Americans hit the road for Labor Day weekend facing the most expensive gas in the holiday's history — and the Trump administration's own timetable for relief is now running out with prices moving the wrong way.

The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline hit $4.14 heading into the holiday, according to AAA figures reported this weekend, the highest ever recorded for Labor Day and nearly a dollar above last year's price. It smashed the previous Labor Day record of $3.82, set in 2012. Diesel fared even worse, hitting a record $5.85 a gallon Friday and climbing to $5.90 by Monday — well past the prior all-time high of $5.02 set in June 2022, a spike with ripple effects across trucking, shipping and grocery prices.

Energy analysts point to a tangle of causes converging at once: the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran has choked crude shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, domestic refineries are running near 98% capacity amid brutal Texas heat that limits flexibility, Ukrainian drone strikes have knocked out Russian refining capacity that once fed global diesel markets, and Chinese refinery output has also slipped. "Everything points to the Iran War and the Strait of Hormuz," Tom Seng, an energy finance professor at Texas Christian University, told CBS News.

The price spike lands squarely in the middle of the midterm campaign, with control of Congress up for grabs in less than two months and cost-of-living complaints already a top issue for voters. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, fresh off a trip to Caracas to negotiate an oil-supply arrangement with Venezuela, went on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday to argue relief is coming, telling host Margaret Brennan that with the summer driving season ending and supply set to rise, "prices headed downward is not an unreasonable expectation." He pointed to futures markets pricing gasoline roughly 35 cents cheaper two months out and touted the new Venezuela deal — which he said would cost U.S. taxpayers "zero" while delivering discounted oil and an ownership stake in production — as a longer-term fix.

"We're going to get massive amounts of discounted oil price and ownership interest in some production there," Wright said of the new Venezuela arrangement.

Wright's optimism runs up against a deadline set months ago by his own Cabinet colleague. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had predicted gas would fall to $3 a gallon sometime between June 20 and Sept. 20, contingent on how nuclear talks and the Strait of Hormuz standoff with Iran played out. With that window closing in less than two weeks and pump prices instead sitting more than a dollar above that target, the administration's own benchmark looks increasingly out of reach. Wright, for his part, said the U.S. military's central mission in the region now is "to stop the export of any Iranian crude," while insisting Washington remains "always open for a deal."

Relief may still come from the seasonal calendar rather than diplomacy: gasoline demand typically drops once the summer travel rush ends, which could ease prices independent of what happens with Iran or Venezuela. But with diesel costs still climbing and no resolution in sight in the Middle East, drivers — and midterm campaigns in both parties — are watching the pumps closely heading into fall.