Texas governor declares disaster as G-7 releases 100 million barrels
The cost of moving freight across the United States has broken down at the pump. At a Flying J Travel Center off Interstate 10 in Orange, Texas — just across the border from Louisiana — independent drivers are cutting meals, parking at loading docks, and skipping $100 truck washes to stay in business as record diesel costs squeeze small operators into bankruptcy.
Inside the Flying J on a recent afternoon, the 12 fuel lanes buzzed but the concourse was unusually quiet. Three rows of brown pleather armchairs facing a TV tuned to the American Heroes Channel sat empty. Fourteen showers went mostly unused. Drivers sprinted from their rigs into the store and back.
Diesel at the Flying J on Thursday hovered around $6.26 a gallon, even as the national average climbed to a record $6.53 a gallon, up nearly $3 from a year ago.
Agron Berani, 56, of Yonkers, New York, pulled the pump from his 18-wheeler loaded with steel and electrical supplies bound for Beaumont, Texas, and pointed to the screen with a groan: $944.44. A year ago in Texas, the same 151 gallons would have cost around $500, he said. Berani, who immigrated from Kosovo and voted for President Trump in his first eligible election after becoming a U.S. citizen, said he blames Trump for the price jump. “We have to do what we have to do,” Berani said. “I can’t sell the truck. What am I going to do if I sell the truck?” He had about $8,000 in credit card debt loaded before the swipe.
Kevin Smith, 50, was making the run from his home in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Colorado to pick up a load of potatoes and haul them back to a Walmart distribution center in Louisiana. The 37,000 pounds of potatoes paid a flat fee of $4,600. By the time he reached the Flying J, Smith had burned through more than $2,500 in fuel, and he was looking at another bill to finish the trip. After monthly costs of $1,800 for his truck loan and $1,300 for insurance, his margins were tight. “If my wheels ain’t turning, I ain’t earning,” Smith said. “If I don’t move these potatoes, you don’t get your french fries. But I can’t even afford to keep this running.”
Most independent truckers on the spot market — drivers who work job-to-job rather than for a single carrier — pay for their own fuel. The industry’s fuel surcharges, which pass some fuel costs to shippers when prices rise, did not move fast enough to match the run-up. “Nobody expected prices to ever get this high,” said Bob Costello, chief economist of the American Trucking Associations. Smaller carriers also lack the bargaining leverage of major fleets to demand full surcharge protections from shippers.
The pressure is already pushing smaller operators under. More than a dozen small motor carrier companies filed for bankruptcy in the past month, and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has warned that more will follow if fuel prices do not drop.
Amandeep Singh, 51, has driven for almost 23 years. In that time, mechanic rates have climbed from about $55 an hour when he started to $175 today, while parts costs have doubled, he said. When his truck broke down last Friday, a minor repair cost $707.67, a receipt he pulled up on his phone. To avoid a 3.5% credit card fee, he paid through Zelle. After taxes and expenses, his $200,000 in annual gross revenue yields about $45,000 in take-home pay. To stretch his margins, he parks at loading docks to avoid overnight truck stop fees, brings food from home to eat on the road and has not paid for a truck wash in nearly three months. “Nobody understands how hard it is,” Singh said while hauling soft drinks from Houston to Mississippi.
Gerjon Premtaj was transporting frozen vegetables from Mexico to Pennsylvania, putting him in direct contact with the grocery-supply chain diesel costs ripple into. “My paycheck is the same, but the fuel goes up,” Premtaj said. “Whenever I fill up my truck, it feels like somebody robbed me.”
Even as veterans cut back, newcomers continue to enter the trade. Delano Hunt, 38, was in his first week on the job, hauling GMC auto panels from Detroit to Baton Rouge and picking up more in Houston. He drove a rental with fuel fully covered by his company and flashed a new Flying J loyalty rewards card that earns free showers after 1,000 gallons purchased. “I’m optimistic,” Hunt said. “Trucks run the world.”
The political response is gathering. On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who is up for re-election, declared a statewide disaster over the diesel shortage and relaxed state transport and fuel regulations. “Texas agriculture and freight run on diesel,” Abbott said in a statement.
At the federal level, President Trump had floated a ban on diesel exports as a way to ease record pump prices, but that threat appeared to fade Friday after G-7 countries agreed to release 100 million barrels of oil from emergency stocks. The G-7 move was an acknowledgment that soaring diesel prices are the clearest sign of inflationary pressures from the U.S. conflict with Iran, with effects rippling into the broader global economy.
The fuel run-up is landing on an industry that had already absorbed years of rising costs. With midterm elections a month away, the cost of keeping America’s trucks running is now a political question alongside a daily survival question for the drivers who keep the freight moving.