President Donald Trump signed an executive order on stage in front of a roaring crowd on Monday night, October 5, 2026. It could change what American truckers and farmers pay at the pump.
The setting was a campaign rally at the Pinnacle Bank Expo Center in Grand Island, Nebraska. Trump held the signed order up for the crowd, just four weeks before the midterm elections.
The order is titled Emergency Tax Relief on Diesel Fuel. It temporarily allows off-road dyed diesel, normally reserved for tractors and heavy equipment, to be used in highway vehicles.
It also defers the federal excise tax on that fuel, which runs 24.4 cents per gallon. The relief covers the period from October 5 through December 31, 2026, with no interest and no penalties.
Trump told the crowd that the typical trucker will save more than $100 every time they fill up. He said the order would also save farmers millions of dollars and push down the cost of goods across the country.
The timing is no accident. Diesel prices have spiked to record territory, driven by the war in Iran and disruption around the Strait of Hormuz, and American workers are paying the price.
The American Farm Bureau Federation sounded the alarm last week. It said the national average for on-highway diesel had reached $6.38 per gallon and that farm diesel in the Corn Belt had climbed to nearly $6.
Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall reminded the White House that farmers cannot postpone harvest. He asked the administration to suspend the federal highway diesel tax and to waive federal penalties for emergency use of dyed diesel on roads.
The president answered, and Republican leaders were quick to cheer. Senator Tom Cotton said allowing on-road use of red diesel would give Arkansas farmers much-needed relief, and Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith praised the move as immediate relief.
States were already moving. At least ten had taken similar actions, and Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen signed his own orders suspending state diesel taxes for vehicles hauling seasonal products and livestock.
The federal order encourages other states to follow. It directs the secretaries of Transportation, Agriculture, Defense and the Treasury to carry it out, and it asks states to halt inspections and suspend their own taxes on on-road dyed diesel.
State taxes matter here because they add up. They averaged 35.5 cents per gallon as of January 2026, so a state that joins in could stack real savings on top of the federal relief.
Now for the catch. The federal order defers the excise tax rather than erasing it, which is why the savings are not as simple as the word tax-free” suggests.
The order does direct the Treasury to explore ways to relieve the deferred payments entirely. Whether that happens will depend on guidance that has not yet arrived.
That guidance is the real next step. As of Tuesday, the IRS’s published excise tax guidance still described the old rules, and truckers will want clear instructions before they pull up to a red pump.
