If you want to consume less fuel drive under 65 and you will burn 15% less. If our governor really is serious about lowering consumtion he could at least order all state employees to drive under 65. Instead he brags about his wife's new V.W. There is a lot we could do besides simple minded knee-jerk tax increases.
The last time I saw Tester he was passing me as I drove 62.5mph towards Big Sandy on 87. Its time the government got serious about fuel conservation...LOWER THE DAMN SPEED LIMIT! Force the clowns at the big 3 to resign before they get any money. Make the big 3 put fuel conservation above any other consideration going forward. Saudi oil money paid for the attack on us and on India, they are behind all muslim terrorism worldwide but our government is loath to make it public. This is economic and cultural warfare and the sooner the American people realize this the better. Blaming ourselves and taxing ourselves won't change that fact.

Mr. twisters views on the speed limit and saving are narrow minded, produced by public hype on an issue that works for very few. I drive an F-150. 13 mpg at 55, also gets 13 mpg at 70. Just because his piece of junk is not capable of running at a decent speed does not mean the rest of the country cannot.

Back during the first gas crisis we were to dumb to get the message, unlike Brazil which started a crash program to convert sugar cane to fuel, resulting in a nearly foreign energy independent economy. I wouldn't have a problem with increased gas taxes except that the politicians would squander the money instead of building much needed roads and bridges, and the public transit lobby would try to steal much of the money for worthless light rail and other boondoggles. European drivers have been paying six to eight dollars a gallon for decades now and their automobile usage as been rising consistently at about one to two percent per year, even though on average the Europeans drive smaller more fuel efficient cars. Currently, we are sending about 7 to 8 hundred billion dollars over seas to buy energy. If we ramped up our Nuclear output from 11 percent to 60 percent, used clean coal technology and maximized solar, wind, and geothermal and converted most individual transportation to electric power we could easily become a net energy exporter in about 20 years and have much less air pollution to boot.

Listen to yourself. Raise the tax to manipulate the interest in alternative energies. Control the people's wallets to advance your self-serving interests. Why not just create a stand-alone tax strictly for the advancement of alternative energies and call it the "Make You Give Until it Hurts" Tax. The torture crew at Gitmo would love to have you and your ideas.
The problem is that people get so hopped up on these ideas of alternative energy that they expect to completely cease using fossil fuels in 2 or 3 years. To be realistic and to ensure an un-intrusive transition, it is going to take a decade or two to completely ween us off of fossil fuels.
Just relax and let it happen. The virtue is to get it done right without placing undue burden on the American taxpayer.

I've read numerous articles about this economy's affects on sustainable energy projects and the recent decrease in oil prices isn't one of those reasons. Much like the home construction industry, the wind farm and the solar farms are feeling the financial pains too. Frozen credit markets halted the construction of a major solar facility in southern California just last month. Wind farms in that same state have had to stop adding turbines due to the lack of available credit. The alternative energy boom was in full-swing until the credit markets ceased up. Here in Northern Montana, I've watched hundreds of trucks laden with wind turbine components traveling up and down Highway 2 and Highway 87, all destined for Shelby and other wind projects here.

You did bring up an interesting point about the automakers in this country. I know there are a lot of brand-specific motorists in this country and if the Big 3 disappear I feel that those motorists will hang onto their current American made vehicles long into the future. When that happens, foreign automakers can build the greenest vehicles the world has ever known, but none of them will be on the roads, because (to those brand-specific motorists) they aren't American made. We need the Big 3 to fill that niche when the technology finally rolls off of the assembly line.

Everyone who expects the U.S. to stop using fossil fuel within the next few years needs to quit trying to make policies that would force that kind of action and need to go out and get an engineering degree and a business degree and then work with Detroit, rather than D.C., to make it happen. Side-stepping the source and going to Uncle Sugar for results is just bad policy. I don't think I need to remind you that the Government has already become too controlling in the last decade, we don't need them to control every single aspect of our lives. Let's take control for ourselves, lets go and work with the corporations rather than against them. Let's quit hurting the American taxpayers. These increasing taxes for the advancement of ideals is becoming borderline torture and terror. "Make them hurt to change their ways" is the very core of terrorism.

The sick fact is that raising energy prices through a tax now would really stick it to any economic recovery. Never mind that skyrocketing energy costs for the average JackandJill was a major force in kicking all those over-leveraged crummy loans into foreclosure sooner than later.
High standards of living require a certain level of energy availability, at least in terms of work done in manufacturing. High costs there are passed all the way up.
I'm agreeing completely with Jet Mech here. And let's face the fact that Caddah and Saint Joan (Claybrook) tried and failed to socially engineer correct behavior. Americans should be allowed to choose for themselves the proper behavior.
If the gas cost is such that saving two hours across Montana means two hours of my valuable time is utilized other than driving, by gosh, that should be MY choice. If the price of fuel climbs, by gosh, I should be able to buy a gas-sipping rocket and put a brick on it if I want, rather than be taxed and forced to buy a gas sipping tin box with a governor or some other Big Liberal Of Indeterminate Gender or Preference-mandated device bolted on.
And people say the media is statist and a bit slanted? No offense, Jonathan, but this really flies your colors big time.

I think that argument is not intended to make short-term economic sense; but is, rather, another suggestion of how to prolong the existence of life on earth--what might be called a long-term exercise in ultimate economic sense.

George,
Im not the kind of guy to call a fellow a liar, but if i was now would be the time to do it.
I own and operate a fleet of vehicles including 2 one ton vans, 1 f250 pick-up, 1s10 pickup, 1 1ton chevy dually flatbed, 1 ford astro van, and 1 ford 38 passenger school bus. During my season a run just under 100,000 miles total. Believe me when I tell you I save fuel by ordering my employees to drive under 65. So tune up your shitbox cowboy.

It says right on the 2009 F-150 fuel statement that if you burn regular gas you get 17 mpg, and if you use ethanol laced gas you get 13 mpg. The City of Portland's contract and subsidy for biofuels costs the city close to $7.00 a gallon. In a city that spends close to $50 million per mile using up freeway lanes to expand light rail, (light rail which at 100% efficiency can only haul about 15,000 people an hour), raising fuel taxes will only build more demand for subsidies for travel that will be endless. The pubic transportation bill in that epicenter of liberal governance is going to preclude maintenance of all other infrastructure, create short falls in education, public safety and quality of life. Oregon is an income tax and property tax state, and both tax incomes are dropping like pants in an dysentery ward.

We are in great economic distress as a country. The slightest glimmer of hope for this not being a place where the box and rear axle of the F-150 is pulled by a pair of mules to bring the firewood to the town that is defying the EPA by allowing people to burn wood to cook and keep warm, is that fuel prices falling is keeping some businesses from closing, and preserving some jobs. It would be insane to tax fuel, now, and lose more jobs, when jobs sublimate every day due to economic downturn.

It should be apparent by now that fuel prices in the world market were manipulated, and were the result of speculation. Speculation has nothing to do with air quality, but it can reduce an economy to shambles, as we have seen. It appears that taxation cannot stop speculation, either. As jobs have left, as hours have been cut, as people re-trench their personal economics into survival mode, economic disincentives for the long term good of air quality are hard pills to swallow. As a pragmatist, I sort of like the idea of the tenuous start to a new political party in control and the immediate increase in taxation at a time of economic turmoil and loss. That will increase the interest in the 2010 elections, and be a good starting point to illustrate how not to run a country in recession. If that is to be the vaunted "change", exacerbation of bad times for possible long term environmental good, 2010 will be the time people will get to vote on such strategies. Raising taxes on declining incomes changes votes, and slows recovery. If that is not the case, then bailouts and stimulus packages were a lie, because both were polar opposites of increasing taxes and taking disposable income. And, even with fuel prices dropping, many no longer have the incomes to buy that fuel, and increased fuel taxes on nothing is nothing.

Of course, I think green zealots get so tied up in their own deal that they are missing signs indicating all is not well. Today, I am reading the Rocky Mountain News has joined some 30 other major newspapers now for sale due to economic losses that are not sustainable. One wonders what fuel prices have done to circulation costs, and how higher taxes to discourage use will do other than just that. Of course, if Weber promises to ride his bike to visit his sources, gather the information to write his stories, we will all praise him for his unfaltering desire to preserve clean air. Provided of course, the power of the internet is not made from dirty coal, fish killer hydro, bird and bat killer wind turbines and sage hen displacing solar panels. My first inkling of how much electricity it takes to run a Yahoo sized server came when it became apparent that some aluminum smelters closed due to high energy costs, and sited near dams on the Columbia river, have sold their energy contracts to new mega-servers sited near the closed aluminum smelters. We are exchanging blobs of smelted aluminum for blogs of smelly information.

Jonathan Weber, I think you wrote an excellent article with excellent ideas. I agree 100%. Yes, I love the new $1.50 a gallon price tag down the street (as of yesterday), but fact is, I'll drive a lot less when gas costs more, and I agree that it SHOULD cost more, because with as CHEAP as gas is right now, people will go right back to using it wastefully, with no incentive to conserve, like high prices force you to do.
However, might I suggest for businesses and companies dependent on transport, i.e., bus services, diesel fuel for truckers, Amtrak and railway services, airlines, postal services, UPS, agricultural uses, etc., should get exemptions, tax breaks, rebates, or discounts of some sort. The common person, in their personal use vehicles, should be the ones targeted with the extra tax. That is not unfair. It causes people to be more conservative and energy minded, while not handicapping services that would have to drive up pricing on goods and services.
Obama DOES talk about new jobs in road and bridge construction and maintenance in each State, and that would be an excellent and appropriate way to finance such endeavors.

Why do lliberals whackos have such an inbred need to control everything by taxing it?
My wife and I haven't driven any less because of high gas prices. We've still had to drive the same mileage to get to work, we just didn't have the money to buy treats for ourselves or our grandkids. Now that gas prices have gotten more affordable and we have a little change to spend on ourselves and our grandchildren,wouldn't you know some commie bastards want to take it away from us in the name of controling our behavior and forcing us to support thier political adgenda.

Somehow, the raising of gas taxes to discourage fuel use, which is an economic disincentive that works from the bottom up, the poor paying the dearest, and then using the money to increase and maintain auto and truck infrastructure to allow for more auto and truck capacity on the roads defies logic. If you don't want people to drive as much, don't repair the roads, and for goodness sake, don't improve them or increase their capacity. Tax autos at licensing, sales, and make it so only the government or the wealthy drive. The rest will take the bus or train. Ride their bike. Walk.

The poorest, who paid the dearest to fund roads designed to NOT serve them because high cost fuel is beyond their reach, getting kicked in the head by a loving and kind government does not make sense. And, you know the jobs to rebuild the infrastructure are going to be Davis-Bacon, union jobs, which are also beyond the grasp of the poorest, who will be paying disproportionately more than the union workers building the bridges and highways they will have little access to. In that light, it makes sense for the people without jobs to build infrastructure to make their lives better, and create education or medical infrastructure, but the whole of this process will do little to alleviate poverty and spread the wealth. The labor dollar will be concentrated to a few, while the many go without. It will be just like the GM or Chrysler bailout, only this will be the contractor and union construction worker bailout. Not union, you don't work. Oh, and there will be a pre-determined amount of contract dollars that will go to minority contractors who, in my end of the world, employ an almost entirely illegal alien workforce. My wife still can't forget being in Libby and seeing asbestos cleanup work being done by a minority contractor from somewhere else using a labor force that spoke no English. That was in the halcyon days of the Clinton Administration, our first black president.

Most have never heard of the Jones Act, which essentially says that for a ship to take on cargo at an US port, and deliver it to another US port, the keel has to be layed in the US, by US workers, and the officers and crew have to be US or Phillipines citizens (a thing left over from the Spanish-American War). As a result, all that are built in the US today are tug boats, fishing boats, inter-coastal tankers and the super tankers that deliver Alaska oil to US refineries. Our total merchant fleet, freighters, container ships, the like, are fewer than what Denmark, a country of less than 5 Million, has under contract to be built in shipyards at this moment. Denmark's Baltic fleet is twice the size of the US merchant fleet, let alone what they have working around the world. It was union deal in the US, for union shipyard workers, union merchant marine, and the end result is all that oceanic trade that comes to or leaves from, this country, is foreign owned and manned. The unions and a compliant Congress sucking up for votes, long ago, put us out of the shipping business. If you wonder where steel mill customers went, it was offshore to cheaper labor, fewer government regulations, and that is where ships are built. Autos and now trucks are almost there. At some point in time, we have to quit coddling the few and server the many. We grow our unionize government because they can raise their monetary needs by taxing us more or printing more money.

All which means I have to wonder what the purpose of raising fuel taxes is for? Bigger government and more government jobs? More votes from union workers for Democrats? Election paybacks? Enviro supporter paybacks? Who is really going to benefit?

Union construction wages on public works is the dirty secret Congress will not allow to see the light of public scrutiny. The unions are core Democrat voting support, and the great infrastructure boost is about paying your campaign debts. The wages are close to double what non-union workers get, and way too many of them are illegal aliens. If we are going to use the public treasure to stimulate the economy and put the unemployed to work, it really should be in a way that allows all the qualified to work, not just the union workers. And wages should be adjusted to reflect the dire straits of our economy. If you can employ two people for what one makes, and have two living wages instead of one big wage and one not working at all, should there even be a choice? The stimulus is in response to the national need for economic stability. Another autoworker wage deal is not the answer, and perhaps is the problem. I don't know how the WPA worked during the Depression, but that is the type of deal this stimulus needs to be. I went to high school in a WPA built building. If that is how to keep an economy barely afloat, then my grandkids perhaps should go to high school in a WPA built building. And we do need a new high school. Maybe BHO can find a way to build public buildings employing more people at lower wages.

Hey thanks for the comments everyone.

Let me clarify one important point: I was proceeding on the assumption that promoting clean and green energy and reducing dependence on foreign oil is actually something that a majority of Americans want. We did just have an election, remember. This was a major plank for Obama and the Dems and they, um, won the election by quite a bit. So if people want to write off the electoral majority as "commie bastards" it's going to be hard to have much of a conversation.

My point is really that a market mechanism should be used to achieve what the election showed to be a widely accepted/ popular policy goal. I thought it was Republicans who liked market mechanisms, and "statists" who liked subsidy programs? And let's not forget the all the many hundreds of billions in federal government (i.e. taxpayer-funded) bailouts and subsidies so far are courtesy of the party that preaches self-reliance and low taxes and getting the government out of the way. So please spare me the lectures about my alleged ideological biases.

I agree with Lee and others that there are ways to fine-tune any approach to minimize unintended consequences or bad effects on certain sectors.

Wasn't the Wall Street collapse essentially a bipartisan deal? And how can financial failures in Europe and elsewhere, based on their purchasing of bundled liar loans and sub prime mortgages be a US partisan source problem. Labor (left) has run Britain for years.

The failure of the Congress to regulate banking has been a long time happening. It was the gradual de-regulation, and Clinton Federal Reserve and Treasury officials (think Greenspan and Rubin) were out there in front for those actions. Rubin to get rich. And he did. Or richer. Greenspan because he thought he alone had all the answers. He has since confessed he did not.

All those economists wanted to grow our economy. Growth, growth, growth. Untrammeled growth. Say, that is what cancer is about, no? Floods? Killer hurricanes? Stuff that grows too big to govern has huge impacts when it fails be controlled. Now we have to conserve every dime we can, save what assets we can, pinch pennies, weigh efficiencies, and we might, just might, survive somewhat whole. Many will not. The same mindset that drove the speculation, the selling and moving up in homes, the investment incomes, now is going to slow and sometimes stop recovery and stimulus efforts. People will save and not spend. People will not speculate, nor will they upgrade just because they can. I still see people, old people, who never lost the fear of losing it all, that they got from being in the Great Depression. Once you get your butt kicked, it takes generations to take chances once again. That is not left or right, conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican. That is survival and has no party affiliation. Next year you will what this means. The inertial energy pulling things down is no where near being exhausted.

Raise the gas tax? What a stupid, idiotic idea. One of the major reasons for the present economic crisis we are in was the result of high gas prices - which in turn was the result on our dependence on other countries for oil. High gas prices raise the price of absolutely everything we buy and most everything we do. What about those on fixed incomes, retired folks, the price of heating fuel. Think about it. School heating, hospital heating, school bus operation, the list of those hurt by high gas prices is endless. And you want to increase taxes on gas. Get real, man. Dumbest, most selfish damn idea I've ever heard of.

When gas is $1.60 we can bite the bullet and pay 40 cents more, that's all I'm saying, and that has lots of benefits. And the present economic crisis was not caused by high gas prices, it was caused by living on cheap & easy credit. One way or another, we're all going to have to pay somewhere along the line. (And as to it being selfish, I can assure that it's not going to be good for my own ability pay my bills).

Look, clowns. KNOCK OFF THE STUPIDITY. Yes, I know that is asking a lot, but you should take good advice when it is really as simple as STFUing.

The guy claiming he gets 13MPG at 55MPH or 75MPH in a F-150 is either an idiot or a liar (I believe both).

If people really cared about fuel economy and savings, there would be an effort to push highway speeds back to 55. There was a reason why it was implemented in the past, folks. This isn't rocket science. What is it then? Politics. Find me a politician who will be popular for mandating 55 MPH speed limits. Instead, they get a bunch of mental midget liberal types to buy into this "increased tax is good for everyone" garbage.

Get your heads out of your behinds, fools. Or put me in charge where I'll go that extra mile and mandate that your pathetic selves be forced to bicycle to work every other day and pay a tax for your increased CO2 emissions.

What a joke.

Oh, I get it now upon reading the comments of the OP. You're a moonbat liberal who is lacking intelligence.

You do understand that the people you are attributing these bailouts to are, in fact, DEMOCRATS who control the majority of the legislature. Sure, there may be some republicans on board but their numbers are vastly lower in comparison to the democrats WRITING passing this stuff.

Take a politics class while sober/not stoned, Jonathan. And I don't know how to request you get some common sense into that tiny brain of yours to understand politics. You know, the kind of politics where politicians want to take all the credit for good stuff and none of the bad so they spin things away with surrogates (useful idiots) such as yourself.

Keep fooling yourself. You're part of the problem, not the solution.

Bill Jenkins,

Personal attacks usually indicate weak arguments. Yes, there was a reason why the federal speed limit of 55mph was enacted in 1974, but it was also repealed for a reason, namely that it didn't work. States and the American people more or less openly resisted and sabotaged it, and the projected savings of 2.2% gasoline were not nearly realized, it reduced gas consumption by about 1%, according to US government estimates. Why would it work better this time?

It doesn't seem to be a partisan issue either, both Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John Warner (R-VA) have suggested lowering the speed limit in recent years.

It would not make a difference in fuel economy for driving in cities, whereas more fuel-efficient cars would. Like it or not, the best way to get higher fuel efficiency are higher gas prices. It seems to work in Europe.

lucas makes sence and brings up a good point. every argument or debate of late seems filtered through the lens of ones (twisted?) world view. I am guilty of it as well. we are so much less tolerant of the other person, though its hard not to respond when someone implies I'm a moron.
We Americans want our cake. We want to drive as fast as we want and burn as much fuel as we want to do it. The only thing that will stop us is...$4.00 gas.

You're talking about the United States government artificially inflating prices in order to control the behavior of American citizens. Is that the kind of America we have to look forward to?
Whether it's been done in Europe or not, it's wrong and shouldn't even be considered, much less supported by American citizens.

Tom, do you own a home? If so, you have benefited from the United States Government artificially reducing the cost of home ownership through the mortgage interest deduction and other subsidies. Do you have children? The government has artificially lowered the price of supporting them, through tax policy and things like free public schools. If you drive a car, the government has already "artificially" inflated the price of driving with gas taxes, though of course it also offers all those free roads. Lets get real here, the government engages in all sorts of manipulations designed to encourage or discourage various behaviors. Most Americans not only support that, but judging by the last election they support more of it.

A month ago, driving up to Seeley in the early a.m. darkness for our first deer hunt of the year, i was bitching to my buddy about gas prices. I was bitching about how fast they were dropping and how cheap they were. At that time a gallon was around $2.00 and i was ranting about a crazy "socialist" idea similiar to Jonathan's. There really is no reason what-so-ever for gasoline to cost less than $2 per gallon. My favorite analogy is that milk costs more and comes out of a cow every freaking morning. Everyone knows that there is a limited global supply of oil. Everyone knows that prices are set by supply and demand, with the first part of the equation determined by OPEC.

Last summer the world was ending when gas was $4+ and a lot of politicians clamored to suspend the tax. Politicians of both colors doing their best politicking. Others said it was silly and wouldn't matter in few months anyway. Hmm...interesting thought. Rather, people drove less, rode the bus - heaven forbid - rode with their neighbor or spouse to work, and what happened? Demand decreased and prices plummeted. It angers me to no end how short-sighted we are.

I am not an economist or tax-policy expert or even close. But it sure seems like a smart progressive tax that fluctuates to keep gasoline at a steady price would work to benefit most. Pick $3.00 as the price point, the tax varies up and down to keep gasoline at that cost consistently. Then when the petro-dictators of the world decide to cut production and watch Americans squirm, the profits of that tax could subside drivers and reduce the price per gallon back down to 3$ per gallon. Think of it as budget billing. And think what this would do to OPEC's strict market manipulation for cost control. And the help it would create in stabalizing food prices due to transportation costs. Non-profit groups that distribute food -like the Montana Food Network - could get a tax break subsidized by the tax itself, thus being able to help feed hungry people across this vast state.

But wait! wouldn't that be a form of socialism? O No! Then it must be bad! The dyed-in-the-wool Republicans who scream about too much government and ignorantly call every program they don't like "socialism" while selectively ingoring others (SOCIAL security, safe roads and bridges, etc) would rather have a new federal law reducing the speed limit to 55! Wow, now how is being regressive?

If raising fuel taxes is part of a revenue stream to maintain roads and bridges, then it makes sense. It is a user tax. But when you tax it so people won't use it, then it becomes a sin tax.

Oregon is looking at a $2 Billion or more budget shortfall in the coming biennium. So our Governor is proposing raises on all State licenses, sin taxes, luxury taxes, and State use fees. Even down to falconer's licenses. The auto and truck registration fees would double, and title fees would rise dramatically. So here is my question: Sin taxes are imposed to reduce use and behavior. They work. So now we hammer the many fewer smokers or drinker, hunters and fishermen, and car drivers. So we alter behavior, and people drive less, decide not to hunt or fish, or buy a boat, a new or used car. Is not the law of diminishing returns at work here?

If we have reduced smoking and smokers by millions of individuals, where is the money saved on health care being spent? Public employee pensions? Growing government by adding regulation and oversight? If we have introduced these taxes to alter behavior, and results indicate we have, where is the savings if government now has to raise its income? Health care costs should have dropped dramatically with the end of tobacco use. People are living longer, and getting more illnesses and costing government and insurers more for health care. Better they continued to smoke and died younger. I have to wonder what draconian effects less tobacco use has on social security payouts, Medicare and Medicaid costs. I thought that all those savings from less tobacco use would benefit us. They have not. They are costing us more money.

If you raise gas taxes to build infrastructure for trucks and autos, you are raising user fees. If you use that money to make it possible for more auto and trucks to be on the road, driving less is not the result. We will subsidize electric cars, and they will drive on roads paid for by fuel taxes. What will government use for money to repair the roads when all the cars are electric? Or how do we even build bicycle lanes today with no income from bikes? Why no bike tax?

How about government, like people are having to do, living within its means. Where we shop, how we shop, what we buy, how often we buy, recreational choices, length of ownership time, buying second hand goods, fire sale goods from foreclosed properties, all are current strategies for survival. Why can't government go into a survival mode, also? Raising use taxes, and making necessities luxuries in order to tax them, or using the sin tax mentality to alter behavior are not correct in times like this. It was less than 30 years ago that Congress luxury taxed boats, and 100,000 jobs left in 6 months. The rich guys still bought boats, but they were made in other countries. All the tax did was kill US business. And it will again and again when social engineers drive the legislative process.

I endorse the idea of a flexible tax on gasoline, but would like to see the proceeds go towards reducing our national debt. Our current and future financial situation is dire, and I think most Americans would support this relatively painless way to pay down the debt. If we don't address the problem soon, our current financial problems will seem small in comparison. Let the free market take care of alternative fuel development, and let's use this "found" money for a better purpose.

What was the last "temporary" or "flexible" tax implemented for a specific purpose or use rescended?

Never.

There are electronic toll systems which may become a better way to fund roads and highways and reduce political and bureaucratic overhead. User fees are always better than taxes. Like I said before, higher gas taxes in Europe have not stopped the increasing use of the automobile and the decreasing use of public transportation.

bearbait,
a fellow falconer? What are the odds?!
Shhh.

Bearbait asked "if raising taxes to alter behavior has benefited us, where are the benefits?" My question is " why are we allowing the GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA to exercise such control over innocent law abiding citizens?" We are not subjects. Smoking, driving, eating hamburgers is not a crime.
The government shouldn't be doing anything to alter this behavior.
If you have a need to live like a European, move to any of more than a dozen countries where you can live like that. Those of us who cherish our American heritage have only one America. There's no other place for us to go.

Mr. Twister: Nope. Not a falconer. Just was aware of their being named in the new fee structure.

I have not the patience, time, or facilities to be a falconer. Once you have taken control of a bird's life, it is an every day responsibility, duty, that I don't have the stamina to consider. I love to see them fly, however.

My favorite was the tv story about the guy on Puget Sound who started free diving with his falcons. He would jump out of airplanes to fall to the ground with them. He is the person who says the peregrines attain over 200 mph speeds by rotating during the dive, spinning, to gain aerodynamic advantage. Needless to say, whipping air resistance and gravity is good sport, and my hat is off to the falcons, and their people.

When gas prices are low many drivers don't consider fuel efficiency and "the big 3" keep pumping out SUVs and big trucks (if they have the money to build anything at all). There was a lot of concern this summer about the expense of fuel and the inefficiency of our national fleet. Are the majority of Americans still concerned about that now? Or simply rejoicing because they don't have to worry about current fuel costs? Of course this won't last forever. Maybe until next Memorial Day when we start to see fuel prices spike again, probably higher than this summer. And then we'll all moan and groan, wring our hands, and blame Detroit, if our auto industry still exists, for inefficient vehicles. Until the following fall when prices decline and we forget about it until the following year. Sounds like a terrible rollercoaster ride to me.

If we even out the troughs and crests with a flexible fuel tax we won't shock the economy every summer and experience big increases in the cost of consumer goods. (Is anyone seeing the cost of goods come down now that gas is cheap?) A more predictable fuel cost will help businesses budget and hopefully prevent surprises that cause them to downsize or disappear and put more people out of work. Revenue from the tax could be used, as many in this thread have suggested, to repair crumbling infrastructure (supplying jobs), subsidize spikes in fuel costs, pay for the trillions of dollars in bailout money we are currently promising, pay down our debt, or research new technologies for fuel efficiency. I don't know the best solution. But I do know that we've seen fuel prices all over the place for years now and we (as a nation) are not doing a whole lot to change our behaviors and prepare for the worst.

All you critics, before you blame the "enviro-nuts", the Democrats, the Republicans, the oil speculators, OPEC, the auto unions or whoever else you want to use as a scapegoat, let's hear your alternative solutions. Rising cost of fuel is a problem that isn't going away and letting the "free market" dictate solutions is a load of rubbish. There's nothing free market about our economy so we can't stick our heads in the sand (hoping to find enough oil for just another decade! At least until it's a problem for my kids) and have faith that "the market" will sort everything out for the best. We've been doing that for years and look where we are.

My son and daughter-in-law, parents of two young kids, drive a Ford diesel Excursion. The family car. Very expensive for young people to buy and own. As a concerned father and grandfather, I would have been critical of such a choice for a car except that it is used to transport my kid and his family to and from their daily lives. My daughter-in-law commutes to work 30 miles on a section of highway called "blood alley" by locals. Two lanes, up and down, and around corners, a couple of passing lanes either direction, and her casino job at one end, and the Interstate highway at the other end. Maybe 300 wrecks a year, and a half dozen fatalities, and God knows how many life altering, crippling results. That she drive a tank of a car, with a lot of metal, weight, and US mandated safety, means she wins when her turn comes with a rice rocket in her lane, which seems to be the car of choice to cross into the oncoming lane. The odds are in their favor more times than not. I have comfort in that, and in that choice. There were three fatal accidents along that route in the last 10 days. All three had a Ford F-150 involved, and the F-150 people all walked away. Not so for the little loud cars passing in the fog, or distracted and drifting into the oncoming lane. Or collateral damage in the billiards game of rebounding vehicles past the first collision. We need choice when it comes to buying what we want in a vehicle.

All the environmental benefit, all the fuel savings, all the earth friendly choices they did not make, mean nothing if they are alive after inertial mass meets inertial mass. And that is all that counts to me.

My daughter and family in California drive a Prius. And her husband has another gas friendly go-fast commuter car. That is their choice. They also bought a house that cost 5 times what one costs most anywhere else, and have to scrimp and save at every juncture. Her brother here in Oregon built a house 5 years ago at a total lot and house cost of $128,000 with a 5% fixed mortgage. So he gets to spend more for fuel and allows himself and his family a modicum of protection from wayward drivers of dubious good sense and abilities. They have choices, and that is what the country is about. The nanny state with sin taxes has told us every time they introduce another that it will save millions or billions. So spend those savings, and don't raise taxes.

Or did they go and grow government beyond what an economic dip would support as is their habit? If a government program is worthwhile, then save the whole program budget intact. If the program is not producing the advertised and predicted results, cut the whole program. This cut 10% of everything is no different than what a chicken produces by digestion. In the real world of survival of the fittest, economical, meaningful cuts rescue companies. And meaningful cuts must be made by government. This is no time to raise taxes. We have spent way more than we have. And the downward spiral of deflation is upon us. Christmas pricing appears to have the aura of "Name that Tune" about it: I can name that price in single digits. I can name that price for less than a dollar. And here we see government saying that spending more on a program than last year is a cut because added payroll costs for the same services rendered and more "customers" for the service. Sorry. When the last loaf of bread goes off the shelf, there is no more until tomorrow. When the last dollar is spent, then no more spending until next year.

Congress should raise the federal gas tax and push America toward innovation and energy independence.

When gas prices and investment in alternative energy fell in this country in the 1980s, they didn't drop everywhere. In Europe and in Japan, high gasoline taxes kept fuel prices relatively high. That encouraged conservation and provided investors with greater confidence that the money they pumped into developing new technologies would earn an acceptable return.

After years of failed attempts to increase mileage requirements for new cars in the US -- efforts steadfastly opposed by American auto manufacturers, Congress finally succeeded last year. As a result, U.S. cars must average 35 miles per gallon by 2020. European cars, in contrast, averaged 38 miles per gallon in 2006. Increasing the federal gasoline tax in the US would reduce consumption faster and at less cost than increasing mileage standards.

Reducing gas consumption in the US would help undercut the financial strength of such countries as Iran and Russia that, armed with a surplus of petrodollars, have been unfriendly to American interests. And combined with other tax incentives, it would encourage U.S. investment in energy alternatives.

The nation that succeeds in developing and deploying new, green technologies will have a major economic advantage in the decades to come. It's crucial that the United States be that nation.

what happens to the average or lower income family when gas prices start to go up again when you have added a 20 or 40 cent tax to a gallon of gas? i will tell you they will have to park the car and suffer worse than you. nuts just nuts!!!

This got printed? Well, it's good for perspective.

OPEC is planning to lower production drastically. A hollow threat, perhaps. Russia needs money, as do all the other exporting countries. Lowering their outputs will also lower their incomes until they match the use, if oil were an ordinary commodity. However, trading is about margins, and a static market is loathed by traders. So we have had the market going up meteorically, and now down with haste, and when we reach stasis, look for it to rise. Up and down is how traders profit. And it is traders who make the markets, not OPEC.

When this country tries to sin tax us for "inappropriate" use of goods or services, we always fail. Prohibition, drugs, tobacco. prostitution. We have taxed tobacco, greatly reduced use, and in the process, raised our health care costs dramatically due to longer lives, and more geriatric ills and weakness. Society has not gotten any gain, economically, from the end of tobacco by extreme taxation. We got hooked on the money, and grew government. Now there are few smokers, and a lot less revenue, but health care costs have risen dramatically. Pogoesque, 'tis this sin tax business. Every one tightens the noose a tad bit more.

I find it interesting the very same folks who sin taxed us on tobacco are leading the charge to tax us out of being global climate changers. I have to wonder what the unintended consequences of that will be.

I think 55 MPH should be the speed limit; and increased federal taxes on gasoline should be dedicated to public transport...