DOT levies largest-ever penalty against American Airlines for tarmac delays

The Transportation Department has issued a $4 million fine against Texas-based American Airlines for leaving passengers stranded on the tarmac for three hours or more — the agency's largest penalty to date for a single domestic airline for breaking the rule.

DOT’s rules permit aircraft to idle awaiting takeoff for only three hours max for a domestic flight, without offering passengers a chance to deplane. However, following an investigation, the agency determined American “kept dozens of flights stuck on the tarmac for long periods of time without letting passengers off."

American spokesperson Sarah Jantz said the referenced delays were as a result of “exceptional weather events,” and represented a small amount of “the 7.7 million flights during this time period.”

In addition to improving its performance on tarmac delays, “we have since apologized to the impacted customers and regret any inconvenience caused,” Jantz said.

Background: DOT has broad consumer protection authority, which has been used in the past to underpin decisions to fine airlines for keeping passengers sitting on the tarmac for too long, for failing to issue prompt refunds, or violating similar rules.

The agency’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection studied incidents between 2018 and 2021, and found that American allowed "43 domestic flights to remain on the tarmac for lengthy periods without providing passengers an opportunity to deplane,” it said. Passengers were also not offered food or water — a staple of the rule — during the delays, officials said.

The majority of the delays occurred at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport — American’s central hub — and affected a total of 5,821 passengers.

Similarly, in 2021, DOT announced $1.9 million in fines against United Airlines for violating the same rule, which at the time was the largest fine to date for breaking the rules.

What’s next: In recent months, DOT has proposed a series of rules intended to better protect airline consumers, the most substantial of which would strengthen protections for airline passengers who want a cash refund after a flight is canceled.

DOT on Monday said roughly half of the fine will be “credited to the airline for compensation provided to passengers on the affected flights.”

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Joe the Plumber, who questioned Obama's tax policies during the 2008 campaign, has died at 49

TOLEDO, Ohio — Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher, who was thrust into the political spotlight as “Joe the Plumber” after questioning Barack Obama about his economic policies during the 2008 presidential campaign, and who later forayed into politics himself, has died, his son said Monday. He was 49.

His oldest son, Joey Wurzelbacher, said his father died Sunday in Wisconsin after a long illness. His family announced this year on an online fundraising site that he had pancreatic cancer.

“The only thing I have to say is that he was a true patriot,” Joey Wurzelbacher — whose father had the middle name Joseph and went by Joe — said in a telephone interview. “His big thing is that everyone come to God. That’s what he taught me, and that’s a message I hope is heard by a lot of people.”

He went from toiling as a plumber in suburban Toledo, Ohio, to life as a media sensation when he asked Obama about his tax plan during a campaign stop.

Their exchange and Obama’s response that he wanted to “spread the wealth around” aired often on cable news. Days later, Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, repeatedly cited “Joe the Plumber” in a presidential debate.

Wurzelbacher went on to campaign with McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, but he later criticized McCain in his book and said he did not want him as the GOP presidential nominee.

His sudden fame turned him into a sought-after voice for many anti-establishment conservatives, and he traveled the country speaking at tea party rallies and conservative gatherings.

He also wrote a book and worked with a veterans organization that provided outdoor programs for wounded soldiers.

In 2012, he made a bid for a U.S. House seat in Ohio, but he lost in a landslide to Democrat Marcy Kaptur in a district heavily tilted toward Democrats.

Republicans had recruited him to run and thought his fame would help bring in enough money to mount a serious challenge. But he drew criticism during the campaign for suggesting that the United States should build a fence at the Mexico border and “start shooting” at immigrants suspected of entering the country illegally.

Wurzelbacher returned to working as a plumber after he gave up on politics, his family said.

Funeral arrangements were pending. Survivors include his wife, Katie, and four children.

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Pentagon bets on quick production of autonomous systems to counter China

The Pentagon is about to make a huge bet that it can field thousands of autonomous systems within two years — an attempt to use technological innovation to counter China’s much larger stockpile of traditional weapons.

The ambitious effort, named Replicator, will be spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who previewed the push in an interview. Hicks will formally announce the initiative Monday in a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association's Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference.

China, China, China: Hicks said the time is right to push to rapidly scale up innovative technology. The move comes as the U.S. looks to get creative to deter China in the Indo-Pacific and Pentagon leadership has taken stock of how Ukraine has fended off Russia's invasion.

"Industry is ready. The culture is ready to shift," Hicks said. "We have to drive that from the top, and we need to give it a hard target."

“The great paradox of military innovation is you're going to have to make big bets and you've got to execute on those bets,” she added.

The plan: With Replicator, the Pentagon aims to have thousands of autonomous systems across various domains produced and delivered in 18 to 24 months.

Hicks declined to discuss what specific platforms might be produced under the program — such as aerial drones or unmanned ships — citing the “competition landscape” in the defense industry as well as concerns about tipping DOD's hand to China. The Pentagon will instead "say more as we get to production on capabilities."

Why now: The Pentagon is pushing to counter threats posed by China in the Pacific amid concerns that Beijing may accrue the military might needed to invade Taiwan before the decade is out.

Defense leaders are also fighting an arduous battle to quickly ramp up the industrial base to replenish military inventories of missiles and other weapons that have been sent to Ukraine, but that could also be of use in a China-Taiwan conflict.

Why this tech: Autonomous weapons are seen as a potential way to counter China's numerical advantages in ships, missiles and troops in a rapidly narrowing window. Fielding large numbers of cheap, expendable drones, proponents argue, is faster and lower-cost than exquisite weapons systems and puts fewer troops at risk.

Rinse, repeat: Another major aim of the Replicator initiative is to provide a template for future efforts to rapidly field military technology.

She said lessons from the Replicator program could be applied throughout the Pentagon, military services and combatant commands.

"The pieces that work well, they can be replicated throughout the department where they see what we've been able to do," Hicks said. "So if it's cutting years off of a process because we've got the standards figured out and right. If it's because there's a lack of communication between two components and we fixed that problem, that kind of speeding can happen through this formal process."

Funding: Hicks predicted the price tag would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars rather than billions of dollars. She noted that the Pentagon is harnessing many programs that are already underway, but added the Pentagon may need to "augment" some spending.

"Dollars are not the major challenge," Hicks said. "Getting the production up and running and getting it at scale is."

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Pope slammed for telling Russians to hold on to ‘legacy’ of a ‘great empire’

While he also advocated for peace, remarks seeming to praise Russia’s imperialist past come under fire.

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First test in Georgia v. Trump: Can prosecutors keep home-court advantage?

The first big showdown for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in her case against Donald Trump and 18 of his allies will take place on unfamiliar turf: a federal courtroom.

Officially, the Monday hearing in Atlanta will focus on a bid by co-defendant Mark Meadows to move the case out of Georgia state court.

But the session will also be a post-indictment courtroom debut for Willis’ prosecution team and a chance for attorneys in both camps to air their strongest initial arguments about the case, which was unveiled just two weeks ago and alleges a sweeping conspiracy to subvert the 2020 presidential election in Georgia and other states.

In short, the hearing before U.S. District Judge Steve Jones could resemble a mini-trial that will carry important lessons for the bigger battle to come. Some witnesses have even been served with subpoenas to testify at the hearing, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who resisted Trump’s pressure to “find” extra votes in January 2021 and could be a star witness for the prosecution at the eventual trial.

A transfer of the case to federal court would not likely be catastrophic for Willis’ case, but it would, at a minimum, eliminate an intrinsic home-court advantage for the veteran Fulton County prosecutor, legal experts said.

“Fani Willis spends her professional life in Fulton County Superior Court. She knows the court. She knows the judges. It’s geographically convenient. She knows the juries. She knows everything about it,” said Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “She’s prepared to do it [in federal court], but that’s not her home court.”

For the moment, Trump himself has not asked for a transfer — formally known as a “removal” — to federal court. But five of the 19 defendants have: Meadows, who served as Trump’s final White House chief of staff; Jeffrey Clark, who served in Trump’s Justice Department; and three defendants who falsely claimed to be electors authorized to cast Electoral College ballots for Georgia.

Trump still has plenty of time to seek a transfer. Under federal law, that deadline won’t come for more than a month.

Meanwhile, he can sit back and see what happens Monday, sizing up Jones — an appointee of former President Barack Obama — and assessing the judge’s openness to arguments that the case properly belongs in federal court because some of the defendants held posts in the federal government at the time of the 2020 election.

If moved to federal court, the charges — all of which are under Georgia law — would remain the same, and Willis’ team could continue to handle the prosecution. But federal procedural rules, not state court rules, would apply. And some defendants might anticipate other, more substantive advantages in a federal forum.

A jury for a trial in federal court would likely be drawn from 10 counties that comprise Atlanta and its sprawling suburbs, while a state-court trial would likely include jurors only from Fulton County, which delivered a 73% to 26% victory for Joe Biden over Trump in 2020. The broader set of counties is home to a somewhat higher proportion of Trump supporters, though the political makeup is not dramatically different.

“It's a slightly different jury pool,” Eisen said. “I don't think it'll be outcome-determinative. Only one of the counties went for Trump. It's almost all Biden counties in this division.”

A federal judge might also have more leeway to consider challenges to the constitutionality of the state racketeering statute or other laws included in the indictment than state judges, who are bound to follow state precedent.

Questions of immunity

Meadows hopes that a transfer to federal court would be a prelude to a ruling that he is entirely immune from the Georgia charges because they relate to actions he took as a federal official.

Other defendants — including Trump himself — are expected to make the same immunity argument.

The argument is rooted in the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which declares federal law to be “the supreme law of the land,” taking precedence over state laws that might conflict with it. It’s intended to prevent states from criminalizing actions that federal officials take to do their jobs. But legal scholars say the Constitution does not provide immunity from state charges based on conduct that clearly falls outside the scope of a federal official’s duties.

A string of cases in which federal officials — particularly law enforcement officers — have faced state-level charges have resulted in court rulings that often lead to immunity for those officials. Federal courts, more so than state courts, have tended to show deference to such claims.

“The conduct alleged in the Indictment plainly came about because Mr. Meadows was serving as Chief of Staff to then-President Donald J. Trump, and the Chief of Staff has broad-ranging duties to advise and assist the President. This is not a case where the defendant was plainly ‘acting on a frolic of their own which had no relevancy of their official duties,’” Meadows’ lawyers wrote in a court filing Friday, quoting an earlier legal precedent.

Meadows’ submission even dabbles in a controversial argument advanced by some conservatives known as the unitary executive theory. The former chief of staff’s lawyers argue that since state- and locally-run elections are overseen by portions of the federal government such as the Justice Department, they are the business of the president and, by extension, the president’s top adviser — in this case, Meadows.

Willis’ team argues the opposite: that the effort by Trump and his allies to revise the vote count in Georgia and to submit electors not certified by the state was purely political in nature and had nothing to do with the official duties of anyone involved on Trump’s side.

The prosecutors argue that a federal law known as the Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity as part of their official work, so Meadows couldn’t have been acting as White House chief of staff when he lobbied Georgia officials to change the vote tally.

“Since the defendant was forbidden by law to use his authority or influence to interfere with or affect the result of an election or otherwise participate in activity directed toward the success of Mr. Trump as a candidate for the presidency, every single one of these activities fell outside the scope of his duties, both as a matter of fact and as a matter of law,” Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney McDonald Wakeford wrote in a brief submitted to Jones Wednesday.

Monday’s hearing is officially about Meadows’ request to transfer the case to federal court, but the immunity questions under the supremacy clause are related to that request, so the hearing may be the first time that lawyers on both sides will be questioned in court about a key potential legal defense.

Removal repercussions

Still unclear is precisely what any ruling the judge issues on Meadows’ transfer request would mean for Trump or other defendants. Typically, cases are moved from state court to federal court in their entirety, but some defendants might seek to have their cases sent back.

“It's a very unsettled question of law,” Eisen said. “Probably what happens is the whole thing goes up [to federal court], as in a civil case. But the courts have said that the presumption of a state's right to hang on to its criminal matters is stronger. … So you know, while that's likely, it's not guaranteed.”

Removal of civil lawsuits from state court to federal courts is routine, but removal of criminal cases from the state system to the federal one is far rarer.

One of the most high-profile transfers of a criminal prosecution from state to federal court came in 1997, when FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi was indicted in connection with the Ruby Ridge standoff in Idaho five years earlier. A local prosecutor charged Horiuchi with involuntary manslaughter for shooting and killing Vicki Weaver, the wife of anti-government militant Randy Weaver, during the siege.

Federal prosecutors had the case moved to federal court, where a judge later dismissed it, ruling that Horiuchi had immunity because he was acting within the scope of his duties. A federal appeals court reversed that ruling and reinstated the case, but it was eventually dropped after a change in leadership at the local prosecutor’s office.

More recently, two U.S. Park Police officers got their prosecution in a Virginia state court moved to federal court after they were charged with involuntary manslaughter for killing an unarmed motorist, Bijan Ghaisar, during a traffic stop in 2017 following a chase on the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Fairfax County, Va. A federal judge later dismissed the charges against the pair.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, appealed that ruling. But after Republican Jason Miyares won the AG post in 2021, he dropped the appeal. Despite vocal protests over the officers’ actions, the Justice Department last year declined to reopen its investigation of the shooting and stood by an earlier decision not to file federal charges.

Trump’s transfer bids

Trump himself has already backed two recent efforts to transfer cases against him from state to federal court.

Less than two months before the 2020 election, the Justice Department stepped into a civil suit that writer E. Jean Carroll filed against Trump over his denials of her claim that he raped her in a New York City department store dressing room in the 1990s.

The transfer to federal court went forward, but the judge rejected claims from the Justice Department that Trump had immunity for statements he made about Carroll while he was president.

A federal jury in Manhattan found Trump liable in a parallel suit in May, concluding that he committed sexual abuse and defamation and ordering him to pay Carroll $5 million in damages. Trump is appealing.

Carroll's other suit is set for trial in January. The Justice Department recently changed its stance in the case, saying that Trump is not entitled to immunity and that his statements about Carroll appeared to be outside the scope of his official role as president.

Earlier this year, Trump also sought to move his criminal prosecution over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels from New York state court to federal court there. A federal judge rejected Trump's transfer request, but the former president is appealing.

Margarine precedent

Fights over forums have a long and, at times, peculiar history.

Meadows' brief backing transfer of his prosecution to federal court cites a trio of Supreme Court cases from over a century ago.

In 1890, the high court concluded that a deputy U.S. marshal — charged in California with murdering a man who was assaulting a sitting Supreme Court justice — was properly acting in his federal capacity when he fired the fatal shot.

In 1899, the justices rejected a bid by Ohio to prosecute a federal official for a state-law crime the court described as "serving margarine in a home for disabled veterans without placing a sign in the window."

And in 1906, the Supreme Court denied immunity in a case featuring conflicting evidence about a group of soldiers who shot and killed a thief after a rapid pursuit.

But some critics of the attempt by Trump allies to move the Georgia prosecution to federal court say it flies in the face of Republican officials’ frequent calls for the federal government to devolve power to the states.

“It's ironic,” Eisen said. “Conservatives are known for trumpeting the role of the states in our federalist system, and here you have two conservatives who are running to federal court to avoid the operation of a state judicial system.”

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Stefanik plans $100M campaign push in home state New York

POTSDAM, N.Y. — Elise Stefanik is betting big on 2024.

The No. 3 House Republican says she convinced her party to flood key swing districts in New York with $100 million in campaign cash. She brought Speaker Kevin McCarthy to the Hamptons for a previously unreported fundraiser with deep-pocketed donors and lawmakers. And she shared a sprawling digital database of contributors with the state GOP.

Nearly a year after Republicans flipped three battleground House seats in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island, Stefanik insists she has a plan that will allow the party to hold off a Democratic offensive. Control of Congress may depend on her success — not to mention her political future.

And Stefanik knows it.

“I’ve been underestimated from the beginning,” she said in an interview Wednesday at a dairy farm in her Upstate New York district, not far from the Canadian border. “That’s been a trend my entire time in Congress.”

She’s pledging to “make sure” her Republican colleagues in New York have the resources needed to win. A Stefanik adviser, granted anonymity to discuss the private plans, put it more bluntly: “It’s a guerilla warfare mentality.”

Stefanik, 39, has quickly emerged as a leading political power broker within the party, both in Washington and at home. She’s a devoted ally of former President Donald Trump, and she’s made her northern New York district, which runs through the Adirondacks, a lock for the GOP.

It has given her the independence and the gravitas to help Republicans across the state. Campaign offices have opened more than a year before the first votes are cast and are being seeded with Republican staffers in the Hudson Valley, Central New York and on Long Island — areas both parties must do well in if they hope to win the House majority.

She has also edged away from embattled GOP Rep. George Santos, now under federal indictment, after she supported him last year, saying she will leave the future of that district up to Long Island Republicans. That’s a shift for her from last year, when she used her influence to try to sway several Republican primaries, only to see some of her favored candidates lose.

Stefanik will be taking the reins in New York at the same time Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries plans to steer the party’s efforts to win back the seats lost in 2022.

So it’s a duel for New York between two of Washington’s top leaders.

New York Republicans are hopeful Stefanik can outmaneuver the other side. Her involvement “is a tremendous asset to our party not just nationally, but here in New York state,” New York GOP chairman Ed Cox said.

Republican candidates in New York’s swing seats will likely need all the help they can get.

The GOP is facing myriad challenges, including the potential for a new round of redistricting that could see Democrats in Albany drawing new congressional lines to their advantage. New York’s top court is set to hear a challenge to the existing districts in November.

The money being raised and sent to New York by Republicans is expected to go to advertising and to support potential legal challenges.

Stefanik said she is part of a coordinated effort with the Republican National Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm and multiple political action committees to boost the party’s most vulnerable incumbents. She pegged the total haul will be around $100 million between the campaigns and the candidates.

Republicans will have to play more defense than offense as they seek to shore up newly elected lawmakers Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro in the Hudson Valley; Long Island’s Anthony D’Esposito and Brandon Williams in Central New York. And they have to figure out who will be the most viable candidate in Santos’ seat — presuming he is unable to win a crowded primary next spring.

And in a potential pickup, Republicans are targeting first-term Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan in the Hudson Valley — who won a special election a year ago and then cruised in November as the only Democrat to win the region.

Stefanik has directly helped to raise at least $150,000 for each of the vulnerable lawmakers, her team estimated. Fundraising work is also being done with politically influential local GOP county chairs, including Nassau’s powerful party head Joe Cairo.

Democrats have already signaled plans to spend heavily in New York next year in a bid to make Brooklyn’s own Jeffries the next House speaker. The House Democrats’ super PAC plans to spend $45 million on a mix of digital and TV ads as well as voter outreach.

Stefanik herself has become a national lightning rod for Democratic voters and Trump critics, and her growing role in her home state will amplify her profile.

Loyalty to Trump is what catapulted Stefanik into a coveted leadership post, replacing Trump foe Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming House member who helped lead the Jan. 6 commission.

Democrats have seized on Stefanik’s previous support for Santos, as well as measures to limit abortion coverage and gun control.

“Elise Stefanik is a MAGA extremist who is leading vulnerable New York Republicans to pledge allegiance to their dangerous, far-right party,” said Ellie Dougherty, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

For their part, Republicans are expected to hammer Democrats over the influx of migrants into the state, as well as concerns about crime — an issue that was potent for the GOP in the last election cycle.

Stefanik believes those issues will be on the minds of voters in New York and other Democratic-dominated states like California.

“I think that assumption that these are blue states is somewhat false in the sense that they have been the best opportunity for us to pick up seats,” she said.

Her help for Republican candidates last year didn’t completely work out in her favor. She endorsed bombastic Western New York businessman Carl Paladino over then-GOP state chair Nick Langworthy, who ultimately won, creating a rift between them.

Langworthy and Stefanik have set their differences aside since he took office last year, both lawmakers said.

“We have a very collaborative relationship,” Langworthy, another freshman member, said. “In a tight majority, we have to stick together.”

Stefanik does not plan to endorse in New York congressional primaries and has also staked out a neutral position on Santos, whose tangle of lies and federal fraud indictment have been fodder for Democrats and led some New York Republicans to call for his ouster.

“I really defer to them in terms of who they believe is the best candidate for that part of the district,” she said of local GOP leaders on Long Island.

Stefanik’s brand of Trumpism and constituent work plays well in her large and rural House district through the Adirondacks that she has represented for the last nine years.

Trump handily won Stefanik’s district twice, and flags for his 2024 campaign hang outside homes alongside roadside stands for corn and tomatoes.

She was at the St. Lawrence County dairy operation on Wednesday to discuss the upcoming Farm Bill negotiations and fielded questions on issues that included serving milk in schools, crop insurance and the unionization of agriculture workers.

Stefanik, seated near a dairy barn and a tractor before the event, insisted Trump is a help, not a hindrance, to New York Republicans. She pointed to Trump’s ability to bring out the party base and a Siena College poll this week that found President Joe Biden drew less than 50 percent against him.

Now she hopes it’s a message that Republicans can rely on in a state where the last Republican presidential candidate to win it was Ronald Reagan in 1984.

“Trump is a strength in many ways,” she said.

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Republicans seize on gasoline prices, but the U.S. is pumping oil faster than ever

The late-summer surge in gasoline prices is heightening the risks that inflation poses for President Joe Biden, and offering Republicans a new chance to pin the blame on his green agenda.

The GOP narrative has a major hole: U.S. oil production — already the highest in the world — is on track to set a new record this year, and will probably rise even more in 2024. But the ever-increasing flow of U.S. crude has failed to keep a lid on gasoline prices, showing once again that a global market drives the fuel prices that shape presidents’ political futures.

And that means events far beyond the nation’s borders will play a sizable role in voters’ verdict on “Bidenomics” — as global oil prices rise and fall in response to banking conditions in Europe, China’s slumping real estate market, Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and the latest maneuvers by Saudi Arabia.

“The U.S. consumer blames whoever is in the White House” for high gasoline prices, Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for financial advisory firm LPL Financial said in an interview. “Biden’s people have to be watching this despite a stronger economy, which is an irony.”

It’s not the outcome that some experts had hoped for from the United States’ rise to energy superpower. Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Walter Russell Mead predicted in 2018 that abundant U.S. energy supplies would enable energy markets to “shrug off geopolitical shocks,” while Ed Morse, a long-time oil market analyst, foresaw in 2015 U.S. oil production would drive prices down sharply and herald “the end of OPEC.”

Instead, while the United States’ reliance on OPEC for oil imports has diminished, the country’s fuel market is still dependent on decisions made at the oil cartel’s meetings in Vienna — no matter how much oil comes out of U.S. shale fields.

U.S. oil production is forecast to average an all-time high of 12.8 million barrels a day this year and keep growing to 13.1 million in 2024, the federal Energy Information Administration said in its latest forecast. That’s up from the most recent trough of 5 million barrels a day in 2008, and probably enough to help the U.S. to keep its title as the No. 1 global crude oil producer.

Global forces, meanwhile, could cause pump prices to ease next year, with the Paris-based International Energy Agency forecasting that oil supply next year will outstrip demand.

That hasn’t stopped GOP White House hopefuls from lambasting Biden and his energy policies, including the green incentives included in the climate law he signed a year ago.

In one campaign ad, former Vice President Mike Pence pretends to fill his pickup truck and blames Biden’s energy policy for “causing real hardship” for Americans, while ex-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has vowed to bring oil production back to the United States.

And Sen. Tim Scott (R.-S.C.) railed last month on the Biden administration, which he asserted “has shut down energy production in America.”

“Why won't this President tap into our abundant energy resources here at home and bring down prices at the pump?” he asked.

In fact, though, oil production from federal lands and waters has risen on Biden’s watch, reaching past 3 million barrels per day last year. The high mark during President Donald Trump’s term was 2.75 million barrels a day.

That’s data the White House rarely trumpets since it contradicts Biden’s 2020 campaign pledge to end new drilling on federal land, something his administration has not done.

“We remain focused on prices for American consumers, and prices have come down significantly since last year,” a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said in an email. “We will continue to work with producers and consumers to ensure energy markets support economic growth and to lower prices for American consumers.”

Behind this rhetoric is the jump in the national average price for regular gasoline to $3.87 a gallon last week, up more than 30 cents in a month, according to the American Automobile Association. Prices had held near $3.50 for most of the year, but it may be a while before drivers see that level again, especially after an explosion forced the shutdown of the nation's third largest refinery on Friday.

The price has caught the attention of drivers and political commentators, even if it’s far less dramatic than the surge to the all-time high of $5.02 per gallon in June 2022. The Biden administration responded at the time by releasing some 200 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, draining nearly half of the federal government’s stockpile, a move that the Treasury Department has credited with helping shave 40 cents a gallon off gasoline prices.

The U.S. wasn’t supposed to be this exposed to the global market’s whims.

The advent of fracking that kicked off the U.S. oil boom in the late 2000s raised hopes of a new era of so-called energy independence. In this scenario, the newly oil-rich United States could pull back from the Middle East, insulate itself from volatile market shifts and retreat into a comfortable shell of energy self-sufficiency.

The reality has been far different, said Ben Cahill, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“People assumed [the shale boom] would bring a massive change in geopolitics and that this would fundamentally change the U.S. relationship with OPEC and we’d chart this path towards energy independence that would really upend energy geopolitics,” Cahill said in an interview. “That just hasn’t happened.

“We’re the largest oil producer in the world,” he said. “We’re the largest natural gas producer in the world. But the reality is that energy prices in the U.S. are still dependent on global markets.”

That’s because even as oil fields in states like Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota have propelled the United States to the top of the oil producer charts, regional markets still find it easier to import certain grades of crude oil from Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. The U.S. still imports about 40  percent of the oil it consumes, even though exports of crude and petroleum products continue to outstrip those shipments. 

No matter how much oil the United States produces, it’s still a familiar story, said Amy Jaffe, a global affairs professor at New York University: Gasoline prices rise when the world’s major economies run hot, and fall when they’re not.

“We believed because the U.S. could drill and be successful that we were in this permanent age of abundance,” Jaffe said in an interview. ”But we’re still facing this fundamental question of how cyclical will this industry continues to be.”

The 2022 run-up in fuel prices occurred after a rare one-two punch when U.S. fuel demand rebounded after a pandemic-driven market crash, and after the invasion of Ukraine led European nations to cut imports from Russia, scrambling trade flows.

This summer’s rally, however, has largely been driven by the decision by OPEC and Russia to withhold supplies to ensure prices don’t weaken. And the cuts by Saudi Arabia in particular of 1 million barrels per day on top of the OPEC+ agreement have put a spotlight on Washington’s fraught relationship with the kingdom.

The United States’ growth transformation into a production heavyweight may lead some politicians to believe they could be more aggressive with Saudi Arabia when it came to human rights — Biden had promised in 2020 to make Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a “pariah” over the regime’s murder of a dissident journalist. But that attitude only goes so far once prices at the pump tick up, analysts said.

“The U.S./Saudi relationship has deteriorated since the U.S. has become less energy dependent on the Middle East, but they are still viewed as strategic partners,” Tamas Varga, market analyst at PVM Oil Associates, said via email. “Saudi Arabia plays an important role to represent U.S. interests in the region and the U.S. is a significant supplier of weapons to the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia, however, has its own agenda in the oil market which is contradictory to U.S. interest.”

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