Gasoline: Higher taxes, not lower taxes, is the answer

Israpundit ^ | May 17/08 | Ted Belman

[tedbel]

I few days ago I stressed the need for energy independence. I recommended a major commitment to nuclear generated electricity.

Our Hopeless Energy Policy by Irwin M. Stelzer in Weekly Standard, has a different take.

After discussing all the wrong decisions politicians have made, he says don't ask how to lower gas prices. "Lower gasoline prices would encourage Americans to drive more, use more of the cheaper gasoline, emit more pollutants, and increase the demand for crude oil".

Next wrong question, and one being asked not only in America, but in most other countries: "How can we replace crude oil with renewable sources of energy?" Answer: Subsidize construction of wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear plants, and the production of corn. But neither wind turbines nor solar energy, on the cheeriest of assumptions, can make a significant dent in the demand for crude oil and its products. As for nuclear, few of these costly plants--and cost estimates seem to be doubling every few months--will be built unless overt or covert subsidies are offered to private-sector players, licensing proceedings and construction times are shortened, and politicians are willing to override Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to allow the opening of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository.

He has some interested things to say about ethanol.

Which leaves corn. Congress has mandated that farmers be paid huge subsidies to grow corn to be converted into ethanol, a gasoline substitute, while quite inconsistently maintaining a tariff wall to deny motorists access to cheaper imported ethanol. The answer produced by the wrong question has serious negative consequences. For one thing, the negative environmental impact of these biofuels seems to outweigh their positive effect.

So what are the right questions?

[RightWhale]

Excerpting your own blog?

[pnh102]

Has this idiot been to Europe or Asia? Gas costs twice as much there as it does here and traffic in those places makes New York or LA look barren by comparison.

[Red Boots]

Up yours Ted ! Your higher gas prices, and the social policy you hope to create with them, just might mean the death of millions of small businesses; but hey, as long as you elites get to create your utopia, what's a few people's livelihoods? Stalin would be proud.

[tx_eggman]

Excerpting your own blog?

Thereby proving that it's possible to be an idiot in two places at once.

[darkangel82]

ibtz

[webschooner]

Your green libbie socialist gobbledy-gook will I’m sure be quite wecome over at the DUmp.

However, we’re not interested here. We here would just like to unleash the free market and adherence to the Constitution AGAIN by getting gubmint the hell out of our lives, something that unfortunately is only going to happen in my dreams anytime soon.

[MNJohnnie]

As long as Oil is available no other energy source is going to be economically feasible. The reason Oil is the fule of choice is because it produces the most bang for the least bucks. IF you want oil to go away, burn it up. Until the basic laws of supply and demand price oil off the market, none of the alternatives will even slightly economically feasible.

There is reason for anyone to pay 10 times their current monthly energy bills just so Green Cons, and other Neo Marxists, can feel really good about their “environmental consciousness”.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks garyb for this link:
http://www.api.org/aboutoilgas/gasoline/upload/State-Motor-Fuel-Tax-Rates.pdf

[SunkenCiv]

Campaign to vilify ethanol revealed
ethanol producer Magazine | May 16, 2008 | By Kris Bevill
Posted on 05/17/2008 9:22:13 AM PDT by Kevin J waldroup
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2017389/posts

The Bum Rap on Biofuels
American Thinker | 5-13-08 | Herbert Meyer
Posted on 05/14/2008 3:59:06 AM PDT by Renfield
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2015711/posts