Who's behind this summer's oil crisis? It's been almost 30 years since the last oil crisis. Remember people waiting in long gas lines in bell-bottoms, platform shoes and cars that couldn't get 20 miles a gallon?
While good taste has kept most of us out of those clothes this time around, close ties between the oil industry and our politicians have kept us just as dependent on oil three decades after a shock we still remember with a shudder.
We know that to keep our economy from getting hijacked every generation by oil barons, we must strengthen fuel-efficiency standards for our cars and trucks, and use oil, gas and coal as efficiently in our homes, factories and power plants as they do in Europe and Japan. These steps, of course, are the same ones needed to stop global warming.
Unfortunately, our politicians are moving the other way. George W. Bush has backed up his famous comment that he couldn't be ``too closely aligned with oil interests'' by selecting Dick Cheney, another oil industry executive, as his running mate.
Al Gore punted the issue by calling for a federal investigation into collusion within the oil industry for driving prices higher, but failed to back this up with any action.
If we look hard enough, it is most likely that the majority of the collusion we'll find will be between the oil companies and federal elected officials.
In the 2000 election cycle, oil and gas interests already have contributed $7.6 million to political candidates; about $1.8 million to Democrats and the rest to Republicans. Bush already has received more than $1.5 million from them for his current campaign, and Gore has received about $100,000, not including the half-million dollars in Occidental Petroleum stocks he owns.
These election donations are paying off. Congress and the White House refuse to pass a law to increase automobile fuel-efficiency, which would significantly reduce our dependence upon imported oil and save us money at the pump.
They also refuse to push for a meaningful international treaty to stop global warming -- the implementation of which could also dramatically reduce our oil dependence and stop the killer heat waves and coastal flooding that will come with global warming.
And it won't get better because both parties have such huge financial ties to the oil industry. Republicans oppose all energy efficiency measures and instead want to scar the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by drilling for oil that will amount to about three months' supply.
Democrats talk anti-``Big Oil'' rhetoric, but have created so many treaty loopholes for industry that reducing global warming pollution is almost only called for in the footnotes.
So as you pump too many of your summer vacation dollars into your tank and worry about heating this coming winter, remember this: The oil industry funds our politicians to forget the lessons of energy crisis past and ignore real solutions to the problem.
We have the technology to make our cars go three times the distance on a gallon of gas and to achieve increasing prosperity by using only half the energy to power our economy. You can bet, though, that you won't see these technologies in widespread use as long as oil companies have anything to say about it.
We may be forced to lock ourselves to the chairs of our elected officials and read from a tattered old document in the National Archives that says, ``Of the people, by the people, for the people'' before they embrace solutions with obvious benefits for our economy and environment.
Passacantando is the executive director of Ozone Action, an environmental group that promotes public policies aimed at improving air quality. Write him at Ozone Action, 1700 Connecticut Ave. NW, Third Floor, Washington DC 20009. Distributed by KRT News Service.
© 2000 PioneerPlanet / St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press
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