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[–] 3 points 4 hours ago

cheaper, for now, until it’s not and home heating oil is jacked up, etc.

they know what they’re doing.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 hours ago

    I love how it's all because of the Ukraine war, definatley couldn't have anything to do with the fucking iran war he started. Who's writing these articles jellyfish? Whatever it was it didn't have a spine.

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  • [–] 4 points 12 hours ago

    Mountain Diesel, Code Red

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  • [–] 15 points 18 hours ago

    Right... So now there'll be a heating oil shortage this winter. Perfect.

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  • [–] 120 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    Recently renamed to super diesel.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Artificial diesel didn’t have the same ring to it.

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  • [–] 62 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (18 children)

    I don't know how this can possibly work in practice.

    One, this may relieve the federal diesel tax by "allowing" red fuel but will not exempt state and local taxes that he has no authority to affect, meaning it may still be illegal at the state level to run red fuel.

    Two, the red fuel dye used to identify untaxed/offroad fuel is aggressive and can be detected at extremely low concentrations. If dyed fuel has ever been in a tank it's detectable for months if not years afterwards (depending on how much it gets refilled) and even then, sometimes they can swab the fuel cap for residue and detect it indefinitely. If a state trooper decides to have a tank dip done to inspect your fuel after this tax break stuff you are capital-F Fucked.

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  • [–] 6 points 18 hours ago (4 children)

    Three, if demand for red fuel goes up, so does the demand for home heating oil (it’s the same thing in my neck of the woods).

    I hope it’s a mild fucking winter or a lot of senior citizens are gonna freeze to death this year.

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  • [–] 3 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

    Not entirely; off road diesel is usually the exact same distillate as on road diesel but dyed for tax purposes. AKA the distributors quite literally pull the diesel from the exact same bulk tank but then dye it for delivery. Both onroad and offroad are a ultra low sulfur refined base oil with motor lubricity and cleaning additives. Actual heating oil is a similar distillate but without all the motor fuel additives and (i think) looser sulfur restrictions. It usually comes from a different supply chain than offroad diesel, except in more rural areas where it may be regular dyed diesel for supply chain reasons.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 hours ago (2 children)

    I’ve never tried running heating oil in a diesel engine, but it works the same as diesel in my Chinese diesel heater.

    My info is probably 30 years out of date back when Mercedes bros would run it to save money in highschool. The same guys were messing with veggie oil a few years later, which I much preferred.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 hours ago (1 child)

    Oh yeah, back in the 90s before ULSD was a thing it'd be fine for sure... Older diesels would be fine with it but you might have issues with it in modern diesels expecting low sulfur and the other additives

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  • [–] 47 points 1 day ago (9 children)

    Two, the red fuel dye used in untaxed/offroad is aggressive and can be detected at extremely low concentrations, if dyed fuel has ever been in a tank it’s detectable for months if not years afterwards (depending on how much it gets refilled).

    In other words, it fucks up the ability to tax diesel even long after the crisis is (theoretically/optimistically on Trump's part) over. Considering that they could have just suspended the tax on non-dyed diesel and directed refineries to stop putting the dye in temporarily, but didn't, one wonders if that was the real goal.

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  • Absolutely fucks up the tax system. It would be a disaster for commercial trucking and I am betting you will not see widespread use of the untaxed fuel even if "allowed" as no operator wants to get on the wrong side of DOT after this is said and done.

    This of course does not apply to light duty trucks and diesel cars where rednecks run red fuel in them almost all the time.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    Hanlon's razor has been getting an exceptional workout these days. It could just be that Trump is monumentally stupid and didn't think about this at all.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    We don't tax fuel enough to maintain the roads as is. The states that are removing the gas tax going to see really terrible roads in the coming years because the funding mechanism went away. It also means we might have to shift to registration fees as the primary mechanism to fund roads, which we were already considering for electric cars but then we're going down this road you might have to make it Universal to all vehicles, preferably increasing with vehicle weights

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  • [–] 2 points 20 hours ago* (1 child)

    Completely agree, but alternatively: is there enough red stuff and red pumps to meet demand even if it wasn't a stupid idea for the reasons you gave? I doubt business owners are going to taint their existing tanks for the reasons you gave, and there's not enough of a guarantee this scheme will be around long enough to build new infrastructure for it, and the massive fueling stations on the interstates damn sure don't have red tanks/pumps ready to go.

    Does this even put a dog in the fight for the businesses who add the dye, or who sell the red diesel? If market manipulation like this were a goal, why not just put a tax holiday on all diesel?

    Edited to remove idea someone else already posted.

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  • [–] 35 points 1 day ago

    Just forestalling the inevitable and making it worse at the same time.

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  • [–] 34 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Welcome, comrades, to centrally-planned economy.

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  • [–] [S] 44 points 1 day ago (19 children)

    Donnie is getting desperate.

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    [–] 35 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    Tax relief to soften the impact of high fuel costs is pretty normal government thing. Is why tax-free diesel exists in the first place. Trump's mistake was causing the high gas prices.

    It's interesting to see Trump floundering on what he thinks will be popular among voters. Doing things that help Americans is an afterthought, he's scrambling like a failing student for extra credit ahead of the Final.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Is why tax-free diesel exists in the first place.

    Tax free diesel exists because the dyed diesel is not being used on public roads. Fuel taxes aren't random government money grabs, they directly fund roads, bridges, and other highway infrastructure.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Fuel taxes aren’t random government money grabs, they directly fund roads, bridges, and other highway infrastructure.

    That's the budget the revenue from them goes into, but it's only a drop in the bucket compared to the total cost of that infrastructure. The road system is massively subsidized from sources other than driver user fees.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 day ago

    He just doesn't want anything that might slow down/stop/reverse his smash-and-grab being done on the United States. He's giving himself and his family billions of dollars.

    Also, he wants to stay out of prison.

    Having Democrats run both houses of Congress could be a (mild) risk to him.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Louisiana declared a state of emergency recently to allow the same thing lol

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