The AAA national average for regular gasoline printed $4.45 a gallon on Friday and held there into Saturday, a fresh 2026 high and the highest mark since the U.S.–Iran war began. [1] California averaged $5.965, with several Bay Area counties posting $6.20–$6.40. [2] The national figure rose more than thirty cents over the prior week. The print arrived nine days after Energy Secretary Chris Wright told a Sunday morning interviewer that prices had "likely peaked." [3]

The contradiction is the story. Wright's claim, given April 26, framed the spike as a backwash from the late-March OPEC+ adjustments and the early-April Hormuz toll, with markets adjusting downward as supply rerouted. The Friday print did the opposite. NPR's reporting tied the move to the same Hormuz dynamic Wright cited as receding — escort-mission announcements, the IRGC's thirty-day ultimatum, and the OPEC+ technical session locking +188 kbpd of June production into a war premium that markets continued to price upward, not downward. [1]

The political register of the contradiction is selective. The Washington Examiner led with it: "gas prices new 2026 high set" with Wright's prior claim quoted as the Examiner's frame. [4] U.S. News covered the record without mentioning Wright's April 26 statement. [2] NPR's piece foregrounded the Hormuz mechanics and noted Wright's softer follow-up — that prices "may stay above $3 until 2027" — without juxtaposing it against the "likely peaked" claim. [1][3] The Heather Long thread on X carried the divergence into discourse: $1.40 added to the pump average since the war began, roughly $70 a month per household. [5]

The number that goes uncited is the share. AAA's history shows the only higher national average on record is the June 2022 print of $5.016, set during the early Russia-Ukraine reroute. The current $4.45 has now surpassed the 2008 financial-crisis peak in nominal terms and is approaching it in real terms. [6] Richard Bernstein Advisors' Friday note, quoted on X by Carl Quintanilla, called it "the highest non-pandemic related gas price in AAA's history." [7] Greg Ip pushed back on the "non-pandemic related" framing, noting 2022 was a Russia-Ukraine print, not a pandemic-supply print. [8] The substance of his correction is that this is the second-highest gallon price in AAA's recorded history behind a wartime print three and a half years ago.

What no public account ties is the Wright contradiction to the operating frame. The Energy Department's "likely peaked" call carried a presumption that the underlying drivers — Hormuz transit costs, the OPEC+ June add, and the UAE's OPEC departure — would settle. None of them have. Hormuz transit costs are unchanged by Wright's claim. The OPEC+ June add was locked Sunday May 3 at the technical session. The UAE departed OPEC effective May 1. Each of these moved the wrong direction for Wright's prediction inside nine days.

What did move was retail behavior. Cox Automotive's gas-price index showed weekend volume down roughly four percent against the prior weekend, the second straight weekend of consumer pullback at the pump. EIA's weekly product supplied data won't print until midweek; if the pullback continues, the dataset will pair a fresh AAA high with a falling-volume line, the macro signature of demand destruction starting to arrive. The Energy Secretary's "likely peaked" claim will then be true in a sense Wright did not intend.

Brent on Friday closed $114.66, off the $126 wartime high but holding above $110 for the third week. [4] The pump price lags Brent by roughly two weeks, so the Friday $4.45 mark prices through the late-April Brent average, not Friday's. If the diplomatic-hopes pullback in oil holds — covered separately in this edition under the Brent pullback frame — pump prices catch up only mid-May. If diplomatic hopes break, the $4.45 mark is a way station, not a peak.

Wright's office did not respond to a request for clarification on the April 26 claim. The AAA average updates daily.

-- SAMUEL CRANE, Washington