Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, March 18, 2026
- The nationwide increase in gas prices since the beginning of the war in Iran is hitting especially hard in California, already home to the nation’s highest prices at the pump. It’s also started a new round of political blame game between President Trump, Governor Newsom, and even some Democrats.
- Veterans and native tribes are calling for the protection of public lands in the Mojave Desert. They say President Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management could open the area to fossil fuel extraction.
California gas prices are on the rise. Who’s to blame?
California is already home to the nation’s highest prices at the pump. And since the start of the war in Iran, we’ve been getting hit especially hard. That’s led to a new round of political blame game between President Trump, Governor Newsom and even some Democrats.
Governor Newsom criticized Trump for the war in Iran. “We’ve seen gas prices spike because of his decision, cause and effect,” Newsom said. But gas prices in California — currently averaging $5.50 a gallon, per AAA — have long been the highest in the nation. The Trump administration is blaming California’s resistance to oil production. “California has fought foolishly to prevent new American oil to go into their own state,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told NBC News. To that end, citing the decades-old Defense Production Act, the Trump administration has ordered a pipeline off the Santa Barbara Coast to restart operations. Operator Sable Offshore Inc. restarted oil flow this past weekend. The pipeline had been offline since 2015, when a corroded portion of it burst, causing more than 140,000 gallons of crude oil to spill into the water and onto beaches in the region.
The rising gas prices have also led to renewed scrutiny on California’s signature climate program — called “cap and invest” — that charges carbon polluters like oil refineries, adding about 25 cents a gallon to the cost of gas. Last week, more than a dozen Democrats in the state legislature — who all voted for cap-and-invest last year — wrote a letter calling on the Newsom administration to “reconsider” its implementation of the law. That call was echoed by two Democrats running to succeed Newsom in California’s wide open race for governor — former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. “In a state that says it cares about working people and a party that says it cares about working people, we ought to show it,” Mahan said. He’s also calling on the state to suspend its gas tax. “To provide relief to people who are having to choose between paying the rent, putting food on the table, and filling up their car to get to work,” he said.
Meredith Fowlie, at the Haas Energy Institute, says those moves would come with tradeoffs. “Yes, we need to be concerned about cost impacts,” she said. “I completely agree, but some of those cost impacts are generating revenues that are being used for other purposes.” The state’s gas tax, for example, funds road repair and public transit. And the cap-and-invest program raises billions of dollars every year, which Fowlie said go “to households, to industry, and to investments we need to make from wildfire risk mitigation to public transportation.”
Veterans, tribes express concerns about Trump nominee
Veterans and native tribes are calling for the protection of public lands in the Mojave Desert. They say President Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management could open the area to fossil fuel extraction.
