Notes from the Blue Bear Republic

The High Price of Gas

On April 27, Daniel Weintraub wrote:

Disconnect
Within 24 hours, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer announced that he is suing the federal government for not doing enough to stop global warming, and he is going after the oil companies for charging too much for gas. If you're concerned about global warming, shouldn't you be in favor of higher gas prices?

http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/insider/

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The good Mr. Weintraub is right and wrong here.

The problem is not the high price of a tank of gas. It's that the benefits of this high price goes into Chevron's deep pockets instead of somewhere much more useful, such as:

• Research and delivery of alternative energy sources.
  
• People-friendly roads and neighborhoods, to encourage walking, biking and general sharing of community.
  
• Rewards to communities who adopt sustainable and healthy community design.
  
• Expansion of public transportation choices.
  
• Discretionary funds for local communities to come up with their own choices for transportation and community design, to tap the creativity of the people who actuall live and work in our communities.
  
• And, universal no fault pay-at-the-pump auto insurance to replace our current corporate welfare auto insurance system which puts insurance out of reach for those who need it most with guaranteed profits for insurance firms.

All of this could be done with a decent price on a tank of gas built by fees, not corporate profit.

That's the problem with the price of a tank of gas today. It's going to the wrong people. It ought to come back to us.

posted by Terry Preston @ 5:16 PM