As national diesel prices hit an all-time high of $6.20 a gallon Monday, the Trump administration's energy chief poured cold water on one of the most talked-about fixes floating around Washington: banning US fuel and crude oil exports. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told a room of world energy ministers in Houston that such a ban wouldn't bring down what Americans pay at the pump, and could make things worse for import-dependent states like California.
Burgum, who also leads President Trump's National Energy Dominance Council, made the comments at the G20 ministerial meeting on energy abundance in Houston, according to Bloomberg. He warned that a US export ban could prompt other countries to retaliate with their own export restrictions, a move that would specifically harm energy-importing regions such as California, according to Investing.com. That report notes California has leaned heavily on imported refined products since a string of local refinery closures in recent years.
The remarks landed at a moment of real financial pain at the pump. National retail diesel hit its record $6.20 per gallon Monday while regular gasoline averaged $4.31 per gallon, according to ETV Bharat, with the surge tied to the ongoing US-Iran war and shipping bottlenecks through the Strait of Hormuz. Diesel costs feed directly into freight and supply-chain expenses nationwide, Fox Business reports.
Why More Exports Don't Mean Higher Prices, According to Economists
The economic case Burgum is leaning on has been building for years. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that banning US crude oil exports would fail to lower domestic gasoline prices, because pump prices track global benchmarks like Brent crude rather than domestic crude values. Restricting exports can push domestic crude prices down relative to those global benchmarks, the research found, but it does nothing to lower the price of refined products on the international market.
There's also a physical bottleneck working against the idea. Roughly 70% of US refining capacity is built to process heavy, sour crude imported from abroad rather than the light, sweet crude that gushes out of American shale fields, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That mismatch means a crude export ban would trap excess light crude that domestic refiners simply aren't equipped to turn into gasoline or diesel, since many of them depend on heavier blends from Canada and Mexico to maximize diesel output.
None of this is happening in a vacuum of low supply. The US Energy Information Administration reported that total US exports of crude oil and petroleum products hit a record 13.6 million barrels per day in April 2026, with crude oil exports alone peaking at 5.6 million barrels per day as global buyers sought alternatives to disrupted Persian Gulf supplies. The agency's September Short-Term Energy Outlook forecasts domestic crude production will average a record 13.8 million barrels per day this year, up from 13.7 million in 2025, driven largely by expansion in the Permian Basin across Texas and New Mexico, where output alone is projected to reach 6.8 million barrels per day in 2026.
A Legal Ban Is Possible, But Rarely Used
Congress ended the 40-year-old statutory ban on US crude oil exports back in December 2015 through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, closing the door that had been shut since the 1973 Arab oil embargo, according to the US Government Accountability Office. The cited sources do not detail any additional presidential authority to restrict crude exports, even as fuel prices have soared this year.
Facing political pressure ahead of the November midterms, White House officials have instead considered using the Defense Production Act to expand domestic refining capacity, according to BigGo Finance. Energy executives cautioned in that report that refinery expansions take years to complete and that existing plants are already running near full capacity, leaving little room for a quick fix.
Deregulation Push Rolls Out Alongside the Summit
Burgum's comments in Houston coincided with a separate announcement from EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who finalized the repeal of major Biden-era greenhouse gas regulations for fossil-fuel power plants, projecting $310 billion in compliance cost savings, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Zeldin announced the action and Burgum joined him, underscoring how the administration is pairing its export-ban skepticism with a broader deregulatory push.
The financial toll on households has been steep. US consumers spent an additional $100 billion on fuel between late February and early September, including $55 billion in extra gasoline spending and $45 billion in extra diesel costs.
The pain has already rippled into other Hoodline coverage this year, including Florida gas prices jumping 18 cents overnight.
