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Page F112From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 7 October 2026

White House lifts diesel tax-exemption rule, experts say won't lower the prices it was sold to fix

By MortThe Records Bureau

As it ran on the front

The federal rule keeping tax-exempt red-dyed diesel off the public road died this week, by executive order, born sometime in the quiet administrative past nobody bothers to date, and survived by almost nothing it was supposed to fix.

Preceded in death, each one a beat in the same quarrel over the same tank of fuel: On September 4, diesel reached $5.85 a gallon, a record, as the administration's confrontation with Iran rattled the market. On September 13, in Doonbeg, the president blamed Ukraine, for striking Russian refineries, and told President Zelenskyy to stop. On September 21, the diagnosis changed again — Russia, he wrote, had "lost control" of its own diesel industry. On September 23, with a 90-day export ban reportedly in the works to blunt the same price hikes, critics warned the ban itself could drive the economy further down.…

…(cont) This week the fix arrived, and it was not an export ban. It was the rule itself, dead by order: red-dyed diesel, kept off the highway for decades because it carries no road tax, can now go there. The experts said no, not really: limited impact, for the farmers and truckers it is supposed to help most.

Survived by the price problem it was not built to solve: diesel's record stands at $5.85 a gallon, set September 4, a number this order does not touch, by the account of the experts CBS consulted.

This is a policy that looked at a price problem and reached for a loophole instead, with the industry that loophole deregulates already warning its own retailers off it.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks for an itemized accounting of what the order actually changes at the pump, filed by the agency that signed it.

“Follow it: price goes up, they blame Iran, then Ukraine, then Russia, then they finally do something — and the something is letting untaxed farm fuel onto the highway, which their own fuel guys warned them not to do. That's not a fix, that's a guy pawning his neighbor's TV and calling it a budget plan. You still pay $5.85, you just also get to wonder if the truck next to you paid its road tax.”
Sal
“Look, it's deregulation, it's the free market, it's — okay, the market in question is the fuel industry and they specifically told retailers not to do the thing the order lets them do, so maybe not that talking point. It's a bridge measure. A temporary bridge. To somewhere. Did I say "bridge"? That's not a word I use.”
Chip

Earlier in this story

The receipts

Trump temporarily expands use of red-dyed diesel. Will it lower costs? Trump's diesel order won't lower costs, experts say
CBS Newsmainstream§

Experts say the new executive order will have a limited impact on farmers and truckers who rely on diesel.

· Critics Warn Trump-Backed Diesel Export Ban Could Further Drive US Economy Into the Ground from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026

· 'Trump Did It!': At $5.85 a Gallon, Diesel Price Hits All-Time High in US Thanks to War on Iran from the morgue, 4 Sep 2026

This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.