Gasolina

It’s no secret the price of gasoline has been way up since the start of the Iran war. But it sometimes feels as though GOP lawmakers have been trying to keep it a secret from themselves. Their willful ignorance is starting to fade.

In battleground races for the House and Senate, more and more Republicans are breaking away from President Donald Trump on the war, citing high costs at the pump as a primary reason. The national average price of gasoline is $4.48 as of Thursday. The average for diesel has climbed above $6.50, even reaching $7 and $8 per gallon in some states.

With the war in Iran continuing, the Strait of Hormuz remaining contested, and the conflict causing greater instability in other parts of the region, the Trump administration has tried to respond to the problem using a few flimsy tools of domestic policy. But it’s not easy getting fuel prices lower.

Trump-backed discount gas stations have started popping up, but these initiatives are a PR product. And besides, the cost of gas is not the biggest problem right now. Record-shattering diesel prices exist on an entirely different economic scale and political reality.

Once again improvising policy on the fly, Trump now seems to be entertaining a short-term fix meant to artificially boost domestic diesel supply through the end of the year. Politico reported Wednesday that the administration has started considering a 90-day ban on diesel exports from the United States.

As a matter of policy this won’t work. My colleague, Catherine Rampell, will have a lot more on that in her newsletter tonight.

Politically, meanwhile, this seems like a nonstarter. A lot of senators I spoke with claimed they were withholding judgment until they could get a closer look at the proposal (presumably because they don’t think it could be as simple as a 90-day ban on diesel exports from the United States). Of the Republican senators who understood what such a proposal would mean, none I spoke with regarded it as viable...