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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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 Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 10:35 pm Post subject: US needs to Up the Gas Tax. |
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The US needs to up the gas tax by a lot
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July 12, 2005
The Oil Uproar That Isn't
By JAD MOUAWAD and MATTHEW L. WALD
When oil prices spiked in the early 1980's after the Iranian revolution, Jared Nedzel gave up his 1978 Pontiac Trans Am, an emblematic American muscle car, for a smaller, less extravagant Toyota Corolla. He was on his way to Cornell University to study civil engineering and he needed a more economical car.
Today, Mr. Nedzel, a 44-year-old software developer who lives near Boston, owns a Toyota 4Runner, a sport utility vehicle he bought two years ago. It gets about 17.5 miles per gallon, as much as the Trans Am did, and he uses it for his 45-minute commute to work and for driving near the beaches of Martha's Vineyard to get to his favorite fishing spots.
Gasoline prices have spiked again, to more than $2.25 for a gallon of regular in Boston last week, just above the national average, according to the AAA. But energy costs do not weigh on Mr. Nedzel's mind. "Just another gas crisis," he said, expressing an opinion held by many others. "I'm not hyperventilating about it."
For Americans, oil shocks no longer seem so shocking.
The Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the Iranian revolution in 1978-79 exposed America's vulnerability to powerful forces outside its control, forces that sent fuel prices to record levels, prompted anger over gas lines and led to bookend recessions that defined a decade of economic turmoil.
By 1980, the energy crisis and the inflation it spawned had left Americans in a vindictive mood, contributing to the re-election defeat of President Jimmy Carter, who had promised to wage the "moral equivalent of war" against dependence on foreign oil.
But the latest escalation in oil prices - to as much as $60 today from less than $30 a barrel a little more than two years ago - has produced a much more limited response. Energy legislation that President Bush is pressing Congress to pass this summer would bring little relief. And while Americans say in polls that they are deeply disturbed by high gasoline prices and looking for someone to blame, most people continue to drive just as avidly as before; purchases of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles have slowed but there has been no significant shift to more fuel-efficient cars.
Furthermore, gasoline consumption has continued to rise, up 1 percent in May compared with the same month last year.
James R. Schlesinger, whom President Carter selected as the first energy secretary, in 1977, said in a recent interview that the country's basic energy approach can best be summed up this way: "We have only two modes - complacency and panic."
The earlier oil shocks produced remarkable changes, including the rise of the Japanese auto industry as Americans turned to smaller, more efficient cars out of choice and necessity. With carrots and sticks, the United States managed to cut, temporarily, energy use per person and to scale back the share of oil in its overall energy mix.
The federal government established a strategic petroleum reserve as an insurance policy against global supply disruptions, set a national 55 m.p.h. speed limit and spent billions - much of it wasted, however, on alternatives like shale oil that proved far too costly, particularly after crude oil prices fell when economic recession tempered the demand for energy.
But this time around, the government has done almost nothing to reduce the nation's vulnerability to a sudden interruption in oil supplies. Even the advocates for the long-stalled energy bill that has finally passed both houses of Congress - though in radically different forms - acknowledge that neither version of the measure will be effective.
This month, the House and the Senate will attempt to hammer out their differences and produce the first piece of energy legislation in four years, one that President Bush hopes to sign as early as August.
Crude oil imports have doubled over the last three decades, and now account for nearly two-thirds of the oil Americans burn. Before the 1973 oil embargo, imports accounted for only about one-third of America's energy consumption. In the same three-decade period, oil demand in the United States has grown by 18 percent while domestic production has continued on a slow and probably irrevocable path of decline.
The problem is not the latest price rise, which, adjusted for inflation, is still well below the peak in early 1981, when oil cost the equivalent of $86 a barrel in today's dollars; gasoline, released from price controls, briefly sold back then for the equivalent of $3 a gallon. And it is not just imports; even if the country produced enough oil to meet its domestic needs, in a global economy a price shock would still be felt in the United States.
The fundamental problem, experts say, is that Americans depend almost exclusively on relatively large and heavy private vehicles, virtually all of them running on gasoline, for crucial daily tasks like getting to work and taking their children to school. "Americans live in a car-driven culture where they want to do as much as possible as fast as possible," said Amy Myers Jaffe, the associate director of Rice University's energy program in Houston. "I can drop off my dry cleaning, pick up my prescription drugs, do my banking and buy my lunch, all without leaving my car."
Because of this high dependence on private cars, the United States continues to use oil considerably less efficiently than any other rich industrial country. Yet most of the proposed policy remedies are meant only to subsidize the production of oil, not use less of it. Many of the rest are focused on electricity, little of it produced by oil.
Despite the lessons of the past, the United States remains particularly vulnerable to a decision by a crucial supplier - for example, the anti-American government of Venezuela -to cut its oil exports, as Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations did in 1973.
Even more critically, Americans can no longer count on abundant supplies of cheap fossil fuels, because developing nations like China and India are emerging as major competitors for resources. This is occurring just as global oil production may be hitting a plateau, a growing number of specialists say. Worldwide output, now about 80 million barrels a day, may fall short of the 100 million barrels a day that energy officials are counting on reaching within the next decade, they say.
Oil prices fell after previous shocks because recessions reduced demand. This time around, galloping consumption has left many authorities believing that the world may face a long period of high prices and tight supplies.
So who is responsible for the current situation? The evidence shows that consumers, oil suppliers, lobbyists and politicians all have played roles.
"A message of the late 1970's is we must prepare for the day of reckoning, the transition away from oil," said Mr. Schlesinger, who also served under President Richard M. Nixon as defense secretary and director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
But it did not happen then, he said, and "I doubt we're going to do it now." |
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/business/worldbusiness/12oil.ready.html?pagewanted=print |
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guangho
Joined: 19 Jan 2005
Location: a spot full of deception, stupidity, and public micturation and thus unfit for longterm residency
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 1:13 am Post subject: |
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| I remember when Republicans were protesting Clinton's 4.3 cent/gallon gas tax. They were standing at gas stations in northern Virginia with signs like "4.3 cents off per gallon" |
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keithinkorea
Joined: 17 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 9:25 am Post subject: |
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Americans use too much fuel. Gas guzzling cars should face a penalty.
It is very bad for the whole world to be a big polluter. Koreans in SUV vehicles make me sick, as if the pollution isn't bad enough in Seoul as it is now.
SUVs are ugly, smelly, polluting and dangerous. |
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Mr. Literal
Joined: 03 Jul 2003
Location: Third rock from the Sun.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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| keithinkorea wrote: |
| Americans use too much fuel. Gas guzzling cars should face a penalty. |
I wholeheartedly agree.
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| SUVs are ugly, smelly, polluting and dangerous. |
So are most of the drivers. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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| keithinkorea wrote: |
Americans use too much fuel. Gas guzzling cars should face a penalty.
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That is stupid. Just tax the the hell out of them. If they want to drive an SUV fine , as long as the pay the cost of all the problems that having to rely on imported oil causes. |
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Dan
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Sunny Glendale, CA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Calm down eco nazis. |
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endofthewor1d
Joined: 01 Apr 2003
Location: the end of the wor1d.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| keithinkorea wrote: |
Americans use too much fuel. Gas guzzling cars should face a penalty.
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That is stupid. Just tax the the hell out of them. If they want to drive an SUV fine , as long as the pay the cost of all the problems that having to rely on imported oil causes. |
dude... why is that stupid? you started this thread. it was your opinion. what do you think a higher tax on gas is? it's a penalty. if you have a vehichle that consumes a lot of gas, you are penalised by a higher tax. sure, everyone else is penalised too, but the person who uses more gas is penalised more. |
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jlb
Joined: 18 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 5:48 pm Post subject: Gas prices |
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In Canada, gas taxes are huge and if defintely encourages people to not drive as much. Prices in Vancouver are as high as $1.10 a liter and a lot more of my friends have cut back on the long road trips and driving to school because of it. Hopefully the USA will do the same...they could save the environment, as well as pay for their war in Iraq  |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 8:58 pm Post subject: |
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| endofthewor1d wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| keithinkorea wrote: |
Americans use too much fuel. Gas guzzling cars should face a penalty.
. |
That is stupid. Just tax the the hell out of them. If they want to drive an SUV fine , as long as the pay the cost of all the problems that having to rely on imported oil causes. |
dude... why is that stupid? you started this thread. it was your opinion. what do you think a higher tax on gas is? it's a penalty. if you have a vehichle that consumes a lot of gas, you are penalised by a higher tax. sure, everyone else is penalised too, but the person who uses more gas is penalised more. |
First I thought he said drivers who drive gas guzziling cars should be executed. I think I missed his edit.
It think people who drive gas guzzling cars should face a penalty too. |
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keithinkorea
Joined: 17 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| endofthewor1d wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| keithinkorea wrote: |
Americans use too much fuel. Gas guzzling cars should face a penalty.
. |
That is stupid. Just tax the the hell out of them. If they want to drive an SUV fine , as long as the pay the cost of all the problems that having to rely on imported oil causes. |
dude... why is that stupid? you started this thread. it was your opinion. what do you think a higher tax on gas is? it's a penalty. if you have a vehichle that consumes a lot of gas, you are penalised by a higher tax. sure, everyone else is penalised too, but the person who uses more gas is penalised more. |
First I thought he said drivers who drive gas guzziling cars should be executed. I think I missed his edit.
It think people who drive gas guzzling cars should face a penalty too. |
Higher tax and higher road tax. Congestion charging at a higher rate, extra purchas tax on the polluting vehicles. These are the penalties I'm up for imposing. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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I'm for a firm base gas tax, and I wouldn't mind the extras keithinkorea is suggesting as long as it was limited to private or commuter vehicles. I don't think big rigs shipping freight should have to pay more than above a base gas tax because that would raise the price on goods that everyone should be able to purchase at their local supermarket.
It's funny how people across the political spectrum all agree on this. Derrek in another thread was firmly against SUVs. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 10:39 pm Post subject: |
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I am not against SUVs if someone wants to drive one let them, just make sure to tax the devil out of them.
Cut the deficit with a 1.50 a gallon gas tax . Throw in a tax cut for lower income Americans.
If someone is willing to pay 250 dollars each time they want to fill up it is not my problem. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 8:14 am Post subject: |
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None of you have lived in LA have you?  Well besides Dan, who called you all eco-Nazis.
Not that I disagree with you all, but increased gas prices would be a rather unpleasant hit on those living in places such as LA.
Last edited by bucheon bum on Thu Jul 14, 2005 10:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Derrek
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 8:30 am Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
I am not against SUVs if someone wants to drive one let them, just make sure to tax the devil out of them.
Cut the deficit with a 1.50 a gallon gas tax . Throw in a tax cut for lower income Americans.
If someone is willing to pay 250 dollars each time they want to fill up it is not my problem. |
I'm all for going after the SUV drivers. But you know darned well that any big tax like that is going to attract every single public interest group wanting a hand-out. And every politician from every angle will be trying to appease them for votes. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 8:40 am Post subject: |
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| Maybe we can enact a special law to rename SUVs for what they really are. SPCs. |
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