Trump weighs diesel export limits as record prices squeeze truckers; Texas opens dyed diesel to the road
The White House is examining restrictions on U.S. diesel exports after President Trump said this week, "I've said let's not send out the diesel." Farm-state lawmakers are pushing the idea as diesel prices hit record highs and the cost lands hardest on the people who move freight. For haulers and the jobbers who supply them, this is the development to track.
The export question
The pitch is simple. Hold more American diesel at home so domestic supply rises and costs ease for the operators who burn the most of it. Robert Rapier's piece for OilPrice lays out the catch: the tradeoffs are not obvious, and a ban that looks like relief on paper can move refinery economics and Gulf Coast flows in ways that hurt refiners or Gulf Coast supply. Nothing is decided. The administration is looking at it, and farm-state pressure is what put it on the table.
Texas dyed diesel
Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster proclamation on Sept. 28 that lets farmers and truckers run dyed diesel on Texas public roads, a fuel normally limited to off-road use. Dyed diesel is sold without the motor fuels tax, so for a Texas operator this is a direct cut to the pump cost during the crunch. The same order also raises the weight limit on farm and fuel hauls. For anyone hauling in the state that is immediate relief, and it is the kind of waiver other governors may copy if prices hold.
$6 and small carriers
A New York Times opinion piece put the number in the headline: $6 diesel is hurting small truckers, and it could hurt Trump too. Small carriers feel it first. Fuel surcharges reset on a lag, so an owner-operator eats the gap between what he pays at the rack today and what the surcharge formula paid out last week. When diesel climbs this fast, that gap widens and the margin goes with it.
Thefts and biodiesel
Thieves are pulling diesel straight from tractors and heavy equipment in one Florida county as prices keep rising. On the supply side, Buffalo Biodiesel received a Part 360 permit for its Tonawanda facility, a small step toward more domestic biodiesel volume in New York.
What to watch
Whether the administration moves from examining export limits to acting on them, and how a ban would actually route through refiner margins if it did. Other states could follow Texas on dyed-diesel and weight waivers. The surcharge lag is where small carriers are bleeding right now.