Trump to issue executive order to bring down diesel prices amid grim midterm polls
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President Donald Trump will reportedly announce an executive order Monday in a desperate attempt to reduce diesel costs ahead of the crucial midterm elections — as new polls show Democratic gubernatorial candidates surging in four traditional Republican strongholds.
Trump is set to unveil his multi-pronged strategy during a campaign appearance in Nebraska, where farmers and ranchers have been hit hard by record diesel prices, according to Politico, which cited three sources familiar with the president's plan.
Trump will reportedly direct officials not to enforce federal regulation of tax-exempt, red-dyed diesel, which is commonly used in farming, construction and other industries.
Trump will also urge states to increase the availability of dyed diesel and order the Treasury Department to review federal diesel taxes, according to Politico.
The White House didn't immediately respond to an inquiry from The Independent.
Trump's expected announcement would come after he said Friday that he wouldn't impose a diesel export ban because the U.S. and other leading industrialized nations, known as the Group of Seven, had agreed to release stockpiled diesel.
"Europe has a lot of diesel, and they’re going to be making a major world contribution, and so are we," Trump said.
Monday's national average price for diesel was $6.32 a gallon, down from the record high of $6.53 on September 22, according to AAA.
Trump is scheduled to appear Monday at the Nebraska State Fair in Grand Island with Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, who faces Democratic Party-backed independent challenger Dan Osborn.
Two recent polls showed the candidates jockeying for the lead in a state that Trump won by more than 20 percentage points in 2024.
Other polls show Democratic candidates ahead of Republicans running for governor in Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas, even though none of those ruby-red states has been led by a Democrat in at least two decades.
And the Silver Bulletin polling-analysis website said Monday that the Democratic edge in the so-called generic congressional ballot had risen to 8.9 percentage points, marking a new high for this year’s election cycle, and that with adjustment for likely voters, that lead increases to 9.6 percentage points.
Patrick De Haan, chief petroleum analyst for the GasBuddy price-tracking website, said on social media last week that expanding access to red-dyed diesel could save some drivers about 60 cents a gallon, but noted that “farmers already use dyed diesel and are still paying record prices.”
“Taxes aren't the problem, supply is,” De Haan wrote.
The global availability of diesel has been pinched by Trump's war against Iran, now in its eighth month, as well as Ukraine's targeting of Russian refineries as it continues to battle the full-scale invasion that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched in February 2022.
Shuting Pomerleau, director of energy and environmental policy at the center-right American Action Forum think tank, responded to Haan's post by saying, "There are no effective ways to quickly bring down the diesel prices."
"It's like using a bucket to empty a river," she added.
As of Friday, 10 states that account for about one-third of all diesel sales in the U.S. had already taken steps to increase the availability of dyed diesel, Politico said, citing analysis by the independent ClearView Energy Partners research company.
Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst for Dow Jones Energy, told Politico that suspending fuel taxes could provide short-term relief with long-term consequences.
“When you’re not collecting taxes, you’re just kicking the can down the road, because you have to fix roads and stuff like that,” Cinquegrana said.
