Back in the summer of 2001, I wrote an article for a campus political journal about high gas prices, which were then around $2 a gallon. As can be expected, people were clamoring for government to “do something” about the problem. I argued that high gas prices were actually not a bad things at all. I pointed largely to the US government’s massive subsidies in the form of it’s foreign policy, and pointed to the SS Cole bombing as a side effect. I predicted that higher gas prices, in the long run, would force people to conserve energy, and spur development in alternative fuels, ultimately benefiting the environment and US foreign policy. I only received one serious response to the article. It was from a law student whose argument boiled down to “you kids don’t know what you’re talking about”.

A few years later, I’m happy to see that I was half right. The events of September 11th essentially altered all foreign policy discussions so fundamentally that I can’t possibly call any pre-September 11th prediction in that arena to have been correct. In the very recent past we’ve seen a huge push for smaller and more fuel efficient cars. Hybrids are sexy, people are reconsidering diesel, and people are even buying electric cars. Every industry is finding ways to cut down on fuel use. Most importantly, people are investing in alternative forms of energy. In summary: the free market works bitches.

Now what is congress doing about all of this? Too much it seems. The Republicans want to drill in ANWR. The Democrats want to force oil companies to drill in already leased federal land, and release oil from the strategic reserve. Both sides of the aisle want to blame speculators, probably because that makes it easier than doing any serious self examination. So far, there has been anough division that no serious action has happened. This is perhaps the best thing that can happen. Let the market do what it does best – reward people who find solutions to problems. Every time congress tries to prop up our failing energy policies with more intervention they just waste money by delaying the inevitable and make it more painful when we do finally need to rework the way we produce energy in this country.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 12:47 pm by Ari and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.