Diesel Export Fight Strains Gop Ties With Big Oil

The marriage between Hill Republicans and the fossil fuel industry is showing signs of fracture, as a potential diesel export ban puts strain on a long-standing alliance.

Farm-state Republicans and MAGA populists are decrying the greed of "Big Oil" and lining up behind diesel export bans amid skyrocketing prices that the fossil fuel industry argues would make a “difficult situation worse."

Conservatives are hesitant to put the blame on the war in Iran — and by extension, President Donald Trump — leaving the industry to shoulder the blame.

That growing fissure between GOP lawmakers and the fossil fuel industry could disrupt a relationship that has delivered policy wins for drillers and big political donations for Republicans for decades. Some analysts warn it could open the door for future Republican regulation of fossil fuels.

“It’s a contagion,” said Mike McKenna, an energy lobbyist who worked in the first Trump White House. “There are even stupider ideas that are gonna follow this.”

Republicans have consistently banded together to deliver for the oil and gas industry. All but a handful of Republicans voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included several provisions benefiting fossil fuel development, including expanded federal oil and gas leasing and lower royalty rates for offshore drilling.

The industry, meanwhile, has directed the vast majority of its campaign contributions to Republicans. Since the 1990 election cycle, more than two-thirds of the oil and gas sector’s contributions to candidates and party committees benefited Republicans, according to OpenSecrets.

No love for Big Oil

Still, a growing contingent of Republicans in recent weeks have been proposing ways to cut gas and diesel prices even as the industry warns them against such ideas.

Senate Republicans said they aren’t particularly concerned about disrupting oil markets or cutting into oil company profits, as Trump weighs whether to impose a 90-day diesel export ban by the end of the week.

“They’ll be fine,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who supports the diesel export ban, said of oil companies. “I predict they'll still make a bunch of money.”

Others said oil companies should be lowering prices on their own.

“[Fossil fuel companies] ought to be trying to do everything they can [to lower prices],” said Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.). “The survivability of our country and the goodness of how we are as people — they hold a big part of that key.” Justice said he didn't know for sure whether they were actively price gouging.

Oil-country Republicans pushed back on their colleagues' claims these companies have much say over prices that are set by markets.

Sen. James Lankford of oil-rich Oklahoma said that global factors, like the war in Iran, are to blame.

“These are dynamics that are global, so every single country in the world is facing the same thing,” Lankford said. “So this is not just about American oil companies. Their price is determined for them based on the market.”

Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, an advocacy group for fossil fuels, said he's worried about what the support of a diesel export ban could mean for future energy politics.

“Democrats have long supported export bans on crude oil,” Pyle said. “What are Republicans going to say when Democrats ask to ban natural gas exports after this?”

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), for his part, has been a critic of the oil industry since the Iran war started.

A member of the House Freedom Caucus, he’s led the most virulent criticism of the oil industry — and used phrases most commonly uttered by Democrats.

“When individuals do it, it’s gouging,” Burchett said in a recent X post. “When BIG OIL does it, it’s business as usual.”

Burchett is leading two bills that would temporarily ban diesel exports until January or institute an export control if the price of the fuel goes above $5 a gallon.

Barrett Marson, an Arizona-based Republican strategist, said that current frustrations with oil prices are a short-term reaction that will end when the conflict with Iran wraps up.

But McKenna, the former GOP White House official, isn’t particularly hopeful.

“We’ve become literally as dumb as the other side,” McKenna said.