06-20-08 by dugan
I’ve gotten some e-mails telling OilWatchdog that it’s off course in asking drivers to send their gas bills to Congress
and demand some action to get prices down. One group says we should
just drill anywhere, like President Bush asked. Them I can’t answer,
because Bush’s own Energy Department says there’s no connection between coastal drilling and prices. It’s
like trying to change someone’s religion. At the other end of responses is "We want $9 gasoline, like Europe, because it will change how we live." That I can answer.
Gasoline at that price sure would change lives. But most
Americans don’t have European-quality public transportation. Or money
to run out and buy a Smart Car to commute in. Or affordable housing a
mile from work. They can’t shun the discount mart and buy local
organics at "Whole Paycheck," I mean Whole Foods. And that doesn’t even
begin to considerwhat $10 fuel does to the economy.
U.S.
policymakers have spent decades evading climate issues and pandering to
the oil industry. We can’t fix that with even $5 gasoline. Especially
since the money is only raising Exxon’s profits and funding dictators,
unlike the years of European gas taxes that paid for transit and social
safety nets. If you strip away the taxes, Europeans are usually paying
less than Americans at the pump.
So now everything seems urgent,
all at once. Beef up transit. Make cheap and clean cars. Do solar, do
wind, do cellulosic ethanol from waste. All yes. But also take down the
insane prices brought to us by energy speculators and their enablers at
Exxon, Chevron, Shell and friends. That’s what the online letter is
about. OilWatchdog’s motto is Cheaper and Cleaner. Slapping a
new $4 tax on $4.50-a-gallon gasoline might not hurt the rich or those
who’ve built an alternative life. But it’s as extreme as the "drill
everywhere" demand.
Our elected officials need to rein in energy
speculation and regulate refineries to prevent price-gaming at the
other end of the fuel chain when oil prices do go down. That’s what our
letter asks Congress to do, while it also acts stop climate change. Click here, read it over and decide. Cheaper and Cleaner.