Energy secretary on gas and diesel prices, G7 agreeing to release 100 million barrels of fuel

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA) - Energy Secretary Chris Wright spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about gas and diesel prices.

According to Brennan, Secretary Wright said Americans can expect to see lower gas and diesel prices by election day.

Meanwhile, Brennan said the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote a piece outlining "outlining that the campaign to squeeze around financially is working, but they can still knock out significant Gulf energy infrastructure," and said, "They could be planning an October surprise before the U.S. midterms."

This prompted her to ask the secretary how he can be confident that prices are heading down while we are still seeing Iranian attacks on ships now, to which he said:

"Because we've got increasing supplies coming out of the Strait of Hormuz and they've continued to rise over the last months, over the last recent weeks. We've got U.S. gasoline production today at record high. We have demand for gasoline, as we come out of the summer driving scene, starting to go down. Similar stories with diesel. Diesel's mostly been infected by the Russia-Ukraine war and also by China's decision not to export diesel or gasoline into the marketplace. And of course, we're living with two refineries that were recently closed, large refineries in California that Gavin Newsom forced the closure of. And frankly, 15 years of Democrat policies that have been energy subtraction, trying to close coal plants, close refineries, and shrink our capacity. Which means when you get in crisis, we're just less resilient than we should be."

During the interview, Brennan and Wright talked about the G7, the world's wealthiest countries, agreeing to release 100 million barrels of fuel over four months.

Brennan also said, "They're going to front load it with a lot of diesel in the next 20 days," leading her to ask how significant a price impact and for how long, and Wright said:

"It's a big deal. It's a big deal. Europe has very large diesel stores. They, you know, they don't refine enough diesel to supply their own economies, so naturally they store a lot of diesel. They're very keen to see American diesel continue to flow to Europe. They've got a lot of diesel in stores. Why not release some of that? This is what you store diesel for. When all the Russian exports of diesel are shut down, when the Chinese have said we're not going to deliver any more diesel, and you still have a reduction of diesel flows coming out of the Gulf, but we're restoring those, but that takes time. This is just common sense. This lowers diesel prices, not just in the United States, but it lowers them in Europe and around the world. But it will drive diesel prices down as those releases come. It'll drive diesel down through the winter in the United States and around the world. And by then we'll be in another place. We'll have more refining capacity online. I suspect we'll continue to see diesel decline as we go into next spring as well."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Wright, click here.