Get Americans To Drive Less By Raising Gas Taxes
Tougher CAFE Standards Won’t Make A Dent In US Oil Consumption Because Those With More Fuel-Efficient Cars Tend To Drive More.
As an environmentalist, I was among the first to get a hybrid car, which helped me be among the first to admit that government-imposed fuel standards – known as Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) – don’t work.
Before I bought my 2001 Toyota Prius (which gets 46 m.p.g.), I drove my old, low-mileage Suzuki rarely because I wanted to save on gas and pollution. I opted to commute as much as possible on my bicycle, as well as ride it for pleasure. Then I picked up the Prius, and before I knew it, I seemed to be driving everywhere.
I was proof of economist David Greene’s “rebound effect” – that buyers of high-mileage vehicles drive more. With high-mileage cars, we pollute less per mile, but we cancel that benefit by spending more time behind the wheel. But with the rebound effect in mind and a son who was serving in Iraq, I cut back my driving to roughly its previous level. I am in the minority, however. The fact is that after more than 30 years of CAFE, oil consumption, pollution, and traffic congestion have soared, and automakers have found ways around the tightest standards.
Sport-utility vehicles (SUVs), for example, are “a truck without the benefit of being a truck,” says a good-old-boy mechanic friend. His description is apt because SUVs are built on truck chassis and are therefore subject to lower fuel-economy standards. SUVs were almost certainly a reaction to CAFE because although customers liked larger cars, automakers found it difficult to build models that complied with CAFE.
CAFE today forces manufacturers of true cars to try the latest fuel-efficiency technology, which sometimes increases cars’ sales prices. That pushes some drivers to buy SUVs or to keep older, less fuel-efficient vehicles for longer, rendering CAFE toothless.
Finally, toughening CAFE standards would do nothing to decrease congestion. If you build highways, drivers do indeed come. Yet because highway construction creates jobs and income, legislators push for more highways – while wrangling with Detroit automakers over CAFE.
A decade ago, the Commission on the Future of Transportation in Virginia told lawmakers that it was a “futile exercise” to attempt to build out of congestion problems. But that’s what Virginia’s Democratic governor and Republican legislature decided was the solution – even though research indicates that 90 percent of new urban freeways are overwhelmed within five years.
The US Senate can hold CAFE hearings and chide Detroit. The president can say we’ll be saved by ethanol or hydrogen. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain can claim that “cap-and-trade” systems are the answer. But all this falls apart when anyone does any real analysis of Americans’ “love affair with the automobile.”
We have about 226 million vehicles in this country today. Will any of these efforts make families throw away the huge investments in their cars? No. But the real solution does lie with drivers; we must be pushed to realize the impact of our “drive at the drop of a hat” attitude.
We inhabitants of Earth are melting glaciers and raising sea levels at a frightening rate because we’re spewing so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The US is fighting overseas, in part, because that’s where the oil is. We Americans import 12.2 million barrels daily and put about 60 percent of that in our fuel tanks while we, with 5 percent of the world’s population and 2.7 percent of the world’s oil reserves, use 26 percent of its oil.
A major mitigation to all these problems is getting Americans to drive less. The way to do that is to build substitutions for driving. The way to build efficient substitutions such as mass transit and hiking and biking paths is from higher gasoline and diesel taxes.
The cars with the world’s highest gas mileage are in Italy, a country that also has the some of the world’s highest gas taxes. For decades, Europeans, over all, have used gasoline taxes to build better developed mass transit and more bike and pedestrian trails.
Let’s call America’s higher gas tax a “user fee.” Every fiscal quarter, the user fee should go up a dime (40 cents a year), until the fee reaches the average amount of Europe’s gasoline “user fees.” This won’t destroy the US economy, and it requires no new bureaucracy because, after all, gas is already taxed. Revenues from this user fee should go toward construction of mass transit and hiking and biking trails, as well as a publicity campaign that connects excess driving with traffic congestion, pollution, global warming, peaking oil, and foreign-policy issues.
At first, drivers will complain, but then we’ll adjust. We’ll walk in our own neighborhoods, rather than go for a “mall walk.” We’ll consider taking mass transit or carpooling for long commutes. When we go car shopping, we’ll think, “Gas taxes are going up. I think I’ll buy a high-mileage car – or try new technology.”
An incremental gasoline user fee would accomplish what CAFE hasn’t been able to – and that is to reduce oil consumption and, hence, pollution, global warming and the $250 billion annual tab for importing oil. The benefits of a healthier environment, less energy dependence, and decreased congestion would be well worth the cost of the tax.
Randy Salzman, a former journalism professor, studied transportation-demand management at Oxford University.
© 2007 The Christian Science Monitor
In a perfect world we’d all carpool to our work-cubicles and take the bus to our mall-cubes. Life would be modular. Bur for all of us who need to independently move from place to place in a reasonable amount of time in order to make a living, raising the price of gas simply puts an extra burden on us when we are already pushed to the limit. Think vendors, tradespeople, truckers, delivery people, etc. Everyone who actually keeps day to day life going for the rest of us. Bicycles and more hiking trails is pretty quaint. But if you sit in an office all day I can see how that would appear to be some sort of solution.
All the people I know drive cars and trucks because they have to, not because of some weird notion that they are somehow addicted to vehicles for only a frivolous sense of convenience. They already have cut down on unnecessary driving, mostly because they are working so hard they have no time for vacations or sightseeing trips, and they have to combine their errands into one trip to save time.
A nice idea but I can’t see it happening. Car ownership/use is so endemic in US culture that I suspect it will take a shock rather than legislation before people change their habits. Readers might find this of interest:
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/1579/1/
One point this article hasn’t touched on is the fact that, to many people (and not just Americans), a car is not just a means of getting from A to B but rather an expression of status or virility or whatever. These attitudes, misguided as they are and positively encouraged by car makers, will have to be tackled first, I think, before the car is seen to be what it so often really is - a criminal waste of resources.
raising taxes has always been touted as the solution that is win/win. raise the tobacco tax and get people to stop smoking and fund substandard schools. raise the liquor tax to get extra money and stop people from drinking so much. now it is raise taxes on gas to get them to stop driving!!! i know a man who rides a bus to work one to one and a half hours ONE WAY to get to work. if he could he would be driving in twenty to thirty minutes. what is the more efficent use of his time and money? i would love to see people hiking(?) and biking to work in freezing weather, blistering hot weather, or rainy weather. it will never happen. the people gas taxes will hurt are the people who can least afford it. they are the people who keep the country running.
I’m all for this! Tax us into a recession; triple unemployment, fewer people driving. Simple solution!
I do not like how regressive this gas tax is. The working poor, who do not live in the city anymore because of high crime, have moved to distant suburbs and have long commutes without adequate mass transit.
The premis of the article, the need to raise money for mass transit, is right on. I would rather see more progressive forms of taxation to fund it. At the national level it would be so entirely easy to cut back on our military budget and accomplish just that.
Also, it is once again forgotten about the benefits of becoming a vegan, vegetarian, or even simply reducing ones meat intake.
Off22 makes some good points. I’m glad to see someone mention mass transit. Too many cars are the problem.
The core of the problem is skewed spending priorities. We need to drastically cut spending on highways, transfer spending to trains and other mass transit. We need to get rid of single-use zoning laws, instead we need mixed-use zoning. Get rid of the big box stores and shopping malls. We need local Main Street shopping areas and corner stores in the suburbs. We need to agitate for work places close to where people live. All these measures would reduce the necessity of driving.
Don’t forget this story:
Britain’s Environment Agency: Go Vegetarian to Stop Climate Change (http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/20/1985/ )
Going Vegetarian and eating local food will do more to stop climate change than not driving. Who knew? Combine that with cycle commuting and be part of a healthier North America.
Great idea!
Except that people like myself who must commute more than 100 miles per day to earn a living cannot do without driving.
As it is I pay just over 15 dollars per day for gas for a small relatively fuel efficient car.
That makes my fuel costs generally my greatest monthly expense outside of rent.
Your proposal could drive up my fuel costs to well over a quarter of my take home pay. And I am barely making ends meet as it is.
On the subject of mass transit, these are worth looking at:
http://www.atsltd.co.uk/
http://www.lightrailnow.org/home.htm
Alternatives to driving
Car pooling
Changing jobs or moving to be closer to work
Preplan all trips so you food shop only once or twice a month for example.
Do as many activities as possible at home.
Get a Bike.
Have your kids Bike
Combine trips with neighbors so only one car is used.
Get the most efficient car possible.
Demand more public transportation
Walk
P.S. I haven’t had a car since 1993 and the side benefit when I add it all up I figure I have saved over $100,000 although saved may not mean all the money is in the bank.
Wow, for Common Dreams, I’m really amazed at the car addicts. I ride a van pool and we were about to lose our van to lack of rider-ship until gas prices started climbing. Now we have a waiting list. People will adapt and find other alternatives. A car is a huge waste of material and fuel, in many cases, to propel a 175 lb. person and their lunch from point A to point B. I would ride a Moped to work if it wasn’t so dangerous because of the cars. That’s not to say I can bring home a load of groceries on a scooter but think of all the trips we could make without wasting all that power. Do you need to use a blow-torch to roast a marshmallow?
Raise the taxes, as he suggests, use it to pay for the cost of Bush’s war, and start getting innovative instead of defensive. Give up a little money-fun for the greater good.
When gas prices double, people will immediately … stop going out to dinner.
I moved closer to my work and now commute by bicycle. I agree with much of what this article advocates. I am also surprised at the degree of common sense demonstrated by your reader’s responses.
E-LEC-TRIC CARS!
Wow, you guys sound like a bunch of right wingers! Can’t give up your precious cars? First, everyone in Europe seems to manage OK at gas 3 times the price. mairs: tradespeople could get discounted fuel in terms of a business tax write-off if necessary. jbs “i know a man who rides a bus to work one to one and a half hours ONE WAY to get to work. if he could he would be driving in twenty to thirty minutes”. The cheap gas situation *enables* that. If it were more expensive, people would demand better public transport. Also jbs: “what is the more efficent use of his time and money?” Many people who take public transport use that time by reading, working on a laptop, etc. So it actually *is* a more efficient use of time.
Same argument Off22: “The working poor, who do not live in the city anymore because of high crime, have moved to distant suburbs and have long commutes without adequate mass transit”. Cheap gas *enables* high home prices/rents in reasonably close suburbs, so people move futher and further away. Jeff Moehring: why *must* you commute 100 miles a day? Can’t you move/change jobs? badminton: “We need to agitate for work places close to where people live.” This will happen on its own if we raise gas tax. Employers will have to move in order to attarct workers.
dmgreenaz: Well said! All these people have revealed themselves to be limousine liberals - they can preach as long as there’s no sacrifice on their part.
Finally, we pay about 3 times the actual price of gas anyway in terms of war tax money.
I agree with off22. This is a very regressive tax idea that hurts those that can least afford it.
Beginning with Mr. Salzman’s initial premise that when fuel efficiency goes up so do the miles that we drive resulting in no positive effect, I’ve been thinking about a different solution. Instead of additional taxes on gas how about every licensed driver gets a monthly “gas allotment.” A card similar to the cafateria cards used in many shcools that gets “loaded” with a monthly gallon quota based on the residence and job/school realities of the individual driver. You purchase your gas through the month inserting your card at every purchase (and pay the prevailing rates)and when you exceed your monthly allotment you then purchase your gas with an added “monthly excess surcharge” that would go to the government to implement the program.
I know there are several dozen serious drawbacks to this idea, but none are any more serious than the ramifications of this regressive tax idea. Instead of being penalized at every purchase by a tax-induced price hike, you only get penalized for being unwise in your driving habits. I’d like to know what other forum posters think of this idea.
This author’s experience of driving a hybrid more isn’t ours. We bought a Prius three years ago and have steadily reduced the amount we drive. Other hybrid owners we know are the same; the concern about global warming that inspired us to buy the hybrid makes us want to bike and walk as much as possible. Americans get many things backward, and the oddest to me is driving to shop or work then coming home and using an exercise machine. A previous poster said he or she couldn’t bring home a load of groceries on a scooter; well, you don’t have to bring a carload, only what you can carry. Since we want exercise every day, we don’t mind making trips two days in a row, or three. You save more than gas, because if your bike is your grocery-getter, you don’t impulse buy. At the last farmer’s market, I came home with 6 quarts of strawberries (froze half for winter), 2 of blueberries (ditto), one of cherries, bread, pizza, some plants. Later the same day at the grocery store I bought a gallon of milk, another of soy milk, 2 six-packs of beer, and, I admit, one small bag of chips. All very doable, and got 6 miles of exercise as well. The only downside of this way of life is feeling stupid for not having done it much sooner. There is no feeling of sacrifice, it’s just more fun.
Agreed, most of these arguments against higher gasoline taxes are red herrings. The very problems and situations they mention are themselves caused by cheap gasoline. Blighted neighborhoods arise because cheap gas allows white people to indulge in their racism and flee to the suburbs. Poor public transit and employers locating to exurban office “parks” where a car is the only form of access? - cheap gas again. Service workers and trades cam get a price break if their job entails travel, if self employed or small business, it’s a business write off. Most people, blue or white collar, work in a single place. Here in Pittsburgh, up intil the early 1980’s workers walked down the city-maintained hillside steps to the mills to work every day, and trolleys still rumbled up and down all the major streets.
Quaint? Yup, we need more quaintness.
Yes, Commondreams is distinctly bourgeois and suburban compared to other sites I frequent.
Mairs wrote- “Bur for all of us who need to independently move from place to place in a reasonable amount of time in order to make a living, raising the price of gas simply puts an extra burden on us when we are already pushed to the limit.”
That is why you raise the price of your services. Hence, thr true cost of your service is built into your ‘product’.
Jeff Moehring wrote- “Except that people like myself who must commute more than 100 miles per day to earn a living cannot do without driving”
MOVE! What makes you commute 100 miles per day?
No, you do not “need” to drive in order to “make a living” you can adapt, and there is no justification for polluting the world “because you need to.” I’ve never driven a car in my life, and I’m able to be employed and live fairly well. As Gravel says, some people need to grow up.
From reading these post I guess we should go back to the horse and buggy.
A gasoline tax is regressive in that all drivers will pay it, but this could be offset by giving income tax breaks to lower income people and raising income taxes on the rich.
A gasoline tax will also hasten the era of the electric car, which will come after peak oil, anyway. A gasoline tax to reduce consumption now will ease the coming shock of peak oil. I think we need to do this.
Folks I cannot afford the rent in the town where my job is located. From what I’ve read that circumstance is not so unusual.
Rent for a comparable dwelling there, nothing fancy mind you, is at least triple what I pay now.
There IS no alternative to me driving as much as I do to earn a living.
I gather that many of the posters live in urban areas where mass transit is available.
Or work for large companies where carpooling is a viable option.
Neither is the case for me.
As for changing jobs….does whomever posted that suggestion think I haven’t thought of that one?
Their just ain’t no jobs.
Finally, how many of you folks could afford to have your take home pay reduced by 1/3 to 1/2 in the form of higher rent, gas prices etc and still get by on a modest salary?
Jeff- Sorry my comment came across a bit harsh and totally lacked any empathy. I’m lucky enough to live in a city with mass transit and a decent economy.
On the other hand, my wife and I bought a house in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. It is a bit sketchy sometimes, but we weren’t willing to commute and live in the lifeless suburbs.
In what part of the country do you live?
ciao,
mc
I am losing my job, because my company is relocating up to Illinois. We employees were offered jobs up there, but the difference in the cost of living (housing primarily) between here and there was 20-29% higher in the town in which the company was located. The company’s answer to this concern was that we should live in Wisconsin, where housing was more affordable and commute in, 45 minutes to an hour each way, with tolls coming and going. Needless to say, very few of us are going up there.
I live in a rural area, and commute in to work in a nearby city. There is no one to carpool with me, given where I live, but I don’t drive at all anymore besides going to and from work, and do my errands on the way home. If I go out on the weekends, I combine errands and try to do everything in one area. A friend and I take turns driving for our errand runs, sort of a carpool for the two of us. I drive the smallest pick-up truck I can that will do what I need it to do to take care of my horses and sheep, and I’d park it, but we can’t afford yet another, more fuel-efficient car and its payment at present. When I lose my job, I am considering working a night stock job or something like that in a nearby small town. The salary will be much less, but it will be partly offset by the gas savings. I’m also looking at trying to find some legitimate work-from-home job.
MC,
I live in rural north Alabama.
The nearest place with any jobs is Huntsville, Al.
Inasmuch as Huntsville is a center for high tech (boasts the highest per capita Phd’s in the nation, or did) and is a center of both space and defense research, rent is sky high.
My work is much more prosaic….I’m a surveyor and there are a handful of companies. Ya gotta drive there to hold down a job.
It’s a simple fact that there are VERY FEW rental properties to be had in rural areas, at any price.
I am fortunate to rent a decent, older mobile home from an old couple in the small town where I live.
Hence I GOTTA drive to work.
I’m an environmentalist…..
but I can’t change the facts.
all the best
Getting Americans to drive less?
1st good lower cost housing near work.
2nd good high quality schools in that neighborhood.
3rd high quality low cost food walking distance to home.
4th production and distribution local.
5th 40 hour work week maximum with middle class wage.
6th free universal health care locally provided.
7th free universal educational at primary, secondary, university and professional school.
and so on and so forth
yo doc I think what you are advocating has passed us by..the bread has been absorbed by the desert sands..I agree, but expect we shall have to wait for the next round..’n i have a pair of great-granddaughters and expect they shall have to pass till ???????????
ken
Energy taxes should be increased a great deal. A payment of equal value to everyone 18 and over could eliminate the regressive nature of these taxes. If you lead a life with a small carbon footprint you’d have money in the bank.
The auto cartel destroyed mass transit.
The auto cartel in cahoots with the oil cartel has systematically suppressed high efficiency technology in the internal combustion engine since the 1920’s.
The author of this article sees the world through the keyhole in his door. My guess is that he has no understanding of the technology he scoots around in and couldn’t distinguish a spark plug from an O2 sensor without the help of his “good-old-boy mechanic friend”. ( Note - “good-old-boy” is a patronizing code word for “stupid” among academics with only a slight acquaintance with reality. )
Have you pious environmentalists traveled by bus lately? You seem to take pleasure in the idea of personal sacrifice, for yourselves and others, although most of you have no true experience of poverty or hardship. That is why the “rednecks” and the “right wingers” hate your guts, your bumper stickers, and the silly skin-tights you wear on your expensive bikes. They have the urge to run you down, you know, and save the world from your self-righteousness.
The problem is not the average American driving to the bath room, the problem is the auto cartel. This monopoly has kept us all enslaved to the internal combustion engine. This engine has not substantially changed since Henry Ford.
Instead of holding corporate feet to the fire, you neo-Calvinist environmentalists want to punish the people and change behavior with your evil Skinnerist plot.
That is so typical and so unAmerican!
You people, you know who you are because you bristle reading this, are part of the problem. Your taxation plan finds favor with corporate/government interests because it creates another link in the chain of popular servitude.
The inventive genius of “good-old-boy” America would have had us driving pollution-free vehicles in the 50’s, were it not for the monopoly power of the auto/oil cartel. The internal combustion engine uses fully 40% of the oil we consume and is the prime source of air pollution after industry & the military.
46 MPG in the author’s Prius is less than half of MPG gain possible on a conventional engine equipped with fuel vaporization technology. ( http://fuelvapors.com - view 900+ patents for operational devices )
That technology exists but has been systematically suppressed because it would so dramatically reduce demand for oil that the oil companies would suffer. And so would the government because of the loss of tex revenue.
They love your neo-Calvinist plans, friends.
Oh yeah cruxpuppy, so which non-corporate party, not in bed with the auto/oil industries did most of your “good-old-boy” friends vote for? I thought so, not so righteous, eh?
kind of have to explane how calvinist get into this, but the rest I would say go crux go..
ken
That 46 mpg is also around or less than an ordinary Honda Civic got back in the early 80’s. The difference? The Civic ans every other subcompact car was a lot smaller and lighter back then, and 1.5 liters and 60 horsepower was considered perfectly adequate.
Most of us are too young to have lived during the Great Depression, but people then had to cut back on their lifestyles. Will Americans be forced into a less consumptive life style in the future? Yes I think so. Americans, per person are consuming resources at a greater rate than any other nation.
My favorite form of transportation is by train. And in some places in Europe you can take along a family pet and there are cars with play equipment for children. It is safe, and can be very pleasant with a nice restaurant available. But the US train system is in shambles with terrible schedules and unclean facilities.
We will be forced into life style changes and in some ways we may be bettter off with the changes. What we have now is quite literally unsustainable.
cruxpuppy
I would like to see some people develop better mileage cars and then sell them. There is a market and you say there is the technology. Why hasn’t it happened? What’s holding it back? Why aren’t people building these cars just for their own use?
l sell cars and l am appaled, we have two cute suv’s with 4cylinder engines the Compass and the Patriot , l just sell em l don’t name em, and yet the big ones still outsell the little ones. As ol’ PT Barnum said there is one born every minute. l have been calling for higher gas prices with designated funds for mass transit for years…-
I do my part by riding an electric motor scooter - with some modifications it does 45 mph and climbs hills fairly well. It is fully licensed as a motorcycle. Range is 25 miles (it would probably be 35 to 40 miles in a flatter town) - good enough for nearly all errands. It can be “opportunity charged” at outdoor electric receptacles while shopping for more range. Electricity costs are a penny a mile.
But, since moving out of my beloved old city neighborhood to a suburb to stay close to my job that also moved there, I get the most incredible amount of hostile reaction from young-adult male motorists to the vehicle - like it’s a personal affront or something. Today it was “Get a real bike pussy!!!” Last summer I got eggs thrown at it while it was parked. It is hard to tell if it is some kind of hyper-servitude to fashion (do they likewise shout words of adulation to the driver of a new Hummer or 1200cc Harley?), or underlying ideological hostility - the scooter representing care for the environment and frugality. Who knows. But it sure infuriates me.
In spite of stickers saying “electric” on it few notice it is electric - it appears that Americans are oblivious to the differences in sound and appearance between a IC engine and an electric motor. Oblivious to anything but the crap on TV.
We live in a rural area, it’s twenty miles to the nearest town. I could sell the ranch and move to town, but we have a neighbor, a widow who cannot do that. She works in a store in town and earns $9.75 an hour, which is not bad for this area. She cannot afford another car and drives a ten year old Pontiac. It still gets 26 miles to the gallon on these hilly roads. There is no one for her to carpool with and no public tansportation. Her gas budget is a hundred bucks a month and she uses all of it now, mostly just to get to and from work. After payroll taxes, there isn’t much left for her for her first paycheck of the month. Wonder how many fit that description? I would assume multi-millions, and if the gas prices and or gas taxes go real high, she’ll be in trouble. But___ that’s life I guess. Wish she could afford a good, reliable, new electric car. That is the way we should attempt to go.
Well, once again, it is cheap gasoline led people to live 20 miles from the nearest store or job to begin with. In the old days, if you lived out of the city it was only because you were a full-time farmer. People didn’t live out in a rural area as a lifestyle choice. Why can’t the widow move into town? Do average people lament having to live without a personal jet plane? No, because it is way beyond their range of affordability. So why are they lamenting no being able to afford 100 mile commutes? Stop doing the 100 mile commute.
Americans also need to recalibrate what is considered “good pay”. Minimum wage in Ireland is the equivalent of $11.65 an hour.
Just a personal predilection, but science and technology can be the redemption of the environment as well as of the human species.
The people are losing faith in science because it is increasingly hidden from them by the war & profit mongers.
Many in the environmental movement are unwitting Luddites and many more are wedded to the idea that consumption is a “sin” as it represents indulgence of fleshly desire. These are the Calvinists, but they may call themselves Buddhists and descry attachment to the ten thousand things. Whatever name one wishes to call reverence for Gaia and all other species, it is not a religion.
We must pay for our sins by higher taxes on fuel, which is no luxury but a necessity. The people do not sin, the controllers place them in an impossible situation. One small example of the suppression practised by the auto cartel is in an easily digestible film called “Tucker, the Man and His Dream”, 1988, produced by George Lucas and Francis F Copolla.
This is the true story of a man who wanted to make his own cars. He succeeded in producing 60 vehicles, the “Tucker Torpedo”, which are in auto collections today around the world. They shut him down. His Torpedo was fuel injected. It had four wheel disc brakes. It had seat belts. Auto cartel vehicles had no fuel injection, disc brakes, or seat belts. Fuel injection did not become standard until Congress raised the CAFE standards in the wake the Arab Oil Embargo.
The cartel shut Tucker down in 1949 because he was ahead of the pack and would have captured the market. Fuel injection is more efficient, producing more power and higher MPG, thus cutting fuel consumption and pollution. Oil company profits would diminish. Tucker might have bankrupted members of the old crony network of the auto cartel.
We do not have fuel cells and electric cars because the oil monopolists have a good thing going, the highest profits in the history of the world. The hybrid vehicle is a sop to the tree huggers. Every clunker on the road today could be retrofitted with fuel vaporization technology next year that would cut fuel consumption more than half and eliminate the need for pollution control devices such as the catalytic converter. That will not happen.
Those hardy individuals who have tried to make it happen have been put down, one way or another.
In a free market, it would happen. It would have happened before the ‘73 Arab Oil Embargo, which was the Arab’s way of telling us they didn’t like Israel’s occupation of Palestine. If the market were free, there would be no need to invade Iraq.
This call for taxation to reduce pollution is so wrong-headed. There’s no need to punish the people. The corporate/government/military synergy is the culprit, so blame them!
As a people so utterly dependent on technology for our good life we are amazingly stupid about it. Uninformed. Uninterested. The Auto cartel whines and says it can’t raise CAFE standards and we believe them because we have no knowledge base to say it is not so.
We have emerged from the belching smokestack era and are fully capable of implementing eco-friendly technology. A free market would release the genius of the people, but it is not free, and the people are held in vassalage by monopolies of the unenlightened.
The people in aggregate are themselves enlightened, odd as that may sound in this Brave New World of the corporate nanny state. That was the basic premise that gave rise to the Constitution & Bill of Rights. The Founders were wary of the mob, true enough, so they produced a system they thought could successfully harvest the genius of the people for the benefit of the people.
The delicate mechanism of the Republic has been gradually destroyed by the growth of organized crime, which is monopoly and militarism.
More taxation of the people is a truly stupid idea advanced by those who deny the genius of the people and thus contribute to the death of the Republic which they don’t understand in the first place.
It is important to understand the original spirit of the Republic, especially as it is dying before our eyes, because when Gaia delivers the coup de gras, we will need to remember it in order to reconstruct it, or a facsimile thereof.
The horse and buggy would be cool!
It all ignores the basic problem. Oil is a finite resource. No matter how much people conserve it will still run out. In the meantime it will continue to spew carbon dioxide as a global warming gas and aggravate that problem as well as not solving the transportation problem we have.
I have said before and will keep repeating that both problems can be solved by converting to hydrogen.
1. Hydrogen is zero polluting, the only by-product of burning hydrogen as a combustible gas is water.
2. The cars now on the road now can be converted to run on hydrogen for about $1000 per vehicle, with Government tax breaks the cost could be zero to the end user. No other zero polluting fuel offers the conversion ease, the ability to run on gasline as well as hydrogen during the interim conversion phase, and eliminates the need to have to buy a new vehicle. Hydrogen also has none of the range limitation, recharge time problems of current electric vehicles.
3. Hydrogen can be produced from clean electrical sources such as solar and wind power so the production end can also be zero polluting.
4. A crash program such as the Apollo moon program could have us all driving hydrogen powered vehicles in ten to fifteen years. A much faster conversion than to any other zero pollution solution.
5. Hydrogen when burned as a combustible fuel is 30% more efficient than gasoline which puts it on a level with diesels for fuel used per miles driven.
6. Hydrogen can also be used in all homes for cooking, heating water, home heating, further reducing pollution from the use of natural gas.
Lobo Gris
PJD
When I read your post my heart sank.
“I get the most incredible amount of hostile reaction from young-adult male motorists to the vehicle - like it’s a personal affront or something. Today it was “Get a real bike pussy!!!” Last summer I got eggs thrown at it while it was parked.” PJD
The true underlying problem for America is the way the people treat one another. Bush is a symptom. He is an outgrowth of a people who like to insult and are rude and certain of how right they are.
How do you change a culture based in so much rudness and self centered egotism? If America does hit another bad economic time how will the people react? Will they help one another or will it be more of every man for himself?
(When people shout at me like that, I shout back, which may not be the right thing, but if I had been there I would have shouted at them for you. Well I’m an American. I’m rude. sigh.)
How ironic if the government of Ahmadinejad were toppled because of a rationing of oil. And note the cost of oil in Iran is heavily subsidized and costs 11 cents a liter.(yes 11 cents!)
This rationing of oil is a result of international sanctions against Iran, proving in my mind that sanctions do work.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6243644.stm
“Iran fuel rations spark violence”
some quotes from the BBC article
“Windows were smashed and stones thrown at the stations, and there was traffic chaos as motorists queued to buy fuel.
Iranians were given only two hours’ notice of the move that limits private drivers to 100 litres of fuel a month.
Despite its huge energy reserves, Iran lacks refining capacity and it imports about 40% of its petrol”
“Guns, fireworks, tanks, [President] Ahmadinejad should be killed,” chanted angry youths, throwing stones at police.
The protests are the first large-scale outpouring of anger against the Iranian government since Mr Ahmadinejad took office in 2005.
Iran’s petrol is heavily subsidised, sold at about a fifth of its real cost.
The price of 1,000 rials ($0.11) per litre makes Iran one of the cheapest countries in the world for motorists.
Evelyn Smith…..
You echo the things I posted.
PJD…..perhaps you might re-read the posts by Evelyn and I….you seem to have overlooked our reasons for being unable to move closer to our jobs.
Also historically cheap gas prices have nothing to do with where I live. I had no hand in creating that past history.
And “recalibrating” our notions of what constitutes a good paying job sure as hell won’t cause our employers to suddenly decide that we deserve a raise.
Cruxpuppy…..I agree in principle with most all that you say, as I do with most of the postings on this subject.
I will put my environmentalist credentials up against anyone, anywhere.
And I fully agree that time is running out and that realistic alternatives do exist.
I made my original post because it seemed that everyone had overlooked the fact that a lot of folks might agree completely with the basic premise of the essay.
While at the same time be unable to realistically be a part of these good and necessary (in my mind) solutions.
Millions of people live outside of mass transit, cannot afford the higher cost of living where their jobs are located, and CANNOT afford to do much except trudge along day by day.
all the best
I suppose there are a people in a situation of having to live far from their jobs. But somehow in pursuit of a cereer and changes of career. I’ve lived in about 10 different places with high and low living costs, from the DC area, to Blacksburg, VA, to Knoxville to Lebanon, Tennessee, to Maracaibo, Venezuela, back to DC area, back to Blacksburg, to Lexington KY, to Pittsburgh, Pa and now to a Pittsburgh suburb of Brentwood. In all those places, I’ve alway managed to either use transit, vanpool, walk or live within a 5-8 mile drive (now, electric cycle) from work. I have trouble believing my experience is so unique. No, I don’t have kids, but I grew up in military family with 5 growing to 9 sibnlings where moving to another city was an annual or bi-annual ocurrence.
I still need to be convinced so many poeple live with so few options.
But yes, the low real estate prices in a lot of cities are probably creating a lot of suburban mortgage-prisoners. I’m sure we can all agree that automobile reliance is not the only way the US capitalist political-economic infrastructure stinks.
cleen,
Thanks for the comment. I likewise fear that, prticularly in suburban and exurban areas, the spirit of common purpose and solidarity - the spirit that got us through the 1930’s without descent into violence or fascism, is completely extinct.
It still exists a bit in some of the not-yet-gentrified-but-not-yet-slum-either city neighborhoods here in Pittsburgh, for now.
PJD…..
Your experience is most certainly not unique I would think.
But neither is mine.
Being a “mortgage prisoner” is a pipe dream for me.
I do well to afford rental costs.
I have no idea what you do for a living but it sounds that your chosen career allows you a fair amount of latitude in where you lay your head and probably a higher than average salary.
Good for you!
Some of us for any number of reasons ARE limited in our REALISTIC choices in location and employment.
I am free to write this because I am currently umemployed.
When I find another job I will be in no financial condition to put down a couple grand in deposits, moving costs etc even if I could find cheap housing near my new job.
I’m not whining here. Simply telling you the truth about my personal situation. And probably the situation of lots of folks.
And yes “I’m sure we can all agree that automobile reliance is not the only way the US capitalist political-economic infrastructure stinks.”
all the best
Out-of-touch with reality
Americans did not choose to destroy mass transit and make America the land of the automobile…that was the auto industry and rubber (tire) industries with help from their government.
The people are already being punished for our refusal to fight these bastards…..with the insane price gouging of the ExxonMobil’s of the world.
The author wants to punish the people even more…punish them for driving to work…punish them for going to the grocery store.
All of the Americans I know have already cut their driving back to just the basics…we build up lists and do all of our errands in a single trip….we’ve traded in our vans for economy cars…..there are no more Sunday afternoon drives and gas wasting.
What the author advocates is piling on the oppressed. You think we don’t want high mileage cars ? You think we don’t want mass transit ? You want to punish the people for the crimes of the corporations and the corporate government.
You want to tax something….. Punitively tax the automobile industry for every car they produce that doesn’t get 40 mpg. Don’t punish the people for the crimes of the corporations and their government
PJD: To answer your question:
The lady cannot move into town because her home on four acres of land, where she was raised and has lived for fifty years, is not one that would bring near enough money to allow her to purchace “any” home in town. Her home will be her retirement place, so she does not in her senior years have to rely upon a tax funded slum house, or become a bag lady. She also has a beautiful garden and a small orchard where she grows organic foods, some of which she sells at the farmers market on Saturdays and some she stores in her pantry. It suppliments her meager income.
Your assumptions are frequently just that PJD, assuptions made on your opinions, which are based on zero knowledge of circumstances or facts. I do appreciate your bringing forth debatable subject matter. It is so nice to see you are still kicking.
Jeff Moehring, Good reads. I agree with all you say, I am with you and the many others who realize we must wean ourselves from oil and other fossil fuels. we just cannot sensibly do it overnight.
However, beneath the State of Kansas “alone”, there are pockets of natural gas which are large enough to supply the fuel needs of Americans for more than a hundred years. If we would convert our cars and trucks, semi’s and others to run on natural gas, (which is not horribly expensive and it burns very clean, as unlke gasoline, it all burns.) If we would convert our vehicles, (I have done so on our pickup and can still flip a switch and use gasoline if the need ever arises) we would be able to dramatically reduce the use of crude oil based gasoline, until the time when hydrogen fuel is readily available. For one thing, natural gas currently sells for two bucks a gallon including the taxes.
This nation is already bankrupt, the economy is on the edge of collapse and if and when gasoline taxes raise, say a dollar or more a galon, the collapse will arrive that much sooner. We are not prepared, in any way, to just leave our present modes of transportation. That is a shame, but it is a fact. Humanity is not prepared for many things in this world. We have proven that to be so.
Evelyn,
Thanks for your kind words.
We are in for a very rough time I fear.
There ARE solutions to the dire problems facing us.
But I don’t see us solving them in time.
Some very nasty chickens are winging their way home.
all the best
Evelyn Smith June 27th, 2007 2:20 pm
“However, beneath the State of Kansas “alone”, there are pockets of natural gas which are large enough to supply the fuel needs of Americans for more than a hundred years. If we would convert our cars and trucks, semi’s and others to run on natural gas, (which is not horribly expensive and it burns very clean, as unlke gasoline, it all burns.) If we would convert our vehicles, (I have done so on our pickup and can still flip a switch and use gasoline if the need ever arises) we would be able to dramatically reduce the use of crude oil based gasoline, until the time when hydrogen fuel is readily available. For one thing, natural gas currently sells for two bucks a gallon including the taxes.”
Excellent points and the same ones I have been making about hydrogen. Hydrogen can be used in exactly the same way as natural gas. Hydrogen is cleaner and more efficent but will be more expensive. The improved efficiency may offset some of the cost but mabe not all. The main thing is that both get us off the oil merry-go-round.
Lobo Gris
I agree Lobo Gris, and hydrogen will be less expensive after time also. That is unless it gets taxed to death.
I made an error, it would not be inexpensive to convert Semi’s or diesel engines to natural gas. Perhaps with technology and some high tech engineering it could be. Right now, the corn diesel fuel is a great alternative. For the vast majority of vehicles, conversion to natural gas is not expensive and the lower cost of natural gas should easily offset the initial costs. The problem is, the oil barons, they will do anything to prevent any changes of significance. They managed to get GM from any further development of their wonderful electric car. It was sucsessful in California, the people who had them loved them and when the test was over, it was over. Dropped like a rock in a deep well.
Thank you for your comments. Kem Patrick
Peace Warrior, I love your comments. Right on target! And when we reduce our driving on weekends, take fewer vacation trips, or just don’t go out for a day’s fishing because of the high cost of fuel. What happens?
For one, the resorts, vacation areas, small mom and pop businesses suffer and soon shut down. We live near a nice little tourist town, it’s about eighteen miles distant. We seldom go there now, but yesterday we did, haven’t been there for almost two months. Wow, more than half of the stores and restaurants were closed, permanently! No problem finding a parking spot and the shops that were still open were having genuine closing sales or 50% off sales. No cheery people there now. It will be a ghost town in another few months, almost is now.
Yes, the high cost of fuel is hurting the nations economy in more ways than is evident to many. It will snowball over time and add in the loss of sales tax revenue for cities and states. This nation is already in financial stress, won’t be long before a severe recession begins and then a depression. The Democrats will take the blame for it too. Stock up on food and weapons, it is gonna be hell on Earth if a depression hits.
Hello All,
I would like to add a few things. Questions really.
I have read in a number of places that it costs nearly as much or more energy to produce ethanol as a motor fuel than the oil it replaces. Can this possibly be true?
I have also read, and am quite sure this is the truth, this unsettling fact about electrical power generation….
Over 60% of the power generated in power plants is lost through the transmission of it in the lines through “leakage” whilst enroute to the end user.
Given that most electricity is produced from the burning of coal that is a serious problem.
Ethanol does reduce our reliance on imported oil which is a good thing.
And burning natural gas in power plants or cleaner coal technologies will mitigate these issues somewhat.
One fact many may not realise is that we only import around 15% of our oil from the Middle East. The only reason that I can see for our “dependence” on Middle East oil is the ease of extraction and the high quality of the crude both of which reflect lower cost/higher profits for the oil companies. In short we could EASILY wean ourselves from imports from that troubled region.
Any answers to these questions from y’all?
all the best
P.S. I’m thinking that my personal solution to it all may be to take Cheney’s lead and declare myself to be neither plant nor animal….effectively eliminating my need for energy altogether:).
Folks:
Being the original author of the CAFE piece, please understand that many of your concerns were addressed in it but that CSM limits these pieces to 750 words and, therefore, many of your concepts got cut.
Here are some points: About 2/3 of the U.S. economy is consumer spending and over half the 411 billion trips we take each year are for shopping. Hence, President Bush — and even environmentalist presidential candidates — are terrified of asking Americans to drive less because most of us associate driivng with going to the mall. On hte other hand, every single oil analyst recognizes that the world oil supply is peaking (meaning demand is outstripping supply) and that hence forth the world every year will have less oil for more demand. As Hugo Chavez said months BEFORE he called Bush the “devil,” he’s going to play the “oil card” against us. In short, oil is dying out but, as many of your comments indicate, most of us refuse to realize that WE WILL CHANGE. The question is whether we’ll prepare for and make a rational change or totally destroy our way of life when the disaster comes.
First, there’s peak oil. The US Geologic Survey predicted the “big rollover” (also called Peak Oil) as early as 2005 (and not later than 2020) which is the end of the oil economy. From that point on — and again, it’s probably already happened — suppliers will control the price and availability of oil. It’s easy to see, in this context, why the Bush Administration opted to invade Iraq while claiming its about “democracy” when the rest of the world, according to a survey of 33,000 conducted by the Pew Charitable Trust, think its about blood for oil. Bush, however, is not alone. Since the 1960s, according to Kevin Phillips, every major American foreign policy program can be tied to securing oil and protecting the transportation of it. He calls our soldiers “petrol-imperialists.”
Then, there’s global warming. Transportaton produces the greatest single amount of C02 emissions in the American economy, a little over 33 percent of the total of the four sectors of the economy. At 1,959 million metric tons annually, transportation emission growth has buried the decline — yes, decline — in the last 20 years of commercial and industrial emissions. Per unit of GDP, the emissions of C02 has dropped an amazing 23 percent since 1990 and transportation (which includes transporting fuel and road-building materials) produces only 11 percent of GDP. In short, business is primarily trying to do its part. We drivers and flyers are the ones melting the polar ice caps.
Then, there’s pollution. ONe gasoline additive which scrubs out some ozone air pollution has now been found in the groundwater of 28 states while the research indicates that in the past 20 years the increase in America’s annual driving (now, 2.9 trillion miles) has swamped every single state and federal ozone control measure.
We must try conservation and the only way to cause conservation is to charge for the externalities (issues not covered by price) created by our gasoline usage. Everyone, Al Gore to George W., knows this but is so afraid of soccer moms in SUVs that UNLESS we Americans begin to learn this data on our own, we are doomed in three or four different ways. We’re destroying our economy by sending $256 billion annually overseas to import oil. We’re destroying our world reputation by fighting over oil around the world. We’re destroying our planet by putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Those of you claiming a rolling gasoline user fee is regressive should understand that suburbanites use, on average, 11 percent more gasoline than either rural or urban users. The poor already take the bus. Building better, more efficient mass transit helps, not hinders, them because transit comes more regularly and there is not nearly the need to subsidize it. Today, the American transit rider is the most subsidized in the world with the average bus company in the U.S. getting an average of 2/3 of its budget from municipal, state and national subsidies. Conversely, the estimates of simply the federal subsidy to drivers range as high as $295 billion annually.
Those of you thinking I know nothing about cars might be surprised to find out that I have on three ocassions rebuilt engines (and stop at every junkyard I can find with old VW vanagons in it) and that I grew up roughnecking for oil in the Texas, Wyoming and Colorado oil fields. Though I have advanced degrees of which I’m proud, I’m more proud of the fact that I was born a Texas redneck…
Rednecks, in my experience, get the worst press but are the people who go out of their way to help you (me, anywone).
The overall point of my writings about oil, gasoline, health, congestion, pollution, global warming, foreign policy is that the disaster is coming UNLESS we do something today (by which I mean a long time ago) which curtails our driving. Our driving — your’s and mine — is the key problem.
Isn’t it time we face it?