GOP split over a diesel export ban: the U.S. is shipping 1.6 million barrels a day, nearly double a year ago

A push to ban U.S. diesel exports is splitting Republicans in Congress, The Hill reported on Tuesday, as the national average price keeps setting records. Farm-state senators want the White House to act. Lawmakers from oil-producing states and the refining industry say a ban would backfire. Scripps News reported that the White House says no export ban is planned.

The price pressure is real. The Energy Information Administration's weekly survey put U.S. on-highway diesel at $6.529 a gallon on September 21, up from $3.749 on the same week last year. That is a rise of $2.78 a gallon, or 74%.

Who is pushing, and who is not

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa asked President Trump over the weekend to embargo diesel exports, writing that high diesel prices "ARE KILLING FARMERS INCOME," Quartz reported. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said he is "open" to looking at a ban. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told CNBC he was "not at all confident" a ban would lower prices and warned it "could actually hurt Americans" if trading partners retaliated. The refiners' trade group, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, says export bans "do not create more fuel for Americans."

In the House, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee filed two bills on September 17, according to his office. H.R. 10423 would ban diesel exports through January 2027. H.R. 10422 would impose export controls whenever the national average reaches $5 a gallon and lift them only after the price stays at $4.50 or lower for 30 straight days.

The numbers behind the argument

EIA's weekly data shows why the export question has come up now. In the week ending September 11, the most recent available, the U.S. exported 1.614 million barrels a day of distillate fuel. A year earlier the figure was 851,000 barrels a day. Exports have nearly doubled.

So refiners are making more diesel than a year ago, Americans are using slightly less, and the extra is going abroad while domestic stockpiles sit about 16.8 million barrels lower. Exports took about 31% of weekly U.S. output. That share is what ban supporters point to.

The same table also supports the other side. Output is up, not down, so a ban does not create new supply. It redirects barrels already being made, which is the refiners' point when they say a ban creates no new fuel. Whether those barrels would reach the pumps where prices are highest, or whether refiners would simply make less, is the open question, and the weekly data cannot answer it.

What Burchett's trigger would have meant

We ran H.R. 10422's rule against EIA's weekly price history. The national average first crossed $5 in the week of March 16, at $5.071. Since then its lowest weekly reading was $4.578 on July 6, still above the $4.50 release level. Under that bill, export controls would have been in place continuously for six months and would still be on today.

Who it hits

For a farm running combines through harvest, a trucking firm or a landscaper, the $2.78 a gallon rise over the year is the number that matters, and we worked through what it costs by trade in our Main Street piece on record diesel. For traders, refiners are the exposed group: Bloomberg reported that a rally in refining stocks stalled on Tuesday as ban talk spread. The next EIA weekly inventory report comes out Wednesday. See our crude oil chart for the input side.

Sources: EIA weekly petroleum data and EIA gasoline and diesel prices; Rep. Tim Burchett press release; Quartz via Yahoo News; The Hill; Scripps News; Bloomberg. This is market information, not investment advice.