John McGuire Iran War Cost of Living Virginia

John McGuire Says Fuel Prices 'Would Have Gone Up Whether We'd Had Conflict With Iran or Not.' He Voted Six Times to Keep the War Going.

With Virginia diesel at a record for 15 straight days, Rep. John McGuire blamed Biden-era refinery closures, not the Iran war. Congress's own budget office ties the price spike to the war, federal data shows refining capacity was flat when Biden left office, and McGuire has voted against every House resolution to end the war.

MAGA Report Cards · Sep 21, 2026

John McGuire Says Fuel Prices 'Would Have Gone Up Whether We'd Had Conflict With Iran or Not.' He Voted Six Times to Keep the War Going.

Diesel in Virginia hit a record high for the 15th day in a row on Friday. That same day, John McGuire, the Republican who represents Virginia's 5th District, told reporters the Iran war wasn't to blame.

"I would argue, and I think I got evidence, that the prices would have gone up whether we'd had conflict with Iran or not," McGuire said, according to The Daily Progress. He was speaking at a ribbon-cutting at the Rivanna Station intelligence base north of Charlottesville.

His evidence: the Biden administration, he said, shut down coal plants and oil refineries, so America pumps more crude oil than it can refine. "If we had enough refineries to handle the capacity of crude oil that we're producing, we wouldn't even need the Middle East," he said.

Nearly seven months into a war that McGuire has voted six times to keep going, he is blaming the price of it on the man who left office before it started.

What the war did to prices

The national average price of diesel hit a record of just under $6.27 a gallon on Tuesday, Sept. 15, according to a France 24 report The Daily Progress ran with its story. Nonpartisan and independent economists have tied $6-plus diesel and $4-plus gasoline directly to the war, which has choked fuel shipments since Trump ordered the first strikes.

The strongest word on it comes from Congress's own nonpartisan budget office, which provides analysis to every member, McGuire included. The Daily Progress reported that the Congressional Budget Office has been explicit: Iran's move to disrupt fuel shipments through the Strait of Hormuz is a direct result of the war, and a direct cause of the price spike.

The budget office's report this month, as covered by The Washington Sun, put numbers on it:

It now expects oil prices to be 41% higher this year than it forecast before the war.
The war will add about half a percentage point to inflation early next year, mostly from higher energy prices.
The war cost the U.S. $38.1 billion through August 1.

Diesel is the price that spreads. It runs the tractors and the trucks. "It's going to eventually be passed on to the consumer," Alice Louise Kassens, a business dean at Roanoke College, said, according to the paper.

The refinery story doesn't hold up

McGuire's claim is that Biden shut down American refineries. The government's own energy statisticians say otherwise.

As of January 1, 2025, a few weeks before Biden left office, U.S. refineries could process 18.4 million barrels of crude a day, "essentially flat" from the year before, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. The number of working refineries, 132, was the same as the year before — even though Phillips 66 had converted its Rodeo, California, refinery to renewable diesel in 2024, because a new facility near Houston was added.

The one outright shutdown that report flagged came after Biden was gone. LyondellBasell ended refining at its Houston plant, which handled more than 263,000 barrels a day, in March 2025, two months into Trump's term.

The Daily Progress also noted, citing the Energy Information Administration, that U.S. refineries aren't built to run at full capacity on American crude. They favor heavier crude from abroad, which is cheaper to import and process. That's a question of how the plants were built. It doesn't explain why prices jumped when the Strait of Hormuz was disrupted.

McGuire's fix is to cut environmental reviews. He wrote to Trump asking for an emergency declaration to shrink permitting for refineries from five years to five days. Trump already declared a "National Energy Emergency" in January 2025, ordering agencies to fast-track energy projects, refineries included, the paper noted. Twenty months later, diesel is at a record.

Six votes to keep the war going

Congress has had chances to end the war. McGuire voted no every time.

The House voted six times this year on resolutions directing the president to remove U.S. forces from the war with Iran. McGuire voted no on all six:

March 5 — failed, 212 to 219
April 16 — failed, 213 to 214
May 14 — failed on a 212 to 212 tie
June 3 — passed, 215 to 208
July 23 — passed, 214 to 208
September 15 — passed, 220 to 204

Of the first three, one failed by a single vote and one on a tie. We've written about how close the House came, and about the September vote, the same day the budget office put a price on the war.

Asked about the war on Friday, McGuire said the length of it proves the threat was real: "The fact that it's taken this long should tell the American people that the threat was real. Because if it wasn't, it wouldn't have taken this long."

He also said, "I think all Americans want it to be over with, but we want to do it right. Hopefully soon, but no answers."

It's the same move we've seen from other Republicans who voted to keep the war going. Tom Tiffany says $5 gas is too high, and John James talks about affordability. Both voted to keep U.S. forces in the war.

The bottom line

With diesel at a record high, John McGuire said fuel prices "would have gone up whether we'd had conflict with Iran or not," and blamed refinery closures under Biden. Congress's own budget office ties the price spike to the war's disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, and federal data shows U.S. refining capacity was essentially flat when Biden left office. McGuire voted against all six House resolutions this year to remove U.S. forces from the war.