Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday he cannot predict when gas prices will go down or whether they may increase further, as negotiations to end the conflict in Iran drag on.
“I can’t make any predictions about oil prices or gasoline prices,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Mr. Wright said his March prediction on the same program that “there’s a very good chance” gas prices would fall back under $3 a gallon before the summer travel season was based on the administration’s expectations that the conflict would last about four to six weeks.
He said Sunday that the U.S. military objectives to destroy Iran’s air and naval defense systems and industrial capability to build missiles and drones were met in that time frame, but negotiations to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon are taking “a little longer.”
The U.S. and Iran have both used the Strait of Hormuz as leverage in negotiations by blocking maritime traffic from traversing the oil transit chokepoint.
Mr. Wright’s inability to predict whether gas prices will rise or start to fall is due to uncertainty surrounding the negotiations.
“I can say that when we start to get free flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, energy prices will come down,” he said.
Mr. Wright said Iran is “the biggest threat in the world to the flow of global energy” and ending the Islamic republic’s nuclear ambitions “is massively positive for the flow of energy.”
“More energy will flow in the future, meaning lower energy prices for Americans and the rest of the world,” he said. “Long-term this is a great move, short-term it’s causing some discomfort.”
The energy secretary said the Trump administration’s top priority is ending Iran’s nuclear program but it will not let Iran continue to block the Strait of Hormuz if they cannot come to a deal.
“If need be, if we don’t get to a deal with Iran, we will use military force to open the Strait to everyone,” he said.
In a separate appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Mr. Wright said that the paused Project Freedom effort to clear the strait will resume “if it’s clear in the next few days that there’s not a good path to a negotiated settlement.”
“The economic pressure on Iran right now is increasing dramatically,” he said. “Not only is their government in the country losing their main export revenues because of our blockade, but also Economic Fury operation that we launched, starting just a few weeks ago, is collecting the monies of the corrupt [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] leaders that they’ve squirreled away abroad.”
Mr. Wright said the Trump administration is working in the interim to mitigate the impact of rising oil prices.
“We’ve taken a number of actions, releasing oil from our strategic petroleum reserves, getting 30 other nations to do that in coordination with us,” he said. “We revised the EPA regulations on summer gasoline blend to make it easier for American refineries to produce more gasoline. We’ve been in contact with all American refiners, asking them to do shorter maintenance work this spring so they can keep pumping out more products.”
Asked if President Trump would be open to suspending the federal gas tax, Mr. Wight said the administration is “open to all ideas” but cautioned “everything has trade-offs.”
The federal gas tax is used to pay for federal transportation projects, such as highway and bridge maintenance, but its revenues do not keep up with spending needs.
If Mr. Trump were to push for a gas tax suspension, he would have to persuade Congress to enact a law to do so at a time when lawmakers are looking to reauthorize transportation program spending — a heavy lift.
Mr. Wright said in the CBS appearance that his department’s nuclear experts are preparing to help execute the U.S.-Israel goal of removing Iran’s enriched uranium, but it has yet to be decided how that process would unfold.
“Iran has nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched to 60%, so close to weapons grade — way higher than any potential commercial use of it,” he said. “They’ve lied all along that it’s for a civil nuclear program. It’s for their own energy. It was never about that. It was always about weapons, and the world just can’t live with a nuclear armed Iran.”
