The truckers: first stirrings of a price revolt?

So it hasn't gotten much attention, and it maybe it will be a big bust, but there is a call for an idling of all US trucks April 1. This is not the same thing as those dopey "gas-out" days in which people are urged to not buy gasoline on a certain day, but with the recommendation that they buy it the day before or the day after if they need to fill up. Wow, what a sacrifice.

It isn't clear who is leading this initiative, though based on a search of various blogs and forums, a lot of the impetus seems to be coming from this site, dedicated to the people who drive trucks around the country moving cattle.

Regardless of whether the strike amounts to anything -- and getting thousands of individual owners/operators of big rigs to all do the same thing on the same day would seem to be like herding cats -- it has brought back memories of the 1979 truck "invasion" on Washington. Truckers back then pinched by higher fuel prices, spurred in part by the Iranian revolution, descended on the nation's capitol with their rigs, tying up traffic in a city where everyday driving is tough enough. Economist Phil Verleger recalled the incident in a recent report, adding, "I would not be surprised to see retail diesel selling for $5 per gallon this summer, while gasoline 'languishes' around $3.50. It could get really interesting, especially if truck drivers do to Washington in 2008 what they did in 1979."

So The Barrel spoke to Phil Friday, and we discussed a scenario. It's a Presidential election year. Truckers again arrive en masse in Washington, sitting in the driver's seats of their rigs. The Presidential candidates -- and if this invasion comes in August, that could still mean 3 of them -- all urge the government to do something, anything, to help the truck drivers who are faced with climbing fuel costs and a consumer market in no position to accept any attempt to pass along the higher costs of diesel.

So what can the US government do? Simple. In the same way it has occasionally eased RVP requirements at times of tight gasoline supplies during the summer, it can start to waive some of the stricter diesel sulfur rules that have come into effect over the last two years. Trucks now then burn low sulfur diesel with less than 500 ppm sulfur, or maybe if the government is feeling generous, a temporary waiver to allow even higher content, greater than 500 ppm. Phil said the impact of such a move on the price of diesel would be enormous.

This is all conjecture, of course. Refiners who have invested hundreds of millions in desulfurizing equipment are going to scream, and rightly so; those investments were made in good faith. New trucks are designed to burn only ULSD, and some truckers made long-term investments in those engines; putting higher sulfur material into them would be disastrous, and how can they be sure they'd always be buying ULSD if a waiver is granted? Will segregation of supplies at the pump be that assured?

But the political appeal of easing the nation's truckers woes would be tantalizing, particularly if against a backdrop of trucks thundering down Constitution Avenue. However, an easing of sulfur rules should pose to the American people a question: you consistently say you want a cleaner environment. Tighter sulfur specifications help reach that goal. But there's a cost that must be borne by somebody, and it can't perpetually be eaten by truck drivers. Are you willing to help pay that cost?

Keep your eye on those big rigs.