Tom Bethell: Congress is to blame for the energy crisis
[Tom Bethell, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, is available to discuss how Congress is to blame for the current uproar over surging gas prices.]
For those with long memories, the uproar about the price of oil has deja vu written all over it. When I came to Washington, 30 years ago, the energy crisis topped the news. Oil prices were rising and (we were told) the "Arab oil embargo " was to blame.
Wrong. No matter how despotic, Arab rulers have always been happy to sell oil. Prices rose, but mainly kept place with U.S. inflation. The real problem was that a few years earlier the Nixon administration signed price controls into law. The supply of gas at the pump was not allowed to match demand. Nixon's successors reaped the consequences. President Carter wore a symbolic sweater, and soon there were gas lines.
I don't think Gerald Ford or Mr. Carter had much idea of what had gone wrong.
Easier to blame foreigners than the good intentions of politicians. When President Reagan was sworn in, the first thing he did was to abolish the price controls. Mr. Ford could have done it five years earlier.
Today, as gas exceeds $3 a gallon, the search is on for new villains. The oil companies are "price gouging." That's a familiar accusation, but it's discouraging that President Bush has joined in. Oil companies compete fiercely with each other, and their products are highly regulated. That has not stopped Mr. Bush from pulling what Tony Blankley calls a "full Schumer": demagoguing the issue by ordering the Justice Department to "open inquiries into possible cheating in the gasoline markets."
The president should redirect his fire - and the country's attention - to the real problem: Congress. For years, lawmakers have done the environmentalists' bidding. Repeatedly, they have voted for restrictions and regulations that curtail supply and so make oil and gasoline more expensive. The recent run-up in price gave Mr. Bush the perfect opportunity to pin the blame where it has long belonged: on members of Congress who fear environmentalists more than motorists.
A key obstruction is the ethanol mandate in last year's energy bill, forcing drivers to use 71/2 billion gallons of the oxygenate additive by 2012. Producers of an alternative additive called MTBE are pulling out because they have become a target of tort lawyers. The lawyers should be fought off immediately, but the Democrats (who depend on trial lawyers for campaign funds) will oppose that all the way....
For those with long memories, the uproar about the price of oil has deja vu written all over it. When I came to Washington, 30 years ago, the energy crisis topped the news. Oil prices were rising and (we were told) the "Arab oil embargo " was to blame.
Wrong. No matter how despotic, Arab rulers have always been happy to sell oil. Prices rose, but mainly kept place with U.S. inflation. The real problem was that a few years earlier the Nixon administration signed price controls into law. The supply of gas at the pump was not allowed to match demand. Nixon's successors reaped the consequences. President Carter wore a symbolic sweater, and soon there were gas lines.
I don't think Gerald Ford or Mr. Carter had much idea of what had gone wrong.
Easier to blame foreigners than the good intentions of politicians. When President Reagan was sworn in, the first thing he did was to abolish the price controls. Mr. Ford could have done it five years earlier.
Today, as gas exceeds $3 a gallon, the search is on for new villains. The oil companies are "price gouging." That's a familiar accusation, but it's discouraging that President Bush has joined in. Oil companies compete fiercely with each other, and their products are highly regulated. That has not stopped Mr. Bush from pulling what Tony Blankley calls a "full Schumer": demagoguing the issue by ordering the Justice Department to "open inquiries into possible cheating in the gasoline markets."
The president should redirect his fire - and the country's attention - to the real problem: Congress. For years, lawmakers have done the environmentalists' bidding. Repeatedly, they have voted for restrictions and regulations that curtail supply and so make oil and gasoline more expensive. The recent run-up in price gave Mr. Bush the perfect opportunity to pin the blame where it has long belonged: on members of Congress who fear environmentalists more than motorists.
A key obstruction is the ethanol mandate in last year's energy bill, forcing drivers to use 71/2 billion gallons of the oxygenate additive by 2012. Producers of an alternative additive called MTBE are pulling out because they have become a target of tort lawyers. The lawyers should be fought off immediately, but the Democrats (who depend on trial lawyers for campaign funds) will oppose that all the way....