As the end of voting approaches next month, one issue is dominating Election 2026: high fuel prices at the pump.
Does the United States need more refineries that turn crude oil into gasoline and diesel? Republican incumbent Congressman John McGuire of Goochland says all the bureaucracy and red tape necessary to open a new refinery means the process can take as long as five years. This is what he had to say about it at a gas station press conference in Lynchburg.
"I said, 'I bet China doesn't take five years to open up a refinery.' So, I wrote a letter to President Trump last week asking him to have a state of emergency on refinery permitting to go from five years to five days," McGuire said. "Let's get some refineries open, and if we get our fuel costs down, what that will do is that'll bring our products at Food Lion and help families, truckers and farmers have more affordability."
Adding new refineries might be one way to address voter anger over high prices. But Senator Mark Warner says the petroleum industry is a market-based business, and if demand were high enough for refineries, they would already be pumping out more gas.
"I think it's kind of funny when I hear my Republican friends say, 'We love the free market until we don't.' This is not going to be fixed by one-off action," Warner said. "We've seen a world increase in oil prices because of this war. You can soften the blow, but you can't fix that, even in America where we produce a lot of oil on our own."
A recent poll from the Schar School at George Mason University says the cost of living is the dominant issue of this campaign, edging out other issues like immigration and healthcare.
