With national average diesel prices above $6 a gallon and regular gasoline firmly above $4.20, the Trump administration faces mounting pressure to deploy every available policy tool to contain fuel costs ahead of the midterm elections. Disruptions tied to the Russia-Ukraine war and turmoil in the Gulf are intensifying the global refining super squeeze.
Reuters reports late Friday afternoon that the Trump administration is considering whether to use the Defense Production Act to expand U.S. oil refining capacity as the Iran conflict drives up fuel prices.
According to the report:
The proposal to use the act came up during a recent meeting between President Donald Trump and nearly a dozen U.S. refiners, where White House officials sought to determine how federal support could best be used to add capacity, the sources said. No final decisions were made, and participants left the meeting with the expectation that the conversations would continue, according to the sources.
However, expanding refining capacity comes as U.S. refineries are already operating near their limits. The latest data shows that utilization has topped 98%.
The discussions follow Trump's April decision authorizing support for domestic petroleum production, refining and logistics under the Defense Production Act. That directive identified financing constraints, long construction timelines, permitting delays and supply-chain limitations as obstacles to expanding capacity.
"America's refining capacity is essential to ensuring the United States has continuous access to secure, affordable, and reliable energy. Expanding that capacity is a top priority for the President and his energy team, who are evaluating concrete options to increase our refining capacity through regulatory reform, faster permitting, and additional investment," Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, told the outlet.
Reuters pointed out:
A proposed new refinery in Brownsville, Texas, has emerged as a test case for Trump's call to expand U.S. refining capacity. It was unclear whether the project would receive any Defense Production Act funding.
America First Refining plans to build a 168,000-barrel-per-day facility at the Port of Brownsville, which Trump announced in March as the first new U.S. refinery in nearly 50 years. The project is backed by India's Reliance Industries, which has agreed to a 20-year deal to buy the refinery's output.
In March, JPMorgan's head of commodity research, Natasha Kaneva, outlined six policy levers the Trump administration could pull to contain oil prices. Some, including Jones Act waivers and Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases, have already been used. Other options include export restrictions and waiving federal fuel taxes.
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Tyler Durden Sun, 09/13/2026 - 12:15Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,
The Labor Department's inspector general said Tuesday that federal officials have suspended PERM filings for tech company Cognizant and software company Cloudera and halted H-1B processing for both firms.
The logo of U.S. multinational information technology consulting and outsourcing company Cognizant in the Alpine resort of Davos during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting on Jan. 20, 2026. Ina Fassender/AFP via Getty ImagesInspector General Anthony D'Esposito posted the announcements on X throughout the day on Sept. 8. He credited the moves in part to Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, as well as to a White House anti-fraud task force.
"Fighting fraud is a TEAM SPORT," D'Esposito wrote. "@Sonderling47 and I are for real. @Cognizant's PERM filings are suspended. @DOLOIG is on the hunt. Threats to American workers will NOT be tolerated. Alongside @WHFraudTF, we're following facts, fraud and finances. Handcuffs await."
Hours later, he added Cloudera.
"One more," he wrote. "@cloudera: PERM filings SUSPENDED."
He followed up on the announcements later in the day.
"Cognizant. Cloudera. H1-B processing suspended. @Sonderling47 and I ain't playin'," he said.
PERM, or Program Electronic Review Management, is the Labor Department process employers use before sponsoring workers for employment-based green cards in the EB-2 and EB-3 categories. The department must determine whether able, willing, qualified, and available U.S. workers exist for the job before approving a PERM application. H-1B visas are temporary visas for specialty occupations. They generally last three years and can be extended to six.
Cognizant and Cloudera did not immediately return a request for comment.
In July, the Labor Department and the inspector general's office opened what officials referred to as a "major investigation" into alleged fraud in the H-1B and PERM systems, including possible human trafficking.
In a statement at the time, the two offices said they had "uncovered widespread schemes in which employers and labor brokers submitted fraudulent applications, exploited foreign workers through coercive wage-kickback arrangements, and undercut American workers by flooding the market with below-wage labor."
D'Esposito told Fox Business on July 8 that "dozens of subpoenas" had been issued by investigators.
"This is another example where fraud is fueling violent crime," he said. "Much of the visa and the human trafficking that we see when it comes to this foreign labor is tied to cartels, is tied to transnational gangs, and this is the work that we should be doing, not only to make America safe again, but to make America more affordable again."
He said the work was "not just people working in factories or actual labor," adding that some cases involve "people working in medical facilities and doctors' offices that are actually putting people in harm's way."
Cloudera was already involved in a separate federal case. The Labor Department announced in May 2026 that it had suspended Cloudera's PERM applications for 180 days after an April lawsuit.
The Justice Department sued Santa Clara, California-based Cloudera, alleging it discriminated against U.S. workers while using PERM to sponsor foreign employees. The complaint said the company directed American applicants to an internal email address that blocked outside messages.
"Employers cannot use the PERM sponsorship process as a backdoor for discriminating against U.S. workers," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said at the time. "The Division will not hesitate to sue companies who intentionally deter U.S. workers from applying to American jobs."
She said the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division prioritizes protecting American workers from unlawful discrimination in favor of foreign visa workers.
Sonderling has served as acting labor secretary since April, and President Donald Trump said June 29 that he intended to nominate him permanently. A Senate committee advanced the nomination July 30 on a 12 - 11 party-line vote. D'Esposito's posts treat Sonderling as a partner in the enforcement effort.
The suspensions land amid other related policy initiatives.
The Department of Homeland Security proposed ending the 60-day grace period that now lets some temporary visa holders, including H-1B workers, remain in the country after a job ends. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote that once a person no longer meets the conditions of status, "such status, as well as the authorization to remain in the United States, should definitively cease and the impacted alien should immediately depart the United States (unless otherwise authorized to lawfully remain in the United States)."
H-1B use remains concentrated, with a Pew Research survey showing that India accounts for about 73 percent of H-1B workers by country of birth, while China represents about 12 percent.
Tyler Durden Sun, 09/13/2026 - 11:40