Last Friday at the Rockefeller Center rally for Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' apparent best presidential hope for 2004, there was sometimes a jarring discontinuity between his obvious sincerity on topics like his stance against President George W. Bush's war and other areas where he basically whipped out his favorite entries from the dithering do-nothing recipe book of American politics.
One such downshift into scripted drivel was when Kerry made some vague overtures toward one of Dartmouth's favorite topics: the environment. To capitalize on this segment, Kerry had the enviable opportunity to criticize Bush's cynical new fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. The new EPA rules, greeted with smiles by Detroit automakers, say that by 2007 we will have to increase SUV mileage by a whole 1.5 miles per gallon. Environmental groups point out that this will lead us nowhere; the fuel mileage on the 2003 lineup of motor vehicles is the worst since the late 1970s. Imagine! All this technology, and we just use it to drive heavier cars. But instead of bravely stepping up against the lunacy of the contemporary American vehicle market, Kerry toed the line. "If you want to drive big cars, that's fine," he said, "but they can be more efficient."
Maybe Kerry isn't so good at math. As we drive ever larger and thirstier vehicles ever further, the planet is getting hotter; unless you want coastal areas to drown in hot, boiling seawater, we have to start talking about slashing our consumption of fuel drastically, not just in the rate of increase but in absolute terms, starting now. By driving these senseless monster cars, we are choking ourselves with totally gratuitous pollution, global warming, traffic jams and oil expenses, not to mention the shameful military and "diplomatic" maneuvers that support our habit. In response to Kerry's supposed "brave stand" against Bush, someone near me shouted, "That's B.S." And I have to agree.
Basically, the U.S. uses its military to subsidize the cheap price of fuel. A good deal? Not if you pay taxes. The military budget is growing wildly these days, yet in dollar terms the price of gas has not risen one bit during the lifetimes of any Dartmouth undergraduate. So while many people might think the easy plentitude of gas is some kind of natural phenomenon, our military domination of most oil-producing regions might actually have more to do with it. Giving people artificially cheap gasoline is a misleading and inefficient way to run our economy, wasting too much money to procure more oil than we really need. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases are bringing earth to a slow simmer.
But wait, there is a solution! England already did this, and for that they deserve a round of applause. Their stroke of brilliance: taxing the hell out of gasoline. My fine friends, so should we. Think about it. What is the real societal ill of our time: alcohol, cigarettes maybe? Yes and yes. But just as harmful to our health -- especially to that of our children, should they want oxygen to breathe -- is our addiction to huge, overpowered motor vehicles. You can create all the artificial market incentives for electric cars you want, but if fuel remains cheap, people won't be able to help themselves out of that shiny 6.0 liter V8 Chevy Silverado. Consumers will always buy the biggest cars they can afford; we must remove the distortedly low gas price and make Americans pay the real costs they incur in military and environmental terms with this most important of lifestyle choices.
Transferring some of the tax burden to gasoline is not only fair but would also make all our lives better. An additional $3.50 per gallon in federal taxes (phased in over six to eight years, say) would probably fund the entire national transportation system and then some. But the smarter use of our precious energy resources would provide the real benefits. First, traffic jams would mostly disappear. The average commuter, faced with fuel costs of perhaps $20 per day, would begin to seek carpool and public transportation solutions in earnest. This would decrease the number of cars on the road, reducing the need for highway expansion, and make alternative transport such as light rail more economically viable. Second, the U.S. national account would be greatly relieved by what would be a steep decline in oil imports. Third, and most critically, our air would not be saturated with carbon dioxide quite as fast as it will be on our present course.
The reason politicians in America can't or won't make this proposal is that nobody wants to hear it. Americans are not equipped to make sacrifices, period. But really, after an initial period of adjustment, we would live just as well as before. Fuel-efficient cars that get 60 MPG are available; I imagine they would be all the rage. The money Americans would "lose" would come right back in the form of tax cuts; the question is, would you use them to continue to buy lots of gas? My guess is that many Americans would thoughtfully curtail their fuel use, leaving them with more money than before. Life goes on, with the environmental, financial and foreign relations benefits intact. What's not to like?
