Nearly nine in ten registered voters say producing more energy at home would help lower prices and give Americans more control over their own economy, according to a recent nationwide poll. The same survey found 78% support for increasing domestic oil production and removing regulations that block refineries from turning crude into affordable gasoline.
The numbers come as drivers in California, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon have spent the past year watching fuel prices swing on events far outside their control, from refinery fires to overseas drone strikes to state-level regulation.
A fragile supply chain on the West Coast
In October 2025, a fire knocked Chevron’s El Segundo refinery offline just as Phillips 66 was shutting down its Los Angeles facility. Arizona, Nevada, and to a lesser degree Oregon all rely on California refining capacity, meaning drivers in those states felt the effects even though they had no say in California’s energy policy. Two additional California refineries have closed since then.
This is not a new problem. When gasoline prices spiked in California in 2022 even as crude prices fell, Governor Gavin Newsom pointed to “greedy oil companies” and proposed a new tax on them. A refinery executive later told California’s Energy Commission a different story: state regulations have pushed refineries to close entirely or shut down major units, leaving the fuel supply chain exposed to even routine, required maintenance.
The Energy Information Administration warned earlier this year that shrinking refinery capacity could cancel out the benefits of cheaper crude, particularly on the West Coast. Lower-priced raw material does not help much if the plants needed to process it keep going offline.
Energy and the cost of living
The link between energy and household budgets shows up in national inflation data too. Consumer prices rose 4.2% from a year earlier in May, the highest annual reading since April 2023, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting the Consumer Price Index up 0.5% for the month. Energy accounted for more than 60% of that overall increase.
Leverage abroad, pain at home
Fuel markets are also shaped by foreign policy and conflict. The Trump administration, through Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has been targeting the shadow fleet of tankers that sustains Iran’s petroleum revenue. Bessent said in early September that oil prices could fall to $40 or $50 a barrel “on the other side” of the Iran conflict, noting Iran had only about 30 million barrels of crude left outside the blockade to sell at that time.
Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries have added another layer, affecting not just Russia’s war effort but global diesel markets. President Trump addressed the issue on October 5, and the pressure has prompted questions about whether the United States should curb diesel exports while Americans pay high prices at home.
An industry expert cautioned that simply halting exports would not work, because the country lacks the storage tanks, pipeline capacity, and transportation arrangements to redirect that fuel domestically on short notice. Exports could realistically be throttled by roughly half before supply chains start to break down in costly, long-term ways, the expert said, since every link in the chain — from crude producers to midstream logistics firms to wholesalers to consumers — would be forced into an abrupt and expensive adjustment.
What’s being proposed
Proposals aimed at easing these pressures include reforming the Jones Act or granting targeted waivers from its restrictions on domestic energy shipping to lower transportation costs, along with limiting the kinds of regulations individual states can impose on oil drilling, refineries, and fuel blends.
Supporters of these changes argue that while the country cannot prevent every refinery fire or control a foreign government’s military decisions, policy can determine how exposed American drivers are when those events happen.
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