Sam Graves wrote me a letter...

I recieved a bulk email from the office of Rep. Sam Graves today concerning raising the federal tax on a gallon of gasoline by fifty cents. Opposition to this tax is understandable, with gasoline at record prices it is hard to see the benefit of increasing that price by seventeen percent (current prices). The Congressman says that we need to work on reducing the price of gasoline...

“We need to be working to reduce the price of gas, not increase it.”

If only the Congress would do something to reduce the price of gasoline, but it seems that the only law that control gasoline prices is the ‘law’ of supply and demand. Funny how the demand for a product like soda-pop is constantly going up, but the price is relatively unchanged in the past several years. Maybe it’s because the soda-pop prices are not being set by the manufacturers. I am willing to bet that if the Congress decided to make the gasoline makers prove how much it costs them to make their product and set the price accordingly, like they do electricity prices all over America, that the price of gasoline would drop OVERNIGHT the second the first Congressional hearings started.

The Congressman tells me “We do not need more taxes; we need an energy policy that addresses our growing energy costs.  To combat rising energy prices, we need to increase American sources of energy. This includes increasing production of renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel.  It also includes tapping into the sources of energy we have and are not using in this country. Millions of barrels of oil exist in Artic National Wildlife Refuge and off the costal shelf, but are not currently being used. By going after the energy we have in our own backyard, we can reduce the prices we pay.”

It is correct that what we need is an energy policy--a strategy. However I dont think that ethanol or biodiesel can be the foundation of that plan. What America needs is to reduce our dependence on hydrocarbons, period. Things like raising the mandatory miles/gallon of new vehicles is a step in the right direction. Our plan should also find a way to reduce the amount of miles driven per person per year. In that way, increasing the cost of gasoline would help. If the tax revenue created would lower the miles driven per year it would be helpful. It would be doubly helpful if the revenue were used to bolster ways that Americans might travel more efficiently, like by rail.

In the book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond, there is a long discussion about the energy used to create civilizations, and how, when that energy source is exhausted, the civilization quickly collapses. Our sources of energy are all far away from us, with the exception of coal and nuclear energy. Anything that disrupts our access to cheap oil would devastate our ability to support three hundred million citizens in the manner that we are accustomed to being supported. Any disruption includes interruption at the source or along the trade routes between us, since our supplies are half way around the world. Currently our suppliers are already beginning to show signs of not being able to produce oil at the worldwide rate that it is being used. Ethanol can never make up for the loss of oil as the basis of our economy. We can't feed our cars and trucks from the same fields that feed our people and livestock. The piddling amount of oil in Alaska likewise will never make up for the loss of oil.

I also like the way he supposes that if we give an oil company access to local oil that it will somehow allow “us” to lower the price of gasoline. The amount of oil being pumped out of the ground has grown every year of my life, and every year of my life the price of gasoline has went up. I dont see how the Congressman jumps to the conclusion that one will suddenly track down if the other tracks up...

He is right, though, we do need a strategy. If he has any productive ideas besides the ones you indicated in your letter I would like to hear them, since this letter included nothing that looked helpful to me.