Editorial: Trucking’s Latest Four-Letter Word: H - E - L - P

Despite its fondness for records and similar milestones, the nation took little note that diesel fuel prices hit their highest mark in history last week.

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The $1.49 a gallon average diesel cost across the nation is nearly a nickel higher than the former record set during the Persian Gulf War of a decade ago after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Some might quibble that the new average is only a record if you don’t adjust for inflation, but most people agree that the price is too damn high. And there’s little relief in sight.

One big reason the nation didn’t take too much note of the price of diesel is that most Americans are too busy trying to catch their breaths as they watch gasoline skyrocket like the mercury in a thermometer on a summer’s day in Texas.

The Energy Information Administration last week not only delivered the bad news on current prices, it warned that things are going to get worse, and predicted that Americans could be paying $1.80 a gallon for gas before summer’s end.

It then should come as no surprise that a delegation representing trucking, and led by Walter B. McCormick Jr., president of American Trucking Associations, returned to Capitol Hill last week in search of aid.

One delegation member, Samuel J. Farruggio of Farruggio’s Express in Bristol, Pa., told a House Commerce Committee panel: “It’s like when the president flies over a disaster area and declares it an emergency. . . . We are in a disaster area.”

There may not be truckers standing on rooftops waving their shirts at the presidential helicopter quite yet, but the situation is clearly serious and beginning to verge on dire.

“We might not have a Christmas,” Farruggio told the subcommittee. “If this industry does not see some relief now, there will be a significant number of carriers going out of business.”

Mr. President and distinguished members of Congress: We need help, and we need it now.