AMNA NAWAZ: A rapid surge in the price of diesel fuel is straining businesses and threatening to raise costs across the economy.

GEOFF BENNETT: And it's also putting pressure on the president to respond to higher prices at the pump, including through a diesel export ban that some Republican lawmakers are pushing ahead of the November midterm elections.

William Brangham has the story.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The cost of diesel is now well above $6 a gallon.

That is higher than we have seen in many years, even after adjusting for inflation.

A number of factors are driving this spike, and we will talk about them in a moment.

But, first, let's hear from some Americans who are feeling this pain firsthand.

STEVE TURNER, Farmer: Steve Turner.

I am a farmer here in Illinois, in West Central Illinois, located about 45 miles northwest of Springfield.

MORGAN SANSHUCK, Owner, The Boyz Rentals: Morgan Sanshuck.

I'm the primary owner and CEO of The Boyz Rentals.

We're a construction equipment rental company in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.

JILLY STEPHENS, CEO, City Harvest: My name's Jilly Stephens.

I'm the CEO of City Harvest in New York City.

City Harvest is a food rescue organization.

We capture really great food that would otherwise go to waste, and we deliver it to about 450 soup kitchens and food pantries in the five boroughs.

JOHN BOYD, Founder, National Black Farmers Association: John Boyd, a fourth-generation farmer and founder and president of the National Black Farmers Association.

TIM POLLOCK, President, California Trucking Association: Tim Pollock.

I'm president of California Trucking Association For 2026.

I am also the president of CPS Express, our asset-based trucking company.

STEVE TURNER: We're in the harvest.

We have started harvest.

That is a high-demand time.

And when we see these historically high prices, it HAS really shaken us right now.

MORGAN SANSHUCK: They have been skyrocketing, and so much so we can't keep up with how fast they have been climbing.

Overall, the entire operating cost has over doubled just in direct relation to the price of diesel.

JILLY STEPHENS: We have a fleet of 23 trucks that we use to deliver that food to a network of over 400 food pantries.

Those costs are about 15 percent higher than they were last year.

And we estimate that that could add about $100,000 to our budget that we weren't expecting to pay.

JOHN BOYD: Market price is $5 dollars a bushel, and I'm having to pay an increase at the pump of relatively 50 percent.

I'm robbing Peter to pay Paul because I don't have the money.

And I'm letting some other bills go, trying to put diesel fuel in my combine.

TIM POLLOCK: You know, we negotiate with our customers and we ask for emergency help.

We did have fuel surcharges in place.

It doesn't make up all the fuel, especially when it's astronomically high like it is.

STEVE TURNER: Any farmer out here, when we had to put budgets together in January, and I can tell you there was nothing budgeted in there or nobody could have seen this increase.

And it's nothing uncommon for a farmer out here to use 10,000 or 20,000 gallons of diesel fuel, in some larger operations more.

So do your math right there.

MORGAN SANSHUCK: We have been trying to hold out for as long as possible not raising prices, hoping that things are going to kind of come back down, hoping it was just a fluke surge and that everything would normalize.

But effective Sunday, we're having to raise prices.

We were forced into it.

We were losing money uncontrollably.

JOHN BOYD: This diesel fuel surge is just one thing on top of a rippling effect that we have been dealing with since this administration came in, Trump tariffs.

When the prices plummeted, we never recouped.

The Iran war, and fertilizer prices went through the roof.

All of those decisions haven't been made by farmers.

But we're the guys, the first in line that are paying for this administration's mistakes.

JILLY STEPHENS: We have a goal to rescue and deliver 100 million pounds of food this year.

Those calculations are pretty precise.

And you know what?

We always plan for a little bit of fluctuation, not to this degree and not in a sustained way.

STEVE TURNER: This is a long road, it looks like, ahead.

And you know what?

Even if this could all end tomorrow, which it won't, it's going to take time to recover.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So for more on all of this, we are joined by Bob McNally.

He's founder and president of the consulting firm Rapidan Energy and he was a former White House energy adviser to President George W. Bush.

Bob, thank you so much for being here.

We just heard from these people who are really struggling to make this math work.

Diesel prices, I believe they're up roughly 75 percent year over year.

Generally speaking, what is driving this spike?

BOB MCNALLY, President, Rapidan Energy Group: Well, William, first, it's important to understand that the price of diesel we pay at the pump, or gasoline, for that matter, is set in a global market to which we are very much connected in the United States.

And that means that a disruption anywhere on the globe in distillate markets, diesel markets, gasoline and crude transmits a price spike everywhere, including here, including in our farm country as well.

And so this really -- it's sort of like a tax increase.

It's a sudden, sharp, unavoidable tax increase you have no choice but to pay, is really coming from disruptions in first the Arabian Gulf area due to the war with Iran, and secondly and importantly, with Russia.

Russia was the largest diesel exporter after the United States and the world.

And so Russia has had to ban its exports of diesel because the Ukrainians have been successful at destroying the refineries.

So disruptions over there have led to the price increases here.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: As we heard some hint of what this is really all about, but for people who are not familiar with diesel's centrality in the American economy, remind us, why is it so critical?

BOB MCNALLY: You know, diesel is the real workhorse of the economy, the workhorse fuel.

We think of gasoline.

We pump gasoline.

Gasoline gets more political attention.

But gasoline is about one thing, transportation.

Distillate's about transportation, farm equipment, trains, boats, planes, but it's also about other things.

It's about power generation.

It's about home heating.

It is about defense and mining.

Distillate is used all throughout the economy.

It's a much more important fuel when it comes to just about everything we do and produce in the country.

And for that reason, it's important.

It's important for the Federal Reserve and macroeconomists as an inflation risk and so forth.

So distillate's the real workhorse of the economy.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: As you know, we produce more diesel here than we actually consume, so some of it usually gets exported.

After denying for a very long time that they would ever consider this, the president reversed himself recently and suggested that he might ban the export of diesel, potentially as a way to bring down costs.

One, do you think that would work?

I mean, some people have suggested that could boomerang.

And how would that actually play out if it were enacted?

BOB MCNALLY: Yes, I don't know a single oil economist or energy expert, a Republican, Democrat, inside the administration or out, who thinks that export restrictions are a good idea.

They would work only for a few weeks in certain parts of the country.

If the president followed through on his a suggestion to ban the export of distillate, we would see for a few weeks prices collapse at the pump by many dimes a gallon in Texas, Louisiana, maybe the Lower Midwest, maybe somewhat... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So that's significant.

BOB MCNALLY: It would be.

You would have a sharp - - because you would suddenly trap -- we export -- about 30 to 40 percent of the distillate that's made in the Gulf Coast, our refining sector, is exported.

If you suddenly banned that, you would have all that volume that would have to be stored and would sort of flood into the country, and that would lower prices for a few weeks.

But then the prices would rise again because refiners would reduce their production of diesel.

They just lost 20, 25, 30, 40 percent of demand.

Also, remember what I said about global prices.

Prices around the world for diesel will skyrocket.

The rest of the world will feel betrayed after Russia banned and other countries have had it disrupted.

Now the United States, the world's largest diesel exporter, cuts everybody off?

The price of the oil around the world will skyrocket.

And if you're in the Northeast of the United States or you're in Alaska, your price at the pump depends on those imported prices.

So, eventually, after a few weeks, everybody will see higher oil prices.

It's for that reason that just about every oil analyst I'm aware of discourages those kind of export restrictions.

They only work for a very short period of time.

Then you're worse off afterwards.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Bob McNally, Rapidan Energy, thank you so much for being here.

BOB MCNALLY: Thank you.