Economics · Daily Fuel Price Watch · September 17, 2026
National average pump prices as of today, from AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report[1] — plus what EIA’s own gasoline and diesel stock data, and today’s real news feeds, actually say about whether fuel is running short anywhere, not just whether it’s expensive.
| Grade | Today | Week Ago | Month Ago | Year Ago |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | $4.4386 | $4.2770 | $4.0636 | $3.2003 |
| Mid-Grade | $4.9339 | $4.7778 | $4.5606 | $3.6942 |
| Premium | $5.3239 | $5.1650 | $4.9479 | $4.0518 |
| Diesel | $6.3956 | $5.9773 | $5.4454 | $3.7075 |
National average pump prices, per gallon. Source: AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report.[1]
Is Fuel Actually Running Short Anywhere?
No verified reports of gas station fuel outages turned up in today’s check of NPR and Al Jazeera’s news feeds, and EIA’s own gasoline and distillate stock levels are rising week-over-week (gasoline +0.4%, diesel +1.5%) — the opposite of what a real physical shortage would show.[2] Prices are high; that is a documented, separate fact from stations running dry, and we do not conflate the two.
The Supply Picture (EIA)
For the week ending September 11, 2026, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported total gasoline stocks of 207,732 thousand barrels (+0.4% week-over-week) and distillate (diesel) stocks of 107,859 thousand barrels (+1.5%).[2] Diesel’s national average has moved up $0.4183/gal from a week ago and is +73% versus a year ago.[1]
How to Verify This Yourself
- AAA’s live national and state-by-state prices: gasprices.aaa.com.
- EIA’s own weekly gasoline/diesel update: eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel.
- Real-time, crowd-sourced local station reports: tracker.gasbuddy.com.
References
- AAA. (September 17, 2026). Daily Fuel Gauge Report. gasprices.aaa.com — primary source. ↩
- U.S. Energy Information Administration. (September 11, 2026). Weekly U.S. Ending Stocks of Total Gasoline and Distillate Fuel Oil [Data set]. eia.gov — primary source. ↩
Investigative methodology: prices are read directly from AAA’s published national table; stock levels are read directly from EIA’s public weekly series with pandas — no figure is estimated. The fuel-availability section either quotes a real, freshly fetched news item verbatim and cites it, or states plainly that no such report was found; scripts/daily_fuel_report.py never generates or infers a claim about a specific station or region.
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