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It’s never been more expensive<\/a> in the U.S. to fill up the tank and take one last summer trip over the Labor Day weekend.<\/p>\n The average price of regular gas was $4.14 a gallon heading into the holiday, nearly a dollar higher than last year and well above the Labor Day weekend record of $3.82 from 2012, according to AAA motor club<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nicole Collins planned to head from Philadelphia to South Carolina to visit friends, but she said her family has spent most of the summer close to home and not taking their typical weekend trips because driving has gotten so expensive.<\/p>\n \u201cGas is pretty high right now. It doesn\u2019t help that we also have a baby, so we also have to pay for that,\u201d Collins said outside a gas station in Claymont, Delaware, where regular gas was $4.199 a gallon.<\/p>\n Prices shot up after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February and have not settled down since. Crude oil traffic through the key Strait of Hormuz<\/a> has plunged, and Iran has refused to reopen the waterway.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything points to the Iran War<\/a> and the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d said Tom Seng, a professor of energy finance at Texas Christian University. <\/p>\n Energy Secretary Chris Wright offered few specifics on when the nation\u2019s drivers might see relief at the gas pump, acknowledging that prices are higher now than Labor Day 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, they\u2019re higher today, but we\u2019re doing everything we can to push them down,” Wright said Sunday on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week.\u201d<\/p>\n The national average for regular gas prices is still well below the record of $5.02 a gallon set in June 2022.<\/p>\n But diesel is a different story: It hit a national average of $5.85 a gallon Friday, a record<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trucks and other freight delivery systems use a lot of diesel, and that increased transportation cost<\/a> is being passed on to consumers, whether at the grocery store or through package delivery services.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really seem like there\u2019s an end to it,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n Gas prices typically drop as the summer driving season ends and refineries turn to making a cheaper winter blend. <\/p>\n But Seng said there are other factors this year even beyond the volatile situation in the Middle East that make future prices unpredictable. U.S. refineries are working at 98% capacity, many in the unusually harsh Texas heat. If there are problems there or a hurricane knocks some systems offline, prices will struggle to drop.<\/p>\n