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Thursday, June 12, 2008
High gas, rage
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In France, largely because of taxes, gasoline costs the equivalent of $10 per gallon. In Britain, same reason, it’s $9.50 and in Spain it’s $7.73. All Europe is in a rage.
Here, Congress dawdles, dreaming up ways to blame the oil companies and levy a windfall profits tax, while the Energy Department offers projections that prices will peak at $4.15 per gallon this year, but stay above $4 per gallon through most of next year.
John McCain, who on some days can sound awfully much like the entrenched political cartel that controls Washington, regardless of the party in power, said on NBC’s “Today Show” that “absolutely” the oil companies should return some of their profits to consumers.
It’s here that it starts to get tricky. In Political Washington, that thought often translates into an intervention by Congress to determine how the oil companies should return profits to consumers. “They should be embarking on research and development that will pay off in reducing our dependence on foreign oil,” said McCain.
Fair enough. Let them drill off shore. Let them tap the known reserves in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. Encourage the construction of more refineries and more nuclear facilities. And, of course, encourage research in alternatives.
“The point is, oil companies have got to be more participatory in alternate energy, in sharing their profits in a variety of ways,” said McCain. “There is very strong and justifiable emotion about their profits.”
In Washington-talk phrases such as “sharing their profits in a variety of ways” and “justifiable emotion about their profits” should prompt concern. It sounds like the voice of the moderate, reach-across-the-aisle Republicans who achieve bipartisanship by giving Nancy Pelosi-Harry Reid Democrats half of what they want without really getting anything much in return.
McCain said he doesn’t expect gas prices to drop before November’s election. “I don’t think it’s going much lower and it could go higher…you’ve got a finite supply, basically, and a cartel controlling it.”
We may know today in Georgia, but one other concern about the high gas prices is that it could tempt state officials to see white elephant solutions — like, for example, commuter rail from Atlanta south to Lovejoy — as an “alternative” to the automobile and high gas prices. It is and will remain a white elephant that would be funded because advocacy groups are pushing it, not because it’s a transportation solution.
It’s not just governments, the oil companies and producers that profit from high gas prices. Four-dollar gas may be bad for you and me, but for some advocacy groups it’s the opening they need.
