With high fuel prices across America imperiling Republican majorities in Congress, President Donald Trump took bold and welcome free market-friendly action just days ago to bring down costs for Americans who rely on diesel engines.
But despite his executive order making tax-free, dyed diesel more widely available as part of an affordability push, researchers argue that Trump is still missing a prime opportunity to bring more widespread relief: A rollback of ethanol blending requirements that are holding fuel prices up at an artificially high level.
Trump’s new order, announced Monday, would allow truckers and farmers to use off-road diesel on highway, without paying taxes on the fuel that would normally apply. That cost savings will be especially welcome in farm country, but could also help with food prices in general, given how much of what America eats is transported by trucks that run on diesel.
“This effort will bring much needed price relief for farmers as they work to complete harvest across the U.S,” said American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall in a statement released by the White House. “The federal highway diesel tax is currently more than 24-cents per gallon, so it’s a big deal to farmers to be able to use tax exempt diesel more broadly to get their harvest to market.”
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