Rising pump prices draw calls to action from Democrats

Kelly Livingston, CQ-Roll Call on Mar 9, 2026

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WASHINGTON — As oil prices rise in the wake of U.S. military operations in Iran, Senate Democrats have begun calling for a solution to the increasing costs.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, in a Sunday post on X, called on President Donald Trump to draw down oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to slow rising costs.

“Due to Donald Trump’s reckless war of choice, gas prices have surged to their highest levels in years. His response? ‘If they rise, they rise.’ He couldn’t care less,” Schumer said. “Today, I demanded Trump release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve IMMEDIATELY to bring relief to Americans at the pump.”

Schumer, D-N.Y., was referencing comments Trump made in an interview with Reuters on March 5 in which the president also said he expected gas prices to “drop very rapidly when this is over.”

West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices were up significantly Monday compared with a few weeks ago, with the price per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange listed at $96.01. Current prices are about $5 a barrel higher than on March 6 and up about $30 a barrel from late February.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright made the rounds on the Sunday political shows over the weekend, saying that “energy will flow soon.”

“The plan is to get oil and natural gas and fertilizer and all of the products from the Gulf flowing through the straits before too long,” Wright said on Fox News Sunday. “One large tanker has already gone through the straits with no issues at all.”

Energy prices were part of the justification for war with Iran, he said. “It’s one of the reasons the president had to move on this war. Iran has just terrorized America, the neighborhood and the energy markets for 47 years.”

The White House hasn’t indicated it will choose to begin a drawdown from the SPR because of the war. The administration has criticized former President Joe Biden for taking similar action in response to the Russian war on Ukraine, even awarding contracts to start refilling the SPR late last year.

Drawing from the SPR is just one potential solution that congressional Democrats have raised in recent days as they continue to focus their messaging around affordability issues during the midterm campaign season.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., plans to introduce a bill Monday to suspend the federal gas tax to help alleviate rising costs related to the war, his office confirmed.

“Families across Arizona are dealing with high costs on almost everything, and now gas prices are skyrocketing because Donald Trump started a war with Iran,” Kelly said in an emailed statement. “Arizona families shouldn’t pay the price for Donald Trump’s bad decisions. Suspending the federal gas tax would help bring prices down and give families some much needed relief.”

In a video posted to Facebook on March 6, the senator said he was working to get other members “on board” with the idea.

The bill, which he is calling “The Gas Prices Relief Act of 2026,” would suspend the federal gas tax through Oct. 1, according to details provided by Kelly’s office. It would direct the Treasury secretary to “monitor the program and use available authorities to help ensure that the benefits of the tax suspension are passed on to consumers at the pump.”

And it would require the Treasury Department to transfer general funds into the Highway Trust Fund and Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund to keep those programs, typically paid for through the gas tax, solvent during the suspension.

The federal gas tax sits at 18.4 cents a gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents a gallon for diesel. The national average price for a gallon of regular gas is $3.48 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association, 20 cents higher than at the start of the weekend and 50 cents more than a week ago, when the average was $2.98 a gallon.

In June 2022, with gas prices on the rise in response to the Russian war on Ukraine, Biden asked Congress to lift the federal gas tax through September of that year, and Kelly and a few other Democrats introduced legislation along those lines soon after the conflict started. But most members of Congress, from both parties, met the idea with skepticism.

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