US Economy -- Making America Great Again -- July 15, 2017

A few days ago I said that if I had the time I would come back to this story:

Connecting dots: if I'm in the mood later this weekend, I will blog a stand-along post on this very interesting phenomenon.

• truck industry -- particularly the specialty truck industry booming -- personal e-mail
• Trump presidency -- again, a personal e-mail
• the FAST Act
• update on the SPR release

This is how it all started, this paragraph buried in a long RBN Energy post:

Potentially even more significant than the recent impact of the SPR is the outlook for future draws at the reserve. In addition to the Section 404 and 21^st Century Cures Act withdrawals discussed above, Congress also has authorized additional SPR withdrawals in 2018-25.

Section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 directs the DOE to sell a total of 58 MMbbl over that period, starting with 5 MMbbl in 2018, with the resulting revenue to go to the Treasury Department’s general fund.

And the Fix America’s Surface Transportation Act, signed into law by President Obama in December 2016, calls for a total of 66 MMbbl to be sold from the SPR in 2023-25. Figure 3 shows the planned SPR drawdowns over the next eight years.

Obama's Fix America's Surface Transportation Act: FAST. Literally signed into law the very last month of President Obama's presidency.

Two interesting links follow from the above:

• April heavy-duty truck orders signal continued industry recovery, May 3, 2017
• March heavy-duty trucker orders solidify industry recovery, April 5, 2017

Personal communication with worker at a specialty heavy truck manufacturer in Portland Oregon:

• orders higher than usual in April, May time frame; backlog building; may need to increase workforce
• normally, orders "come in" in the fall, so this is unusual to get so many new orders at this time
• directly related to states across the US ordering more heavy trucks for all the highways being built; expanded; re-surfaced; etc

But this was the kicker: the individual reported that the company did not make the decision to go forward with increased production UNTIL after Trump was elected president. The company apparently waited until the election outcome to decide whether to increase production.

I learned of the Portland story a week or so before I read the blurb in the RBN Energy post, so I was keeping my eye out for collaborating information. It was interesting to find it buried in an RBN Energy post. So much fun.