Here & Now

having me.

Filling up the gas tank in your car is increasingly costly, but if you drive a truck, diesel fuel prices have spiked sharply due to supply disruptions because of the war in Iran, and are now at a record high above $6 a gallon for all.

The semis crisscrossing the state, carrying the goods and products we consume, sell and supply.

The cost of diesel is a blow to transport companies and likely to show up downstream in the cost of things.

We're joined now by Dan Johnson, president of the Wisconsin Motor Carriers Association, and thanks very much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

So what kind of a shock are these diesel prices right now?

like anybody else, we're seeing the spike and it is a great concern to the trucking industry.

It's not that we haven't been through this before, but this is clearly the highest that it's been in record.

So it's something that our trucking companies, they're dealing with, they have to absorb those costs in some fashion.

They're trying to mitigate as best as they possibly can.

But yeah, it is a cause for concern right now with those trucking companies.

What concerns do you have that those prices will just keep breaking records?

Well, everybody has that concern.

I mean, we like to see things level off and hopefully dial back quite a bit.

But you know, who knows.

I mean they just have to plan and prepare.

One thing with the trucking industry is they're very resilient.

We've seen price spikes like this before back in 2022, when it got near $6 per gallon for for diesel, they adjusted.

They overcame.

Some of them did have to step out of the industry because they couldn't handle the expenses.

And then there was a shift within the trucking industry, and the prices came back down.

But now we're we're back to another unfortunate record high.

And they're dealing with it as best as they can right now.

Just for a sense of understanding.

What does it cost now to fill up the tanks on a on a truck like this?

they did a study.

The average cost per mile for a truck.

And we're talking about also the fuel and the other expenses.

It's about $2.32 per mile that it costs them to, to run a truck down the road.

So anytime you add that when you add another dollar to diesel prices, that's going to add another $0.14 per mile to that, to that truck cost.

So you expand that out over thousands of miles.

And we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars that it's going to cost per truck to run them either in the state or across the country.

So who bears the cost at the start?

Well, the trucking company does they bear that cost.

Now, they do have some some agreements in place, perhaps with their fuel distributors for discounts.

But our smaller fleets and the private carriers are probably at a disadvantage because they to do that.

And they're probably going to be paying the retail cost for diesel prices.

How might we see the downstream costs be affecting everything?

There's certainly the potential for consumers to see increased costs for groceries and other items, other necessities that they need.

But, you know, it's going to be up to the trucking company, the wholesaler, the distributor and the retailer to make decisions of their own, how much they potentially pass along to the consumer.

So I read on your website that 95% of manufactured tonnage is transported by trucks in Wisconsin.

Are some customers pulling back on orders or production because of the cost?

Now, it's very possible.

We haven't really seen any kind of hard data right now.

The economy is moving at a pretty good pace.

So there's a lot of things that are that have already been set in motion.

As I mentioned previously, you know, the trucking companies, they don't have the opportunity to stop.

They have to keep moving the freight.

They have to keep moving the product to market.

So if there are orders in, they have to keep moving that along the supply chain and get it to its final destination.

about this right now, the cost of gasoline and the cost of of diesel, how does it kind of highlight the work that members of your association do every day?

And we might take for granted?

Well, absolutely.

We have 3.5 million drivers out there crisscrossing the nation, and they're bringing us everything.

Everything that you own, everything that you have at one point in time was delivered by a truck, and there's a man or a woman behind that wheel who is delivering those items from the producer to market.

Or here in Wisconsin, we're a big agriculture community.

From the farmer to the consumer.

And what they do every single day in all sorts of conditions, whether it's weather, bad traffic, distracted drivers, construction zones, everything that they have to deal with every single day puts more pressure on the work that they do.

And we absolutely do take it for granted.

Unfortunately.

And people really should take time to appreciate what truck drivers are doing out there to keep the economy moving, even in light of rising diesel prices.

All right, Dan Johnson, thanks very much.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

In other news, the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments this week