You Don’t Buy Diesel. You Pay for It Anyway.
A head of lettuce pulled up to a gas pump… That sentence could be the start of a very bad joke, or more accurately, be a window into what is happening with our gas supplies. The fact of the matter is heads of lettuce are one of the most diesel-dependent things in our kitchens. Diesel tractors plant and harvest it. A diesel truck hauls it, often in a refrigerated trailer, across several states before it reaches the produce aisle. That’s why a number AAA posted this weekend matters to every one of us, including those of us who ride the bus, walk to work, or haven’t owned a car in years.
On Sunday, the national average for diesel reached $6.51 a gallon, the highest ever recorded, according to AAA. A year ago it was $3.70. That’s a jump of about 76 percent (!), and nearly a dollar of it arrived in the past month alone, according to the same AAA data.
Most of us never buy a drop of diesel directly. We buy it hidden inside almost everything else. Trucks moved 73 percent of the nation’s freight in 2024, according to the American Trucking Associations. Diesel also runs farm machinery, freight trains, delivery vans and garbage trucks. GasBuddy analysis estimated the economy is absorbing an extra $300 million in diesel costs every 24 hours. Over time, much of that bites our own household budgets.
The grocery industry is already telling us what comes next. Kroger CEO Greg Foran said on an earnings call this month that he expects “the pressure is actually going to mount.” Smithfield Foods said the impact is starting to show up in the second half of the year. Meat and produce feel it first because they’re restocked constantly. Some businesses have already added fees to online orders and mailed packages, according to Transport Topics.
Then there’s winter. Heating oil is a close cousin of diesel, and the two prices tend to move together. Nearly 5 million households heat with oil, 82 percent of them in the Northeast, according to Energy Information Administration data. Those families are projected to pay 31.3 percent more to stay warm this winter, about $2,300 on average, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. The group also reports that roughly one in six households is already behind on utility bills.
None of this is a mystery. The Congressional Budget Office found the Iran war responsible for more than one-third of this year’s rise in inflation and expects it to add about half a percentage point more in early 2027, mostly through energy disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. The weekend brought no relief. Iran-backed Houthi forces launched attacks aimed at Saudi oil sites in Riyadh and Yanbu on Saturday, while President Trump told Fox News he’s in “deciding mode” on whether to escalate. He has argued the higher prices are worth what the war has accomplished and predicted they’ll eventually fall.
He could be right. Futures traders are betting heating oil will cost less in December than in October. But the same paper notes traders misjudged this before, when prices dropped during a June pause in fighting and then climbed again once it ended.
What we can count on is this: diesel is the price of moving our lives around, whether or not we ever touch a diesel nozzle. Those of us on fixed incomes, those of us who rent, and those of us already choosing between groceries and the power bill will feel it hardest. As leaders gather at the United Nations this week, the decisions they make will reach our kitchens and thermostats long before they reach the history books. Go beyond the headlines…
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