The overlooked factor making everything more expensive

A sign displays the price of diesel fuel at a Shell gas station in San Diego, California. | Zoe Meyers/Bloomberg via Getty Images This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day.

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Diesel hit a record $6.40 per gallon this morning, up 73 percent from a year ago.

“Not really my problem,” you might be thinking.

“I don’t drive a semi or excavator.” But you know who does drive semis and excavators and all the other machines that rely on diesel fuel? The people who farm your food, ferry your online orders, and repave the streets in your neighborhood.

All that means the price of diesel trickles down into virtually every segment of the economy. (We’ll get into that a bit more shortly.) Like gas prices, diesel has been rising since the US war with Iran began more than six months ago.

But this particular surge was also driven by two incidents in particular: an attack on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline , which has made it costlier and more time-consuming to get oil out, and a Ukrainian drone campaign against Russian oil infrastructure, which has forced major refineries to scale back production .

In the aftermath of those attacks, President Donald Trump implored Ukraine to stop targeting refineries.

His administration has also relaxed some labor rules for fuel-truck drivers in the hopes of getting more gas and diesel moving.

There’s reportedly also talk of invoking the Defense Production Act to scale up America’s refining capacity, or even restricting diesel exports to help drop domestic prices.

Not on the solution list, notably: winding down the war in Iran, which kickstarted this whole thing.

Go a little deeper View Link The cost of diesel quietly raises the price of many other goods and services .

This is difficult to quantify, but researchers at Brown University estimate that the extra cost paid for diesel between the start of the Iran War and the time I’m drafting this newsletter works out to roughly $374 per US household.

Part of that cost springs from the fact that so many commercial, agricultural, and industrial machines run on diesel fuel.