The average gas price in the United States reached a new record ahead of Joe Biden’s planned speech about how he will fight inflation.
The average pump price nationwide hit a whopping $4.37 per gallon, the highest level since March. The average price of diesel fuel also hit a record $5.56 per gallon, according to AAA data released Tuesday.
“There’s little, if any, good news about fuel prices heading into summer, and the problem could become worse should we see an above average hurricane season, which could knock out refinery capacity at a time we badly need it as refined product inventories continue to plummet,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at research firm GasBuddy, said in a statement Tuesday, per the Daily Caller.
The number arrives despite the Biden administration’s efforts to lessen the financial burden on Americans paying massive gas prices, including ordering the release of 180 million barrels of oil from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the single largest since the establishment of the reserves in the mid-1970s.
Biden has also encouraged oil and gas producers to increase energy production.