My congressman, John Dingell, has served in Congress for 52 years and if, there is anything that he has learned in his time in Washington, it's to call them as he sees them.
In his position, as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, he insists that today's great energy debate result in a bill that actually accomplishes something, and that its pain be borne by all Americans (rather than just his Detroit auto makers).
Americans have been up and down on the price and availability of gasoline since the mid-1800s. The price of a barrel of oil, from time-to-time, spikes and then slowly goes down (at a faster rate than inflation) over time until it becomes too low and the oil producers spike it back up. When the price is low and availability high, people buy bigger cars and trucks in the U.S. When the price is higher, they begin to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. If the price of gasoline falls back to the $2.50 gallon range (which it will), most consumers will again demand big fuel-inefficient vehicles. That's a huge problem for automotive manufacturers who haven't figured out how to forecast fuel price cycles.
What's the solution?
Take a look at European transportation patterns over the years. Gasoline there has been highly taxed; forcing people to take mass rapid transit to their weekday workplaces while saving their private vehicle usage for weekend travel.
Mr. Dingell, the 81-year-old Dean of the House, argues for new energy taxes because higher energy prices are one of the few things that cause people to cut back consumption. Taxes give policy makers more options in influencing behavior. He uses the example of a gas tax. "Why would I do that? First of all, it means I can reduce the use of gasoline, and I can make it easier for CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency) to work." He also explains that it allows policy makers to "differentiate between fuels." By taxing gasoline but not diesel, for instance, he hopes to get more people into diesel cars. That would further reduce emissions, he argues, since diesel gets "about a 20% or 25% fuel benefit."
"People have got to understand that addressing the problem we have as the largest user of energy and emitter of greenhouse gases is not something that will exist without pain...It is ultimately going to evolve into a significant cost for everybody, and significant changes in lifestyle. Nobody will put in too much, nobody too little, but nobody will get out of it," he predicts.
Source: The Weekend Interview with John Dingell, The Wall Street Journal, October 6-7, 2007