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Running on empty

The president's stale solution to high gas prices comes at a cost to consumers and the environment rather than his friends in the oil industry.

By Times editorial
Published April 27, 2006

President Bush is as out of his element bashing his former buddies in the oil industry over high gas prices as a steer on ice. In a speech Tuesday, Bush proposed a lot of action but not much progress. He called for investigations of gas price manipulation . . . and kept a straight face. He said the federal government would stop making crude oil purchases to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve this summer, an amount that Americans will burn through in less than a day. Bush even risked the "hypocrite" tag after vowing during a presidential debate two years ago that he would "not play politics" with the reserve.

When it came to real action, Bush had no fresh ideas. He promoted better fuel efficiency for cars but put the burden on consumers. Given a chance to make a significant impact on mileage by setting more stringent fuel efficiency standards for the auto industry, Bush recently proposed only modest gains over 5 years.

Then the president told Americans a fairy tale. "One way to ease prices is to increase supply," he said. That means a renewed push to drill off the coast of Florida and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It's a cruel hoax.

Any gains in supply from the Gulf of Mexico or Alaska would be decades away and not substantial enough to make much of a difference in gas prices. What a shame it would be to risk Florida's beaches and economy and Alaska's incomparable wildlife preserve for a hollow promise. Along those same lines, Bush said he would waive the rules requiring refineries to make clean gas blends for summer driving. It's not clear the waiver would speed up the refinery process, but it would leave areas of the country with more smog.

Even the one feel-good action Bush suggested - delaying tax write-offs for oil exploration - was rendered meaningless by congressional Republicans, who are fighting to block tax increases on the oil industry.

Not that the Democrats are any better on the subject. They are talking about temporarily suspending the federal gas tax and raising taxes on oil profits instead. There are two things wrong with that. Gas taxes are necessary for transportation projects and actually promote conservation. And any attempt to hurt oil companies - as detestable as they might be with their outsized profits and executive compensation - is likely to boomerang into less supply and higher prices.

What Americans need are new ideas and policies, and they aren't getting them from either party. While we are waiting, we might want to face the underlying problem by looking in the mirror. We are a nation of gas hogs and our wasteful ways are catching up with us.

[Last modified April 27, 2006, 09:30:47]