Running on Empty

Dallas Morning News | Editorials:

“It may be true that this administration is too snuggly with Big Oil, but even if it were, that would have nothing to do with the spike in gas prices. ... As we explained in this space earlier this week – and in this emotional climate, it bears repeating – if you don't like high gas prices, demand less gas (that is, drive less). The supply will increase, and prices will go down. Simple as that.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

The DMN gets it all wrong. It assumes as true President Bush's contention that any efforts at energy conservation and alternative energy development necessarily means a lowering of Americans' standard of living. It's not true.

Rather than ask 200 million Americans to drive less, the DMN should be asking 1 American, the President, to increase the fuel economy standards for the automobile industry. That simple act could allow those 200 million Americans to drive just as much as they do today, but conserve millions more barrels of oil as they do. The simple laws of supply and demand suggest that as Americans drive farther on each gallon of gasoline, they'll pay less for each gallon as they do.

The DMN gets it wrong when it says, in its sub-headline, "Politics won't get us anywhere on gas prices." On the contrary, solving our energy crisis has everything to do with politics. Unfortunately, our current political leaders favor a laissez-faire approach that promises an ever-increasing mismatch between supply and demand and ever-growing profits for the oil industry. Americans need to use our political process to elect leaders that understand that nothing less than a comprehensive national effort involving government, industry, and, yes, private citizens, is essential to solving our national energy crisis.

We need to promote conservation. A simple pen stroke by the President to increase CAFE standards would be a significant first step. We need to launch a national effort on the order of the Manhattan Project to develop alternative fuel sources and make America energy independent once again. The President talks about ethanol and switch grass, but funds nothing.

The DMN's schoolboy lessons on supply and demand are patronizing. The solution to America's energy crisis does not lie in Americans' driving less. It lies in political solutions that our current government is unwilling or unable to provide. The solution begins with changing our political leaders.