Promote Conservation: A Short-Term Solution
 

President Bush just outlined basically some points to ease America's fuel situation:

1. Tax breaks on Hybrids and low-emission Diesels
2. Exploration and use of more US oil (including ANWR)
3. Investigate Price Gouging
4. Defer filling the Strategic Patroleum Reserve until Fall
5. Ethanol, Ethanol, and Ethanol


My take:

#1 = Good Idea, but Hybrids/Diesels are in short supply.
#2 = I have to decide on being an environmentalist with regard to the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, or perhaps the potential to cheapen our fuel. I see it as an excuse to drill up there for more profits to the oil companies.
#3 = Yeah, we saw what happened there with Katrina -- all show and no go.
#4 = So, then the prices will be high in the Fall when it's filling?
#5 = Maybe a good idea. The idea to remove a carcinogen (MTBE) from the air is good, renewable resources are good, homogenizing markets across the Country to one blend seems like a good plan, but is there enough capability right now to phase this in?

Plan B:

The President and Vice-President are both Big Oil guys. I don't trust either to manage our fuel crisis (which is what it is: a Crisis). I take back an earlier statement I made that gas prices should go higher. That will only hurt the middle- and lower-classes the most and won't quickly fix this rapidly growing problem.

We need to kick-it FDR-style:

1. Bush should hold a "Fire-Side" chat and call America to start Conserving. It's as simple as that.

2. Recognize that Oil companies are a collective Monopoly and take action as such. Open up those books and see what's going on in there.

3. Understand that our whole economy is effected by rapidly rising prices of fuel. Nearly everything you buy reached the store by Air, Land, Sea, or all of the above. Oil powers them, and the owners of these carriers have to raise prices to meet profit margins. The loss is passed onto you: the consumer.

4. Not only incentivize buyers of Hybrids/Diesels, but also the manufacturers. Maybe more will be made, and sold more cheaply.

5. Get your elected offical's attention -- on any side of the political spectrum. Simply e-mail them. You seem to have a computer, right? Congress.gov

Everyone here is already taking some sort of action by simply reading these articles and/or participating. This can be accelerated. I don't think that we can do this alone, and the government is going to have to step in.

May the discourse begin...

RH77

I say we drill in Anwar as
 

I say we drill in Anwar as well as everywhere else. If we don't use our own resources, eventually they're going to get scarce enough everywhere else in the world and we're going to have other countries invading us for our oil deposits. I know I'm pretty much alone in my stance on this issue, and I'm fine with that, so hurl your tomatos ladies and gentlemen! :)

Civilization 4
 

we could invade some more countries and use their resources. The NBC news said Venezuala had $0.12 per gallon gas... }:)

We could always nuke iran
 

We could always nuke iran and then invade with the iraqi army and use them to carry the oil on their backs across gibraltar and right to our homes...


But really though, I don't wanna mess with ANWR, just because we have resources doesn't mean we should use them. We could go back to coal if we wanted but that doesn't make coal a healthy thing to use. If we have gas and we choose not to use it, we'll just run out sooner, no biggy.

Dennis Kucinich was going to get us on 20% renewable resources by 2020 when he ran from president, but who's going to vote for him, he's a vegan and he's against the death penalty.

As usual we get idiotic
 

As usual we get idiotic ideas from Washington. Nothing like giving people tax breaks to buy more foreign cars. I don't like MY money being spent (actually I need a word worse than WASTED) that way, nor do I like it subsidizing ethanol.

Better to put on a $1 a gallon additional tax and raise it another 5 cents each month if consumption doesn't drop 10% year on year, and use the money to eliminate the budget deficit. Kills 3 birds with 1 stone, trade deficit, budget deficit, and price of oil due to drop in demand.

I thought that the real
 

I thought that the real problems lies in the fact that the oil companies stop building refiners 10 years ago because of the environmentalist and regulations. It's not that the oils not availiable it's just that the can't refine enough to keep up. Drilling in Alaska is not going to solve the problem it would take a few years to get it going.

rick
 

FYI
Shell says Ethanol is beginning its 100% phase in.
We absolutely have enough for the markets they CHOSE to stick them in RIGHT NOW. Absolutely enough capability. It's up to you to call Shell to find out whether you are in that area or not.
Of course they cannot provide the whole country with Ethanol right now. But he said every major city, yes...and yes to everywhere sometime in 2009.
Why Shell?
A)Because Shell spies on every one of thier competitors every month. Meaning they send someone to gather samples to select stations in an area for lab analysis.
He can guarantee that no matter where anyone lives in the country, Shell knows whats in the fuel. Meaning, the whole country is analyzed every four months. In some cases, shell knows better than the brand on the pump in question.

Re: As usual we get idiotic
 

Ha, "Foreign".

Not all hybrids are foreign. At home in Kansas City, they make the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner Hybrids. Some of the other statements so far were jokes, but you seem to be serious, and thus I must respectfully respond in disagreement.

Where was GM, Ford and Chrysler in the early 70's during the gas crisis? Where were they in the mid-80's when the small economy car market heated up? Where were they in the 90's when reliabilty was a priority? Where have they been this decade? Answer: asleep at the wheel, and slept-in. Meanwhile across the globe, Honda and Toyota set their alarms and woke up early, started to figure out what we needed better than our own CEOs did. Domestic execs' pure arrogance thought that people would only buy American, and soon, imports started eating away at their sales. In each decade respectively, the "Big 2" from Japan introduced:

70's: The Honda CVCC and Toyota Corona which increase in sales
80's: Honda Civic, CRX, Accord; Toyota Tercel, MR2, Camry: gaining momentum based on reliability and efficiency
90's: The 2 Build plants in the U.S., Camry becomes the best selling car in the U.S. followed by the Accord (which still stands). Reliability is key. 100,000 miles is no longer the end of a car's useable lifetime.
00's: Having efficiency on the front burner for many years, Honda introduces the first Hybrid: the Insight, shortly followed by the Toyota Pruis, and Civic Hybrid and the Accord Hybrid that's faster than the standard V-6. Then America caught up, late as usual, and with a small SUV. The problem: we haven't caught back up and earned the trust back of the public. Statistics show it, and it's sad.

Wouldn't it be nice if we came up with the Civic, or the first hybrid? What happened?

70's: Our Big 3 continue to build huge gas guzzlers despite the gas crisis.
80's: Chrysler goes bankrupt, and has the gov't bail them out. Small cars started appearing in the late 80's. The Taurus saves Ford, and GM makes it by people hanging-on.
90's: Smaller American cars lacked the reliability and efficiency of Japanese imports, people figured it out in droves and started buying other brands (myself included -- being from, and having lived in Northeastern Ohio at that time, buying a "Foreign" car was cause for treason. Someone knew someone that worked at the Big 3, so you didn't dare buy anything but). But I was the first in my family to buy an import: a '96 Civic DX Coupe. Cheap, dependable, efficient, safe. Was I going to buy a Cavalier? I already went down the GM road and they failed me 3 times. Honda/Acura is now 4-0 for me and I consider the switch of the best decisions I made. My first Civic was even made in Ohio: Marysville, near Columbus. But some argue that the profits go elsewhere. I'd rather keep the potential repair or replacement money in my bank account to buy some other stuff later instead of an engine re-build, for example. Much Independent research proves it.

SO

Chevy, the "American Revolution" has a Daewoo in it's lineup (Aveo)
Ford builds a lot of cars in Mexico.
And Chrysler isn't American anymore: it's German.
It's a world market, so I don't buy the "profits" nor "foreign" arguement.

If we give money to GM to develop a hybrid, what will happen?
If we give money to Honda to improve their hybrids, how do you think that will solve our gas problem? We learn from our History.

RH77

In all fairness, it should
 

In all fairness, it should be pointed out that Lexus, I think it is (toyota senior) is building a v8 sedan with terrible gas mileage, but those hybrid engines create torque, so it's faster than otherwise. The hybrid revolution might give is better technology to solve our issues but if attitudes don't change we might as well be driving the same old big honky tonk trucks with a different brand slapped on them.

I can see it now...
 

I can see it now... The Hummer H8 hybrid...

www.hummerh8.com saw this on Edmunds