the crisis began, the ships could not move, because suddenly the insurance stopped.”

During a war, there’s an extra premium. 

The Joint War Committee at the London-based Lloyd’s insurance market sets the premium rate for additional war risk. The premium is set as a percentage of the total value of the ship or its cargo, and must be paid if the ship enters an area the committee deemed risky. At the outbreak of the war, the committee reassessed that risk, expanded the geographic range requiring war coverage and raised rates.

During early March, premiums on the ships and machinery on board, not including cargo, were 2.5%. A typical rate is less than 1%, sometimes as low as 0.1%, according to S&P Global. 

Will oil supply chains return to normal? 

While some tankers are moving, traffic in the Strait is not expected to quickly return to pre-war levels. One reason is Iran is still controlling traffic, which must flow along a “coordinated route,” foreign minister Araghchi said. Another reason is the insurance. 

“Risk premiums will go down very slowly,” said Jatin Dua, director of the Oceans Lab at the University of Michigan.

Rodrigue told SAN “maybe some ships are going to be waiting,” to transit the strait, in hopes of a less expensive insurance policy. That would lengthen the time it takes the oil market to reset. 

Dua, who has spent time aboard many ships as part of his research, also noted that captains and crews — in addition to insurers — have a role in assessing the risk of any voyage. And they have a right to refuse to make a journey through a warzone. 

“Even with Iran saying the strait is open, individual ships, individual companies will decide,” when to move, he said. 

As Matthew Lekstutis, a seasoned supply chain expert and director at the consulting firm Efficio, put it during an interview with SAN in March: “Do you want to be the guy driving the first one through?” 

In the long run, the risk premium associated with the Strait of Hormuz is likely to stay above where it was in February.

“It’s going to force a lot of people to reconsider options,” Rodrigue said. For example, he said Gulf states will look at expanded pipeline capacity to reroute oil to other export terminals. And traders will look to buy oil from other sources, such as the U.S. 

“With this conflict, Iran has opened a can of worms,” Rodrigue said.

While the commissioners voted to decide on the plan by December, they did not officially greenlight all of the lightning initiative’s many terms. The project is expected to become the first to proceed under the initiative.

The fast-track process has garnered support from politicians and industry groups that argue existing regulatory processes are too slow for this current moment when the grid needs power fast. But critics say the process lacks transparency and could saddle ratepayers with the risk.

Forecasts show surging electricity demand as the tech industry inks deals to build new data centers that run artificial intelligence tools. In northeast Louisiana, Meta — the company that owns Facebook and Instagram — is building what could become one of the largest data centers in the world. 

Last year, the PSC approved plans from the state’s largest utility company, Entergy Louisiana, for three new gas power plants to serve Meta's data center in Richland Parish. 

Now, Meta appears poised to expand with a new data center. In February, Meta purchased 1,400 acres of land next to 2,250 acres it already owns. Then in March, Entergy announced plans to build seven more gas power plants to provide Meta with 5.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power several million homes. 

Through the lightning initiative process, the proposal could be approved by December. It would not require the standard competitive bidding process to ensure the lowest costs or a judicial review that allows others — such as environmental groups, corporations or smaller utilities — to intervene.

What is Entergy Louisiana’s plan? 

Entergy plans to build seven combined-cycle gas power plants, each with a capacity to generate 754 megawatts of electricity. The company said that in the future, the power plants will have the capability to use carbon capture technology to reduce emissions or use hydrogen fuel, which does not emit carbon dioxide. 

Entergy intends to build 2.5 gigawatts of renewable power and is committed to “explore the future development and use of nuclear power,” according to a press release. The plan also includes 240 miles of transmission lines to move new power around the grid.

The agreement is structured so Meta “pays its full cost of service” and generates $2.7 billion in savings for other customers. Some of those savings come from Meta’s contribution to fixed costs of running the grid, such as storm recovery costs. However, it’s unclear how Entergy arrived at the $2.7 billion figure, and the company did not answer questions from Straight Arrow News about customer savings. 

Under the terms between Entergy and Meta’s subsidiary Evest LLC, Evest will cover all costs for 20 years. 

The project could cost upwards of $21 billion, according to an analysis of Entergy’s application by the nonprofit consumer advocate Alliance for Affordable Energy. Entergy has not released an estimate of the total cost. 

Why are consumer advocates worried? 

Alaina Di Laura, policy coordinator at the Alliance for Affordable Energy, told SAN she is concerned the process is moving forward without enough time or transparency to verify the claimed benefits.

“We don't know that the benefits are going to come to fruition,” Di Laura said. 

The Alliance for Affordable Energy is one of seven groups to intervene in the Public Service Commission’s consideration of Entergy’s application. In that process, an administrative law judge hears evidence and testimony from the applicant and intervening groups. The judge then issues an independent recommendation to the commission regarding the application.

Groups can still intervene under the lightning initiative, but the commission proceeds to a vote without considering the independent recommendation. The lightning initiative also bypasses a competitive bidding process in which multiple contractors submit competing plans to meet the new electricity load from Meta. This could include lower-cost gas power or other resources such as solar and batteries.

The normal regulatory process matters to Di Laura, because there are contested details in the 1,200-page application. For example, a typical gas power plant has a lifespan longer than the 20-year length of the contract. After 20 years, ratepayers could wind up on the hook for the remaining operational or debt payments associated with the power plants.

Di Laura also pointed to the fact that a Meta subsidiary — not the Big Tech company itself — is party to the agreement, and details on the financial guarantee from the parent company are not public. Non-disclosure agreements are common practice between government officials and data center developers, which she said can undermine trust in the process. 

“The most important part about anything is what protections exist for regular folks,” Di Laura said. “They're moving too quickly. And if it's Zuckerberg that said ‘move fast and break things,’ well, we're the ones that are bearing the risks of that, of what's being broken.”

While refining, distribution and taxes all factor into the price of gasoline, the majority of what Americans pay at the pump is determined by the price of oil. When adjusted for inflation, global events that disrupt oil markets have caused gasoline prices to surge past $5 and even $6 per gallon at various points in recent history. In the video above, Straight Arrow News walks through 50 years of gasoline prices.

Experts told SAN the 2026 attacks on Iran and Iran’s decision to close the Strait of Hormuz have created the biggest disruption in the past 50 years. 

“It is without a doubt the largest supply disruption in the history of global oil markets,” said Christiane Baumeister, an economist at the University of Notre Dame focused on energy markets. “The severity of this event is not fully reflected in prices yet. Oil supplies are much tighter than what the market price currently suggests.” 

The 1970s

A turning point for gas prices came in 1973, when OPEC nations declared an oil embargo against the United States in response to American support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The Nixon administration capped gas prices, which suppressed the sticker price but created severe shortages and long lines at stations.

“The gasoline lines, the supply shock that we had in the ‘70s, was self-inflicted by federal policy,” Ed Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston, told SAN. 

The decade’s price spike came in 1979, when the Iranian Revolution took roughly 7% of global oil supply offline. By early 1980, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices topped $5 per gallon.

The 1980s and ‘90s

Gasoline prices remained elevated for several years in the early 1980s as tension continued in the Middle East. But the high prices also triggered energy conservation efforts and encouraged more oil production. That led to a sharp decrease in gasoline prices by 1986. 

“There was a relative abundance of crude oil supplies in the world relative to oil demand,” Baumeister told SAN. 

With the exception of brief spikes such as Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, gasoline prices remained stable in the $2 and low $3 inflation-adjusted range through the turn of the century. 

The 2000s

As emerging economies such as China industrialized rapidly, global oil demand began outpacing supply, which remained relatively stagnant. Hurricane Katrina worsened the picture in 2005 by knocking out refining capacity along the Gulf Coast. And as China prepared for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the price of a barrel of oil hit $147, sending gasoline above $6 per gallon, when adjusted for inflation. But prices tumbled only a few months later.

“There was a steep drop in oil consumption in anticipation of a major global recession,” Baumeister told SAN. 

But the underlying market dynamic did not change, and by the summer of 2009, gas prices were back on an upswing. 

The 2010s

From 2011 to 2014, inflation-adjusted gasoline stayed above $4 per gallon — the longest sustained period in available data. Continued growth in Asia, the Arab Spring and renewed tensions with Iran kept markets tight. While U.S. shale production grew on high oil prices that made a new drilling method hydraulic fracturing — also known as fracking — profitable, OPEC cut its oil production, which kept prices high. 

But in late 2014, OPEC, which feared losing market share to the growing U.S. industry, reversed course. Suddenly, the world was awash with oil supply and prices at the pump plummeted. 

“As we say in the oil patch: The cure for high prices is high prices,” Hirs said.

The 2020s

COVID-19 lockdowns sent gasoline to its lowest inflation-adjusted price in two decades, as crude oil prices briefly traded in negative territory, meaning companies holding oil in maxed-out storage facilities had to pay others to take it from them. This caused a string of bankruptcies in the oil industry, and the companies that survived are now less bullish on expanding production and more focused on shareholder returns. 

Oil supply did not keep up with the pace at which the economy re-opened in 2021 and 2022. Then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions response from the U.S. and European countries that caused gasoline prices to reach more than $5 per gallon.

Iran’s near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz removed roughly 20% of global oil supply from the market overnight, sending benchmark prices soaring across the world.

The price of Russian Urals crude oil averaged $94.50 per barrel in March, up 67% from February, and the price has climbed further in April to about $120 as of Tuesday. Russia's oil export revenues jumped 94% month-on-month in March to the equivalent of $508 million per day, according to a new report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. 

The U.S. has not reinstated the sanctions relief, but experts told Straight Arrow News that option remains on the table. Amid a tentative ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran and the start of a U.S. blockade of vessels attempting to head in and out of Iranian ports, the outcome of the war remains uncertain. So far, Russia has seen a war-time windfall despite no direct involvement in the conflict. 

What are the Russian oil sanctions?

Sanctions on Russian oil began after the country’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The United States and European countries leveraged their influence over the shipping industry to stop Russia from raking in huge profits from the oil industry. 

The sanctions effectively capped the price at which Russia could sell oil by penalizing any vessels that transported Russian crude to be sold at a higher price. This method was designed to “take revenue away, but keep barrels on the market,” Catherine Wolfram, a former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury who had a hand in crafting the policy, told SAN in March. 

As oil prices climbed following the start of a new war with Iran, the U.S. decided to remove sanctions in an effort to inject more supply into a constrained market. First, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) allowed India to freely import Russian oil already at sea. A week later, that exemption was extended globally. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it was a “narrowly tailored, short-term measure” and that revenue would not flow directly to the Russian government. 

How has Russian oil revenue increased? 

Bessent was referring to taxes taken at the point of oil extraction. But revenue from selling oil still makes its way to the Russian state because the Kremlin holds major stakes in the country’s oil companies, such as Rosneft. A vast majority of Russian oil sold in March went to China and India.

“The revenue surge is largely a story about the rise in the price of oil,” said Luke Wickenden, energy analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and author of its latest report on Russian fuel exports.“Sanctions relief contributed on the margin by helping clear stranded cargoes.”

At the end of February, approximately 6.8 million metric tonnes of Russian crude — worth about $2.7 billion — floated on tankers without a buyer. The OFAC waivers helped clear nearly all of those stranded cargoes, with on-water volumes approaching normal levels by early April.

Wickenden’s analysis found signs that the sanctions relief made a clear difference for exports to India. He found that India's state-owned refinery purchases of Russian crude jumped 148% in March. 

“Sanctions relief was the direct reason Russian barrels hit the spot market, and [India’s] state-owned refineries took them because that is how they procure oil,” Wickenden told SAN, in an email.

Will the sanctions relief continue? 

Despite the sanctions relief expiring on Saturday, OFAC has not renewed it, and it’s unclear what will happen next. The U.S. Department of Treasury did not respond to requests for comment from SAN. 

But former government officials have speculated that the policy is likely to continue. 

“It’s hard for me to see a world where the Trump administration cracks down on Russian oil again, at least between now and the midterm elections,” Edward Fishman, an Obama-era official and author of Chokepoints, a book on sanctions policy and other forms of economic warfare, told Semafor last week. 

Wolfram, who was a treasury department official during the Biden administration, told SAN she isn’t surprised the sanctions relief was allowed to expire because of how it interacts with ongoing peace talks. 

Extending the sanctions during the ceasefire “could signal an expectation that the peace talks would fail,” Wolfram said. “That thinking could still be at play, but if the ceasefire is broken, the sanctions relief may come back.”

About 20% of the world’s LNG supply is currently offline. Qatar is one of the top three LNG-exporting countries in the globe, and its supply has been cut off from the market as Iran continues to prevent ships from exiting the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz.

LNG is made when natural gas is cooled to a temperature at which it liquifies. Then it’s pumped into specialized tankers that carry LNG around the globe. At import terminals, the LNG can be turned back into a gas and sent through pipelines to power plants and buildings that use gas for heat. 

Global LNG prices have surged by 80% since Feb. 28’s initial strikes on Iran, according to Reuters. The price hike comes as electricity rates are already trending upward due to fuel costs, the need to upgrade infrastructure and the emergence of massive data centers. While most Americans are feeling the effects of gas price increases, the impact on electricity prices could hit one region first.

Why is New England especially at risk?

The Everett LNG Facility in Massachusetts, owned by Constellation Energy, is a key link in New England’s energy system. And due to limited pipeline connections to the rest of the country, gas-fired power plants in New England are especially dependent on LNG and therefore exposed to global price shifts. 

Marissa Gillett experienced what increased exposure to LNG prices can mean in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine during her tenure as chair of Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.

During the first half of 2023, the price of electricity from Connecticut’s two main utility companies doubled compared with the previous six months, according to data cited in an issue brief written by Gillett, who now works as a Senior Fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project. 

Having lived through the 2022 shock as a regulator, Gillett told Straight Arrow News that customers “are going to start seeing the ramifications of the war in Iran later this year and especially during the winter season between 2026 and 2027.”

Current LNG prices and looming uncertainty can affect the future price for electricity in New England states, even if the supply shock subsides. That’s because auctions to determine how much electricity will cost are held seasonally, and electricity suppliers must place bids based on their best estimations of how much it will cost to spin up gas-fired power plants. Connecticut’s auction is held this month; Massachusetts and New Hampshire will follow in May and June. 

“There's a very high risk premium, because the wholesale suppliers — just like us — don't know when this war is going to end, when the Strait is going to be back open and LNG may flow,” Gillett said.

While the U.S. and Iran agreed  on Tuesday to a two-week ceasefire, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains at a near standstill. 

What’s the status of the LNG supply chain? 

In March, Iran struck LNG facilities in Qatar. Some damage may take years to fully repair. If and when the Strait of Hormuz fully opens, the global flow of LNG will not come back immediately, according to industry experts. 

“Prices will probably remain at a relatively high level” through at least the middle of the year, said Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a global research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Those prices could rise further if there is a heatwave or cold winter, she added. 

Corbeau told SAN that Qatar is also not likely to start making necessary investments to bring its production back online until a stable peace is reached. 

With LNG flows out of the Strait of Hormuz locked in, the oil and gas industry in the United States has already ramped up exports to Europe and Asia. In March, U.S. LNG exports hit an all-time high of 11.7 million metric tons, Reuters reported. 

Future prices for LNG exported to Europe remain about $17 for every million British thermal units, or MMBtu, the standard measuring unit for natural gas. Meanwhile, the price of natural gas in the U.S. market has remained much lower, at around $3 per MMBTU throughout 2026, even after the war in Iran began. The $14 gap means that for companies with the capability, there’s more money to be made exporting LNG than supplying the domestic market.

Will it impact broader US electric rates?

While electric ratepayers in New England are vulnerable to the direct price increases in LNG, the rest of the U.S. might face higher costs because of LNG exports competing with the domestic market for natural gas — a longstanding debate about LNG. 

“There is a camp that’s saying ‘there’s been plenty of gas in the United States,’” and it's enough to increase exports and meet domestic demand without raising the price, Corbeau told SAN. The opposing camp, according to Corbeau, says U.S. demand for gas is growing faster than expected due to new power plants for data centers at the same time that LNG exports are higher than many anticipated. 

“High natural gas prices flow directly to consumers in a market that's largely supplied by natural gas generation,” said Jon Gordon, a senior policy director at the trade group Advanced Energy United. Gordon is especially concerned about the PJM grid, which stretches from the mid-Atlantic coast to Chicago ands home to the largest concentration of data centers. Ratepayers there have seen significant price increases.

In a free market, Gordon said gas producers “are going to sell their commodity where they can earn the greatest profit in return,” and right now that’s LNG to Europe and Asia. How exactly that translates to electricity prices is yet to be seen, but Gordon said, “chances are we're not going to see a spike, but we are going to see continued upward pressure.”

Corbeau falls somewhere between the two poles of the debate. 

“I do have concerns that we may eventually see an increase in U.S. domestic gas prices. Not immediately but progressively,” Corbeau said. But she added that she’s not “dramatically concerned” and recognizes there’s a lot of cheap natural gas being produced, and the industry has a history of lowering its production costs.

The ceasefire agreement announced Tuesday evening stated that vessels, including oil tankers, must be allowed to traverse the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway on Iran’s southern coast that has proved to be a critical economic chokepoint. However, Iran said Wednesday that it was halting any oil traffic through the strait after Israel continued attacks on Lebanon.

The international shipping industry — and with it the arteries of the global economy — is caught in the middle. And while the industry sees the ceasefire as a welcome step in the right direction, it leaves many questions unanswered. 

“The ceasefire may create transit opportunities, but it does not yet provide full maritime certainty and we need to understand all potential conditions attached,” the Danish shipping company Maersk told Reuters on Wednesday.

The Baltic and International Maritime Council, one of the largest international shipping associations, said it’s advising ships not to attempt exiting the Persian Gulf without prior coordination with the U.S. and Iran, and technical details on the ceasefire hadn’t been made available.

When will gas prices fall?

As tension rose on Tuesday, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil briefly hit $117 per barrel. By Wednesday morning, oil fell to the low $90 range before ticking up slightly to $95. The main global oil price benchmark, Brent, also fell from over $110 to about $95.

The uncertainty has not disappeared, but the lower oil price should lead to some relief for American consumers at the pump. Prices could start coming down as soon as this weekend, according to Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

The wholesale price gas stations pay to fill their inventory is often more volatile than what they charge customers at the pump, De Haan told Straight Arrow News.

Gas stations have to buy thousands of gallons of gasoline every few days. When the price fluctuates, they have to charge customers a price that earns a return, but they also have to balance competition with other stations that may have resupplied at different times. As a result, De Haan said, “what drivers pay is a slower climb and an even slower descent.”

Gas stations typically operate on thin margins. And stations across the country are still selling gas that they might have bought at the peak price, so they cannot immediately lower what they charge drivers.

“People just think that stations are out there making tons of money, when actually stations have a really, really hard job on timing, and that is why prices go down much more slowly,” De Haan said. But he warned that despite the ceasefire, “the coast is anything but clear” for a full resolution that could return gasoline prices to where they were over a month ago.

Will the Strait of Hormuz open?

For gas prices to drop significantly, the Strait of Hormuz would need to open to normal oil tanker traffic, and so far, that has not happened.

“Extreme volatility persists and the underlying conflict remains unresolved,” Kpler, a data analytics company that specializes in maritime logistics, said in a social media post. There are 426 oil tankers effectively stranded in the Persian Gulf, according to the company’s data.

On Wednesday, a radio message told ships in the Persian Gulf that they needed Iranian permission to proceed through the strait, the Financial Times reported. Fissures quickly appeared in the ceasefire plan. 

In response to Israeli attacks on Lebanon, Iran said it would halt passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. That announcement came before significant oil tanker traffic had even begun transiting the strait, and shipping organizations have emphasized the need for coordination among all parties. 

“The shipping industry is currently awaiting technical details from the US and from Iran,” said Jakob Larsen, chief safety and security officer at the Baltic and International Maritime Council. “There is still too much uncertainty regarding the practical implementation of the ceasefire, and any setback in negotiations could lead to a resumption of hostilities.”

The maritime council also told SAN that oil exports would take extra time to recover due to shuttered production and damaged infrastructure.

How could shipping fees work?

Another layer of uncertainty comes from the prospect of new fees shippers may have to pay to transit the strait. 

A spokesperson for Iran’s oil and gas association, which works closely with the state, also told the Financial Times that Iran would require payment of $1 per barrel of oil via cryptocurrency transactions so that the revenue would not be subject to sanctions. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said the U.S. would explore a “joint venture” with Iran to charge fees in order to traverse the strait.

The prospect of fees is likely to become a point of tension among other Gulf states. A government official in Oman, which lies on the southern side of the Strait of Hormuz, came out against the fees, saying they are not allowed under international trade agreements.

A spokesperson for the International Chamber of Shipping told SAN that the organization is concerned that fees “risk contravening the fundamental right to freedom of navigation and innocent passage under international law.”

“An immediate restoration of unimpeded navigation is essential, and we urge states to work closely with the shipping industry to ensure safe, orderly transit,” the ICS spokesperson said, adding that it was difficult to put a timeline on when traffic would return to normal levels, and the shipping industry needs “clear and credible guarantees for the safety and security of seafarers.”

The milestone comes amid two key trends affecting the power grid. States like California are investing heavily in zero-emissions energy sources, spurred on by state laws looking to address climate change. At the same time, data centers powering the AI revolution are causing unprecedented growth in forecasted electricity demand. These forces work together to make existing nuclear power plants among the most valued types of electricity generation — a rare note of Democratic and Republican consensus. 

The Diablo Canyon nuclear plant delivers 2.2 gigawatts of electricity to California’s grid, which is enough to meet the needs of about 4 million people, according to Pacific Gas and Electric, the plant’s owner. The plant will need state-level approval to operate past 2030.

Artificial intelligence is breaking a decades-long trend of relatively stagnant electricity demand as the U.S. became more energy efficient.

A December 2025 report from BloombergNEF forecasted that nationwide, data centers will require 106 gigawatts of electricity by 2035. For perspective, the peak demand record on California’s electricity grid was set in 2022 at 52 gigawatts. If the BloombergNEF numbers hold true, data centers will require more than twice as much power in 10 years than the entire state of California does today. 

Keeping Diablo Canyon running will be important to meeting future demand, as the California Energy Commission projects that the state needs to add 20 gigawatts of power by 2045. 

Some researchers question the veracity of electricity demand projections due to duplicate requests from data centers and the possibility of efficiency gains or a downturn in the tech industry. While the exact scale of growth may be imprecise, there’s agreement on the direction of the trend: The grid needs more power, not less. 

The emerging consensus on nuclear

“Remaining the world’s leader in AI will require an enormous increase in the energy production, and that’s taking place,” President Donald Trump said last year at a summit in Pittsburgh to promote energy and AI investments.  

Months later, the Trump administration handed out a $1 billion loan to Constellation Energy, supporting the company’s partnership with Microsoft to restart one unit of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plants.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom changed his stance on nuclear power in 2022, and became a key figure in pushing to keep the Diablo Canyon plant running. Rather than powering data centers, Newsom framed the decision around his commitment to clean energy.

“Tackling extreme weather and supporting a reliable grid are essential to building a safe, affordable and resilient future for our state,” Newsom said in a press release following the NRC extension. 

Other states are also taking steps to build new nuclear power stations. After her predecessor shut down a nuclear plant in 2021, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, directed the state’s power authority in 2025 to build a new plant. This week in Utah, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox pitched the U.S. Department of Energy on plans for a statewide nuclear energy hub, including new power stations.

The future of Diablo Canyon

The shift in thinking on nuclear power is evident in Diablo Canyon’s trajectory. 

Diablo Canyon opened in 1985, and a second unit began powering the grid in 1987. 

In 2016, Pacific Gas and Electric said it would let the power plant’s operating licenses expire in 2024 and 2025. 

Extending the life of both units marked the 99th and 100th operating license renewals issued in the history of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The units will now be federally licensed to run through 2044 and 2045. 

After explaining his shifting position to the LA Times, Newsom supported and then signed SB 846 in 2022. That bill authorized both units at Diablo Canyon to continue running through 2030. In order for PG&E to operate the plant for the full term of its renewed license, the California Legislature would need to approve it. 

That outcome is not guaranteed. 

Some environmental and consumer advocacy groups have long campaigned against the extension of Diablo Canyon, arguing it's too costly for ratepayers and that the risks that come with spent nuclear fuel outweigh the benefits. 

The San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative is small. Its largest customer is the Wolf Creek ski resort. In a farming community, the electricity need at any given time reaches its peak during irrigation season when farms pump groundwater to the surface. But the valley is changing. 

“Irrigation load has been declining. Over about 20 years, there's been a lot of regulatory restrictions around the water. So a lot of the fields are going into fallowing,” leaving their fields bare of crops, Eric Eriksen, CEO of the San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative, told Straight Arrow News.

That decline in irrigation means the agricultural region struggles to maintain jobs. It also means there’s extra capacity on the local power grid, which was built for a larger load than it currently serves. And that’s a big part of why Eriksen wants data centers. 

“If we had a two-megawatt data center, you can see that would be our biggest customer. And that's small in the energy world, but to us, it's huge,” Eriksen said, adding that it would “help share in the cost burden of paying for that infrastructure and would be a great benefit to our members.” 

Two megawatts is enough electricity to power about 800 to 1,400 homes, depending on weather conditions and home sizes. 

Across the country, proposed facilities are hundreds of times larger than the two megawatts Eriksen envisions. And as the growth of data centers starts to feel inevitable, rural electric cooperatives are sending a message to the tech industry that they are open for business. With a nonprofit structure and operational flexibility, cooperatives have the potential to reap the benefits that come with courting a data center. At the same time, the imbalance between Big Tech and a small electric cooperative has industry analysts on alert for what could go wrong. 

“We think rural America is going to be a disproportionate location for data centers, just because it's cheaper land, more open space,” Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, told SAN. 

The tech industry has come into 2026 with an awareness that consumers are worried about increasing electricity rates. In March, representatives from seven leading tech companies joined President Donald Trump to sign a ratepayer protection pledge to pay for their allotted power, cover the cost of grid upgrades and keep paying those costs, even if they do not need the electricity. 

A major concern is “making sure that infrastructure needed to serve the data centers is only paid for by the data centers,” said Cathy Kunkel, an analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “But even that is easier said than done.”

The pledge aims to address common pressure points: Ratepayers could be on the hook for new transmission lines or end up paying for new power plants. However, the lack of specificity in the pledge, which is not legally binding, means those concerns remain.

What makes electric cooperatives different? 

Many data center developers are considering connecting to the grids of rural electric cooperatives, which serve only about 12% of the population but cover over 50% of U.S. land.

There are two main types of electric cooperatives: Generation and transmission co-ops and distribution co-ops. Generation and transmission co-ops operate power plants and transmission lines. The generation co-ops are owned by various distribution co-ops that deliver that power to homes and businesses, though they can generate a portion of their own electricity. 

“We are owned and governed by the consumers that we serve,” Matheson said, adding that there’s “no one-size-fits-all description for co-ops” due to a plethora of state laws, varying sizes and diverse communities served. 

In many states, electric cooperatives do not undergo the same regulatory process as investor-owned utilities. Typically, when a utility company wants to raise rates or create a new rate class specifically for large electric loads, it must ask the state’s public utility commission for approval. It’s a lengthy legal process in which stakeholders such as corporations or environmental groups can intervene. State regulators weigh various legal filings, hear public comments and ultimately decide on the rates. 

At a cooperative, the board of directors, which is elected by the members, must approve rate changes. In 23 states, electric cooperatives also undergo the typical regulatory process at the public utility commission, according to the NRECA. In the remaining states without full regulatory oversight of electric co-ops, Matheson said the quicker process and greater independence make co-ops well suited for data centers. 

“We have the extra flexibility in a lot of our circumstances to structure the deal for what it means in that specific location between that utility and that data center,” said Matheson. Although, he acknowledged that “it creates some risk too,” and cooperatives “have to make sure we're making good decisions in terms of how we negotiate these relationships.”

What benefit is there for cooperatives?

“There is no escaping this. The data centers are coming,” said Ted Compton, the co-director of the nonprofit Co-op Innovation Network. “If you can't come up with a way to wring some benefit out of this, it's just going to be directionally negative for you.”

Electric cooperatives can also take on an economic development role. They seek out opportunities to attract new businesses that will create jobs and expand the tax base.

When it comes to electricity costs, data centers present a “simple economic advantage,” Compton told SAN. “You're selling a lot more electrons with similar infrastructure. So you get to spread out that cost more broadly.” 

For the San Luis Valley Electric Cooperative, costs to buy power have already risen. Eriksen said the math works out that adding a data center could prevent future rate increases for existing customers — perhaps even enabling lower rates. 

One co-op in East Texas shows what that can look like: The Rayburn Electric Cooperative serves about 625,000 people northeast of Dallas, and expects 1,300 megawatts of data centers to come online in its service territory by 2030. That’s roughly 80% of the co-ops current peak electric load, which already includes about 300 megawatts of existing data centers, Christian Nagel, the co-op's senior director of power supply and production, told SAN. 

The growth of data centers “supports lower rates for all members,” said Nagel. The benefit is ”realized and expected to continue,” he told SAN, but he did not specify how much the co-op has been able to lower rates. 

Can co-ops balance the risk?

Despite the promise of keeping electric rates down, some analysts foresee a problem if electric co-ops bring on too many data centers.

“That’s a serious financial exposure to one customer and that tends to be more pronounced when we are talking about co-ops because they’re smaller,” Kunkel told SAN. If the AI boom does not ultimately match up with projected electricity demand growth, electric cooperatives that built new infrastructure to serve data centers would see costs go up. 

And without the oversight of a public utility commission, Kunkel added, “if the management is making poor decisions, the residential ratepayers don't really have much recourse.”

Electric co-ops are aware of a power imbalance when dealing with Big Tech, but many have developed practices to shield members from adverse risks. 

“Rural electric co-ops often feel like they're the David in the David and Goliath story,” Compton said. “You do have more power than you think,” he said, and it lies in the cooperatives’ governance model and ability to collaborate.

At the generation and transmission Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation, prospective data center developers must make a down payment of $1,000 per megawatt just to have their project studied to determine whether it can connect to the grid. 

“It really serves as a gate mechanism,” said Jonathan Oliver, the co-op’s chief operating officer. 

Wabash Valley Power Alliance, a generation and transmission co-op in Indiana, charges a flat $50,000 fee for any project requesting at least 35 megawatts of electricity. 

New transmission lines “are long-term type assets,” the co-op’s president Jeff Conrad told SAN. The fee aims to ensure developers have reliable financial backing, before the co-op invests in upgrading the grid. “We expect them to be around 30, 40 years.” 

The cooperatives in both Indiana and Arkansas have each received requests from tech firms to build 1,000 megawatts or more of data centers. 

In the Southern Rockies, Eriksen hopes he can land at least two megawatts on the San Luis Valley’s grid.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect Jim Matheson's correct title.

The proposal would pause new projects of 20 megawatts or more until November 2027 while the state studies the effects on the environment and the electric grid, The Wall Street Journal reported. The bill passed the Maine House last month with some Republican support and is expected to clear the Senate.

Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, backs a moratorium, though her office also supports an exception for one planned project in Jay, Maine.

Why Maine’s fight could ripple beyond one state

Maine’s fight reflects a broader debate over whether states should keep courting data centers for tax revenue and construction jobs even as the facilities place heavier demands on land, water and electricity.

Unbiased. Straight Facts.^TM

A single ChatGPT query uses approximately 1,000 times more electricity than a standard Google search.

U.S. data centers consumed 183 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, more than 4% of total U.S. electricity use. That demand is projected to more than double to 426 terawatt-hours by 2030. The total represents traditional cloud computing and cryptocurrency mining, not just AI, even as the AI boom is pushing facilities to expand and consume more power. 

That growth is becoming harder for states to ignore because it is concentrated rather than evenly spread. Pew reported that in 2023, data centers consumed about 26% of Virginia’s electricity supply and 12% of Nebraska’s.

In the 13 Eastern states covered by the PJM power grid, data centers contributed to an estimated $9.3 billion increase in future electric contracts, helping drive residential bills higher. Average monthly bills rose by $18 in western Maryland, for example.

The Journal reported that Maine already has some of the country’s highest residential electricity rates, which helps explain why lawmakers there are wary of adding another major source of demand.

Other states are testing similar limits

Lawmakers in at least 11 states — Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin — introduced temporary data-center moratorium bills this session, Stateline reported. Similar measures are expected in Pennsylvania and Minnesota.

Some local governments have already moved ahead with pauses of their own. Stateline reported that St. Charles, Missouri, adopted a one-year ban last August. It also reported that three Indiana counties suspended data-center development last year. Fulton County, Indiana, imposed another one-year pause this week, and DeKalb County, Georgia, delayed new development through June 2026.

The Journal reported that concern is spreading to larger cities, with Denver and Detroit among those considering restrictions. In Maine, the paper reported that recent proposals in Wiscasset and Lewiston were paused or failed at the local level after residents objected.

Nebraska shows how big these projects can get

If Maine shows the backlash, Nebraska shows the scale of what states are being asked to host. Flatwater Free Press reported that Google is considering a Nebraska data center that could need 1,000 to 3,000 megawatts of power, more than three times Lincoln’s peak summer demand.

The project could be paired with a privately built natural gas plant that might generate more electricity than the largest power plant now operating in the state.

The proposal may depend on a bill, backed by Gov. Jim Pillen, that would allow privately built and owned power facilities for large industrial customers.

Kenny Zoeller, director of policy research for Pillen’s office, told Flatwater Free Press that the goal is to keep Nebraska competitive while ensuring "the largest corporations in the world should be paying for their own generation of their facilities, not your average Nebraska homeowner.”

That argument captures the broader split playing out in statehouses and local governments. Supporters see tax revenue, construction jobs and economic development. Critics see possible strain on public utilities, environmental costs and the risk that households could still absorb part of the burden.

What happens next in Maine and beyond

In Maine, the next step is Senate action and possible amendments. The Journal reported that lawmakers are considering carveouts for already planned projects in Jay and Sanford, and that some political operatives see a version of the bill as likely to become law.

Beyond Maine, lawmakers and local officials elsewhere are still debating whether to pause new projects, regulate them more tightly or keep competing for them.

In Nebraska, Flatwater Free Press reported that the governor-backed power bill advanced out of committee and still must go before the full Legislature, where it could face resistance.

The U.S. has already struck Iranian military equipment on the island, but the latest threat from Trump suggests that attacks on energy infrastructure are on the table if Iran does not allow shipping traffic to resume through the Strait of Hormuz.

On Monday, Trump said that if Iran does not open the strait, the U.S. would respond by “blowing up and completely obliterating” Kharg Island as well as Iran’s power plants, oil wells and, possibly, desalination plants. 

Trump has shown an interest in the obscure island since long before he was in a position to order an attack on it. In a 1988 interview with The Guardian, when he first talked about running for president, he was asked about his foreign policy regarding Iran, if he were elected. 

“One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island,” Trump said. “I’d go in and take it.”

Nearly four decades later, he may make good on that threat.

What’s on Kharg Island? 

Located about 15 miles off the coast of Iran in the Persian Gulf, Kharg Island is the heart of Iran’s oil export capacity. The waters closer to shore aren't deep enough for large crude carriers, so tankers anchor around the island and load up at offshore buoys and docking platforms connected to pipelines from the Iranian mainland.

The island is a “key node to the Iranian economy, and a key node to the global economy, because those tankers of Iranian oil go out to serve import countries with critical transportation fuels,” said Jim Krane, a fellow studying energy and geopolitics in the Middle East at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. 

Kharg Island processes roughly 90% of Iran's crude exports, making it the financial engine of the Iranian state. The island has enough storage tanks to hold 30 million barrels of oil. Disrupting it would cut off the revenue Iran uses to fund its government and military. While most tankers have been blocked, Iranian oil has continued to flow through the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. has already struck military targets on the island, including air defense systems, a radar site, an airport and a hovercraft base, according to satellite imagery cited by The Associated Press. 

How might striking Kharg Island change the conflict? 

The destruction of Iran’s oil export capacity would further drive up global prices. 

Petras Katinas, an energy researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, told the AP that destroying Kharg's infrastructure would not completely halt Iranian exports, since Iran has other smaller ports. But it would force oil flows "through a much smaller, costlier and less efficient export system."

Krane said he doubts the Trump administration wants to stop Iranian oil from flowing to the global market. Instead, he suspects that “Trump wants to threaten Kharg Island and potentially capture it as a bargaining chip for an eventual settlement.” 

Iran would not surrender the island easily. The regime has been preparing for attacks by moving additional military personnel and air defenses to Kharg Island and laying traps, CNN reported. Iran is also adding shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missile systems known as MANPADs and mines along the shoreline.

Trump also told the Financial Times he wants to “take the oil in Iran,” which suggests a mission to capture Kharg Island. 

Whether it would be destroyed or captured, Krane said Iran would look to retaliate, setting off an escalation of the war and the global economic fallout.

“There's lots of escalatory options that Iran has that could be brought to bear if US boots are on the ground,” Krane said, including striking even more energy infrastructure in neighboring Gulf states, or hitting water desalination plants. "Iranian leaders have been saying for decades that if they can't use the Strait of Hormuz, then they're not going to let their neighbors use it, either.”

The American Automobile Association recorded an average price of $4.02 on Tuesday — up from $3.99 Monday. The cost of gasoline is up more than 30% since the start of the war with Iran a month ago.

Diesel has also increased by $1.70 since the end of February to an average of $5.45 per gallon. 

The war has upset global energy supply chains. Iran has shown no signs of opening the Strait of Hromuz, the narrow waterway through which about 20% of global oil supply passed prior to the war. Iran has also continued attacks on energy infrastructure in neighboring countries, striking a refinery in Israel on Monday. Without a resolution that opens the strait, the per-barrel price of oil is expected to continue to rise, bringing the cost of gasoline with it. 

Where are gasoline prices the highest? 

Gas is most expensive on the West Coast — well beyond $4 per gallon. In California, the cost of a gallon of regular is $5.89 on average. Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington are also among the most expensive states to buy gas. 

Meanwhile the Midwest and Great Plains have the most affordable gasoline with Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas the only states where gas costs less than $3.30 on average. 

Where are prices increasing the most?

Since Feb. 28, Americans have collectively spent an extra $8 billion on gasoline, according to an analysis by Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. 

The increasing prices have not hit all states equally. Drivers in Utah face the largest increase this March at $1.45 per gallon — an extra $21.75 per fill-up on a 15-gallon tank.

In one month, gas prices in 25 states have shot up by $1 or more. The smallest increase is in Nebraska, where a gallon of gasoline only costs 62 cents more than it did at the end of February. 

Diesel prices in Arizona are up by 67%, the highest spike in the nation. That’s already affecting the trucking industry, which threatens to drive inflation for many consumer goods.

How will consumers react?

While Tuesday’s price only increased by 3 cents from the previous day, gas prices are a potent sign for consumers that affects public opinion. And as prices rise, it does have a ripple effect across the economy. 

“Consumers don’t have a lot of flexibility to adjust their consumption,” Erich Muehlegger, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, told Straight Arrow News earlier this month. 

For households with limited flexibility in their budgets, that means less shopping and eating out, cutting back when they visit the grocery store or opting out of recreational activities. 

But when accounting for inflation, $4 per gallon in today’s dollars is still relatively low. For all of 2010 to until November of 2014, gasoline prices were above $4 per gallon, when adjusted for inflation. 2007 and 2008 saw prices swing from around $3.60 per gallon to over $6 in 2026 dollars. 

“People will complain when it hits 3, then when it's 4, then when it's 5,” De Haan told SAN, but the “far more active story” is the percentage of Americans’ monthly income spent on gasoline. 

“People will start really throttling back around 4.5 to 5%,” De Haan said. This happened in 2008, when more commuters began bicycling or taking public transit. But for now, De Haan said he isn’t seeing that. “As wages go up, so does what people are willing to pay.” 

In addition to the direct burden on consumers and businesses, the increased spending on gasoline will have a ripple effect across the economy, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, an app that tracks prices at more than 150,000 U.S. gas stations.

“That $8 billion just doesn’t come out of thin air,” De Haan told Straight Arrow News. “It likely means that Americans are spending less in some areas of the economy.” 

Gas prices are not yet high enough to alter decision-making around biking or taking mass transit, De Haan said. Many Americans feel they have no choice but to absorb the higher cost of gasoline into their budgets. And for families and individuals without much wiggle room to spend more, they have to spend less on food, groceries or leisure. 

What’s behind the $8 billion figure?

The math behind De Haan’s calculation is simple: Using Feb. 28 as a baseline, he calculated the daily price increases over the past month, which he multiplied by 370 million gallons — the average daily consumption rate here in the U.S. 

The war in Iran has lasted more than a month, sending a supply shock across the global energy market. Iran’s de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has prevented about 10 million barrels of oil produced by Gulf states like Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from reaching global markets. With diminished supply and increased uncertainty, the price of oil has soared. That pushes up U.S. gasoline prices regardless of how much oil America produces.

Seasonal factors like routine refinery maintenance, increased travel and a switch in gasoline blends also tend to increase prices each spring. However, De Haan said his calculation factored this in by subtracting $300 million from his initial total. The remaining $8 billion can be attributed to the economic fallout in global oil markets, De Haan said.

What are the economic effects? 

De Haan said he expects high gas and diesel prices to “slow the U.S. economy down significantly.” 

Diesel prices, which are over $1.60 higher than a month ago, are expected to drive higher prices across other aspects of the economy, due to higher shipping costs. 

“That will have a ripple effect,” De Haan told SAN. 

“Grocery costs don't necessarily go up overnight,” De Haan said. Still, he noted, consumer behavior is already changing. Fewer Americans are going to spend time at retail stores or going out to eat. And beyond having less money in their wallet because they’re spending more on gas, the cost of goods will rise.

That, he said, is a “double whammy.”

Called E15, the higher-ethanol blend contains 15% ethanol, while most gas is blended with 10% ethanol. Federal regulations ban the sale of E15 in nearly half of the country during summer months to curb air pollution. The announcement marks the fifth year of a summer waiver that started in 2022 due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The EPA said the move was to help strengthen the gas supply as the busy summer travel season begins. 

“EPA is working with our federal partners to reduce unnecessary costs and uncertainty and ensure that gas prices remain affordable for all Americans through the summer,”   EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said. “This emergency action will provide American families with relief by increasing fuel supply and consumer choice.”

Will this impact gas prices? 

According to AAA, the average price of gas is just under $4 a gallon, more than a dollar higher than it was a month ago. In his press release, Zeldin said that the move to release higher-ethanol fuel will help lower prices. 

However, energy experts don’t all agree with Zeldin, and some say the move won’t change the price at the pump. While higher-ethanol gasoline is cheaper, it’s not available everywhere, and there isn’t enough infrastructure or supply to increase production so that any price decrease would be modest at most. 

Since ethanol is typically made from corn, less of it is then used for animal feed, Jason Hill, a professor at the University of Minnesota, The Associated Press. A study by the International Council on Clean Transportation found that diverting seed oil to ethanol production affects feed prices for livestock.

“We also find that, although small, the [renewable fuel standard] has a negative economic impact on household consumers,” researchers wrote, estimating a 0.1% cost to at-home food spending in 2019. “This impact is more significant for domestic and international consumers that are food insecure.”

Hill told the AP that he believed the decision was more targeted towards farmers than consumers.

Is E15 gas safe?

Drivers of newer vehicles don’t need to worry about higher-ethanol fuel, but people who drive older models could have some issues, especially later on. 

Higher-ethanol fuel is much more corrosive to an engine, which could permanently damage certain parts. The EPA approved the use of E15 in light-duty conventional vehicles from 2001 and newer, following testing funded by the Department of Energy.

Other vehicles, like motorcycles, heavy-duty trucks and off-road vehicles should not use E15 fuel. Drivers should also be aware that E15 is less fuel-efficient than regular gas, which could offset some savings. 

Experts disagree about the environmental impacts of higher-ethanol fuel, especially during the summer. Some claim that during the hotter months, E15 fuel can affect the ozone layer, which leads to some earlier deaths from heart attacks and respiratory issues that wouldn't otherwise have occurred. This is the reasoning behind the summer restriction.

”There’s more likely to be ozone issues in the summer and some people will die,” Kenneth Gillingham, a professor at the Yale School of the Environment, told the AP. “It will lead to some earlier heart attacks and it will lead to some earlier respiratory issues that wouldn’t have been the case otherwise.”