Texas Governor Enacts Disaster Protocol to Quell Sky-High Diesel Costs
We hate to say we called it, but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck... Anyways, the ongoing skyrocketing of diesel prices is now causing one state to declare a disaster proclamation to help combat the ever-increasing diesel pricing mess that is resulting from the current administration's war and associated policies.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at the graph above to see how dramatically diesel costs have risen over the last year, with the nation's average price for a gallon of diesel one year ago today ringing in at $3.754/gallon. Today's average price? $6.382/gallon, or roughly 70% more costly per gallon of on-road diesel. Ouch.
Unsurprisingly, this huge economic impact is hurting the people of Texas, whose ranching, farming, and trucking efforts rely heavily on diesel. In a bid to help make the cost factor hurt less, Governor Abbott waived the dyed-diesel restriction. In layman's terms, dyed or "red" diesel is for off-road use only. Not in the "off-roading" sense, but for vehicles that are used primarily on farms, ranches, and so on. This fuel isn't taxed at the pump the way on-road diesel is, and even though they're effectively identical as far as the chemistry goes, it's usually illegal to use it in an on-road vehicle.
To offset some of the financial hurt that Texans are feeling at the pump when filling their diesel tanks, the state is now allowing dyed/red diesel to be used in road-going vehicles. The catch is that the tax will still be applied, but there will not be such a big restriction on the available diesel due to would-be supply constraints.
That's all well and dandy, but it's really nothing more than a band-aid on a huge open wound that currently doesn't have anything resembling timely surgical repair. With the Republican Party effectively controlling the price of gas and diesel in the U.S.A. as a result of the ongoing war, the irony is that it's affecting the people who were most likely in the first place to vote for Republicans. Case in point, the aforementioned disaster proclamation issued by Texas Governor Abbott.
Don't expect this crisis to let up anytime soon, unless there's a miraculous change in direction (and morals) from those in charge in Washington, D.C.
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Based in Connecticut, Ross hosts The Hooniverse Podcast. He has been in the off-road world since he was a kid riding in the back of his dad’s YJ Wrangler. He works in marketing by day and in his free time contributes to Hooniverse, AutoGuide, and ATV.com, and in the past has contributed to UTV Driver, ATV Rider, and Everyday Driver. Ross drives a 2018 Lexus GX460 that is an ongoing build project featured on multiple websites and the podcast.
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