Who was in office the last time gas hit an ATH?

The answer splits depending on which measure you use, and that distinction matters.

The nominal record: Joe Biden

Joe Biden served as the 46th president from January 2021 through January 2025. In June 2022, driven by a combination of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an economic recovery from Covid-19, and arguably certain policies of the Biden administration, the average weekly retail gasoline price hit an all-time high of $5.07 per gallon. That is the raw dollar figure on the sign, unadjusted for anything. It is the number that broke every previous record in nominal terms.

The inflation-adjusted record: President George W. Bush

George W. Bush served as the 43rd president from 2001 through 2009. The single highest weekly price on record, once you adjust for inflation, fell under Bush at $6.06 in 2025 dollars, during the week of June 30, 2008. That is the figure that represents the true peak in terms of what a dollar at the pump actually cost people relative to everything else in their lives. By mid-2008, oil prices spiked past $147 a barrel due to rising tensions between the US and Iran, as well as supply disruptions in Nigeria and Brazil.

Who gets the blame matters less than you think

Official EIA data underpins these nominal peaks, but causes lie largely outside direct presidential control. Global oil markets, OPEC decisions, supply disruptions and demand shocks drive the spikes more than Oval Office policy alone. The president in office when a record falls gets the political heat, but the underlying forces are almost always global. In 2008 it was a demand surge before a financial crash. In 2022 it was a pandemic rebound colliding with a war in Europe that cut off a major oil-producing nation.

The prices you are seeing right now, around $4.32 nationally, are still a dollar below the 2022 nominal peak, and in real terms comfortably below what drivers were paying at the 2008 inflation-adjusted high.