Farm-state Republicans demand relief from record diesel prices, get told no by their own energy secretary

As it ran on the front

Five weeks ago this column showed you the asset side: Washington claims majority control of Venezuela's 65 billion barrels of oil, a claim Democracy Now called an oil grab at gunpoint before the ink dried. The receipts at the time said the deal would secure America's energy future for generations. On September 4, diesel hit an all-time high of $5.85 a gallon. On September 11 it hit $6.06, a 64 percent jump over the price a year earlier, with Common Dreams pinning the driver on the Iran war, not a shortage of asset-side control. On September 20, Senator Chuck Grassley — a Republican, from a farm state where diesel is not a metaphor — asked the president for an embargo on exports, the same tool presidents used on food in the 1970s.

Wednesday brought the answer. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told reporters the "blunt tool" of banning diesel exports "definitely doesn't work" — this from the department that oversees the 65 billion barrels the country apparently now controls. The Hill's own reporting found analysts skeptical a ban would meaningfully lower prices anyway, and more than thirty groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote the White House that same day urging Trump to reject the exact ban Grassley wanted. Iowa's Ashley Hinson, running for the Senate seat, demanded the House return to session over diesel costs; it was The Hill's own reporting, not a quote from Hinson, that framed the politics of that demand as a liability heading into November. Farm country got a form letter either way.…