{"id":893,"date":"2026-09-21T19:50:44","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/?p=893"},"modified":"2026-09-21T19:50:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:50:44","slug":"trucking-company-says-long-term-contracts-are-forcing-it-to-absorb-increasing-cost-of-diesel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/?p=893","title":{"rendered":"Trucking company says long-term contracts are forcing it to absorb increasing cost of diesel"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/syndication.abcaudio.com\/files\/2026-09-21\/ABCNews_MarcShaener_092126.jpg\" alt><figcaption>Marc Shaener of JLT, Inc., Trucking told ABC News&#8217; Elizabeth Schulze that he&#8217;s struggling to afford diesel for his fleet of more than 100 trucks as prices rise. (ABC News)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>(WASHINGTON) &#8212; One Washington, D.C.-area waste collection company says the long-term agreements it has made with its customers means it can&#8217;t raise its rates fast enough to keep up with the rising cost of diesel fuel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Marc Shaener, director of market development for JLT Trucking Inc., told ABC News&#8217; Elizabeth Schulze on Friday that rising diesel costs are costing the company\u00a0$100,000 more per month for its fleet of more than 100 trucks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;There&#8217;s no relief in sight,&#8221; Shaener said. &#8220;We can&#8217;t sustain it any longer, period, in that it&#8217;s going to detract from investment. It&#8217;s going to take away from our employees. It&#8217;s going to shrink business.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Diesel prices have risen nearly 60% since the war with Iran began almost seven months ago. The average price of diesel hit a record high on Monday at around $6.49 per gallon, according to GasBuddy. The national average price sat near $3.70 a year ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Diesel prices rose 30.7 cents over the last week, according to GasBuddy, boosted by the flareup in fighting between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Vice President JD Vance told reporters today that the Navy is trying to push back against the Iranians &#8220;trying to terrorize international shipping.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;We&#8217;re very cognizant of the fact that because the Iranians are terrorizing international shipping, energy prices are elevated,&#8221; Vance said. &#8220;We&#8217;re doing everything that we can to, one, try to clamp down on those prices, but give American people some relief in the interim.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">President Donald Trump has previously pointed to Ukraine&#8217;s attacks on energy infrastructure in Russia as driving up prices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;Russia has unfortunately lost control of its Diesel Oil Industry due to its War with Ukraine,&#8221; Trump posted on his social media platform on Monday. &#8220;A large number of their Diesel refineries have been blown up and are, at least temporarily, out of commission.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Shaener said his fleet burns about 2,000 gallons of diesel a day to collect waste and recyclables in the D.C. and Baltimore region. He said he&#8217;ll now spend\u00a0an extra $1.2 million a year on fuel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;They rebounded so high and so fast that\u00a0we can&#8217;t even change pricing fast enough to account for that cost,&#8221; Shaener said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">He said JLT can&#8217;t increase its rates to keep up because its contracts usually adjust annually or every five years so it has been forced to absorb its higher costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Shaener said his business is an economic indicator.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;When things go down, trash is the first to feel it. And we&#8217;re starting to feel it already,&#8221; he said. &#8220;People have budgets to hit. They can&#8217;t afford this, so they have to cut somewhere. They cut from the trash.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Shaener said he feels like JLT&#8217;s employees and customers are political &#8220;pawns.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;We have to tell our customers. We have to tell our employees. We have to tell our investors why we can&#8217;t do what we want, what we planned to do,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Why is that? That&#8217;s because someone somewhere is running a government that decided that they&#8217;re going to impact our industrial fuel economy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marc Shaener of JLT, Inc., Trucking told ABC News&#8217; Elizabeth Schulze that he&#8217;s struggling to afford diesel for his fleet of more than 100 trucks as prices rise. (ABC News) (WASHINGTON) &#8212; One Washington, D.C.-area waste collection company says the long-term agreements it has made with its customers means it can&#8217;t raise its rates fast [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}