Louisiana Farmers Are Paying Six Bucks a Gallon for Diesel

Six dollars and three cents. That’s what a gallon of diesel costs in Louisiana right now, and if you think that number showed up by accident, I’ve got a bridge in Baton Rouge to sell you.

Governor Jeff Landry signed an emergency order this week letting farmers and loggers burn off-road dyed diesel in their highway trucks through October 22. That’s the red-tinted stuff that skips the federal and state taxes, about 44 cents a gallon cheaper, normally illegal to run in a licensed road vehicle. When a governor has to suspend the law so farmers can afford to harvest their own crops, something has gone sideways, and it didn’t go sideways on its own.

Diesel more than doubled. Not crept up. Not ticked higher. Doubled. You don’t get a jump like that from supply and demand doing its thing. You get it from a pipeline getting squeezed, a refinery going offline at a convenient moment, or a war somewhere far away that certain people in Washington are real interested in keeping going. The USA Today write-up mentions the Iran war as a factor, almost as a footnote, like it’s just weather. Funny how every time fuel spikes, there’s always a foreign crisis to pin it on, and the crisis always seems to benefit the same handful of people who trade energy futures between lunch and their afternoon nap.

Mustafa Kurt / Pexels

Here’s what sticks in my craw. Landry and President Trump both called for a temporary ban on U.S. diesel exports. Think about what that means. We’re producing diesel here, and instead of keeping it here for our own farmers and truckers, we’re shipping it overseas. The American energy boom you’ve been hearing about for fifteen years, the one that was supposed to make us independent, and we’re exporting the fuel that puts food on American tables. Who exactly decided that was a good idea? Because I guarantee you the farmer running a combine in Acadia Parish didn’t vote for that arrangement.

The order covers Class 2 and Class 5 vehicles, the trucks that haul sugarcane, rice, soybeans, and timber during the busiest stretch of the year. These are the people who feed the country. They’re not hedge fund managers. They can’t just pass the cost along to a client and expense a steak dinner. When diesel doubles, they eat it, or they leave crops in the field.

Landry’s quote was solid. “We’re not going to sit on the sidelines while Louisiana farmers are paying record prices to harvest the crops that feed our families and support our economy.” Good for him. He saw a fire and grabbed a bucket. But the bucket’s only good through October 22. After that, the penalty comes back, and if diesel is still at six bucks, what then? Another emergency order? Another suspension? At some point you’re not solving a problem, you’re putting bandages on a wound nobody will name.

Ekaterina Belinskaya / Pexels

The real question nobody in the press is asking: who benefits from diesel at $6.03 a gallon? Not the farmer. Not the trucker. Not the family buying groceries. Follow the money and you’ll find it lands in the same place it always lands, with the people who own the stuff before it gets to the pump. The same people who fund the think tanks that explain to you, very patiently, why this is all just market forces and there’s nothing to see.

There’s always something to see. You just have to stop listening to the people telling you to look away.