Texas Declares a Diesel Emergency

In America’s biggest oil-producing state, diesel is becoming both scarce and painfully expensive.

Texas, a state more accustomed to supplying America with fuel than worrying about running short of it, has declared an emergency over diesel.

Greg Abbott, the Republican governor, has issued a statewide disaster proclamation for 30 days, which can be extended. The immediate problem is a familiar one to farmers and truckers: diesel prices have surged while supplies have tightened.

“Texas agriculture and freight run on diesel,” Mr Abbott said. “Record prices put both industries at risk and raise costs for every Texas family.” The measures, he argued, would reduce costs “on the farm, on the road and at the store.”

So What, Exactly, is Texas Doing?

The state is temporarily loosening several restrictions on commercial transport. It is permitting much wider use of dyed diesel on public roads, easing limits on the weight of fuel, agricultural and timber loads, and suspending Texas’s low-emission diesel rules where federal regulators allow it. Trucks carrying such cargo may now operate at gross weights of up to 95,000lb.

Mr Abbott has also asked the Environmental Protection Agency to grant Texas a temporary waiver from federal ultra-low-sulphur diesel requirements, which would make a broader range of fuel available for sale.

The most eye-catching measure concerns red-dyed diesel.

Chemically, it is essentially ordinary diesel. The dye is there to identify fuel intended mainly for off-road uses such as tractors, construction equipment and other machinery. Because such fuel is normally exempt from road-use fuel taxes, putting it into a highway vehicle is ordinarily prohibited.

For the duration of the emergency, Texas is relaxing those restrictions. In effect, part of the state’s off-road diesel supply can now be tapped by vehicles using public roads.

This does not, however, amount to abolishing Texas’s fuel tax. The state levy remains 20 cents a gallon on both gasoline and taxable, undyed diesel.

And the sums involved are becoming hard for motorists to ignore.

Average diesel prices in Texas have climbed to roughly $5.85 a gallon. In early February they were about $3.30.

In a state built around long distances, trucks, farms and cheap energy, that sort of increase quickly finds its way into the price of almost everything else.

It is also finding its way into politics.

Texas’s November election is unusually competitive. Mr Abbott, once accustomed to comfortable Republican margins, is facing Democrat Gina Hinojosa at a time when affordability and energy costs have become central campaign issues.

Ms Hinojosa has repeatedly called on the governor to suspend the state fuel tax, including the levy on diesel. Mr Abbott’s administration says he does not have the authority to eliminate state taxes unilaterally.

Texas Democrats have gone further, linking higher fuel prices to President Donald Trump’s trade and foreign policies. They have called on Mr Abbott to press the president to remove tariffs and to end the war with Iran, which has disrupted oil and fuel supplies from the Middle East.

“Abbott must also demand that Donald Trump lift his absurd tariffs and halt the unnecessary war that are driving up costs for Texans,” the Texas Democratic Party said. It accused the governor of asking working families to bear the cost of his political loyalty to the president.

Republicans dispute the Democrats’ broader account of responsibility for higher prices. But the political problem is difficult to miss. The Iran conflict, along with disruptions elsewhere in global energy markets, has helped push American diesel prices to record levels, turning energy costs into an awkward issue for the party in power.

There is a certain irony in all this.

Texas is America’s oil and refining giant. Yet its governor has declared an emergency because diesel is too expensive and in short supply. And Democrats, traditionally more enthusiastic about taxing fossil fuels than subsidising their consumption, are now demanding that a Republican governor cut the tax on them.

Expensive diesel, it seems, can produce some unusual political alliances.