Gas prices will dip below $3 a gallon “again before too long,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright promised Sunday — as he denied the US was targeting energy infrastructure in Iran.
Wright touted that gas prices are “still $1.50 a gallon cheaper” than they were during the middle of the Biden administration and predicted that the recent uptick due to the military campaign in Iran is a weekslong phenomenon, “not a months’ thing.”
“The Trump administration has been all in on lowering energy prices, and I would say quite successfully,” Wright told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “We have seen a dramatic decline in gasoline prices, in diesel prices. Soon, you will see it in electricity prices as well.”
“We want it [gas prices] back below $3 a gallon. And it will be again before too long.”
The national gas price average is $3.45 a gallon as of Sunday, per the American Automobile Association. It was just below $3 before the Operation Epic Fury attacks on Iran began a week ago.
Video of hellish black clouds and massive infernos ravaging Tehran went viral late Saturday after Israel struck various fuel sites in the area.
In one apocalyptic scene, a massive fireball formed near Azadi Tower, which is not far from Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran.
The Israel Defense Forces took credit for the attack, calling it critical towards undermining “the military infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime.”
Wright, however, was insistent that, for the US, “there are no plans to target Iran’s oil industry, their natural gas industry, or anything about their energy industry.”
“And these are Israeli strikes,” he said. “These are local fuel depots to fill up the gas tank in this neighborhood in Tehran.
“The US is targeting zero energy infrastructure. We want to end a 47-year war.”
Wright applauded the military campaign against Iran as a means of correcting a foreign policy quandary that has haunted the US for decades.
“It is simply unacceptable for the United States, for the Middle East geography and for the world economy to have a terrorist regime with nuclear weapons and a gigantic missile arsenal,” Wright said. “They have raised energy prices for Americans for decades. It’s finally going to come to an end.”
Part of why oil prices have shot up quickly over recent days is because travel through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil chokepoint off the southern coast of Iran, where about a fifth of the world’s oil flows through annually, has been stymied amid the attacks.
The US Navy has announced plans to offer escorts for oil tankers through the tumultuous Strait, where some fear Iran may ramp up its retaliatory efforts over the American and Israeli strikes.
“We’re not too long away, I think, before you will see more regular resumption of ship traffic through the Straits of Hormuz,” Wright said.
The Energy Secretary claimed that Iran’s missile launches have been down by almost 90% and its ability to fire off drones has plummeted by around 80% since Operation Epic Fury began.
