Don't Overlook the Government's Role in High Oil Prices

With gas prices hovering at around $3.00 a gallon, it is not surprising that congress wishes to get involved and force the oil companies to lower their prices by enacting price-gouging legislation. However, why do they not ask themselves another important question? What does the government plan to do to lower the prices it adds to the cost of gasoline?

The oil companies did engage in gouging after Katrina, but right now there are simple market forces at work that are causing the rising price. Considering over .50 a gallon if not more of the price of gas its taxes you pay to state, federal and, why do we not look at lowering taxes to help ease the current crisis?

Representative Chris Carney's (D) bill has much less to do with any strong moral stance and more with appealing to his constituents to ensure his 2008 reelection. If Congress were serious about lowering gasoline prices, they'd at least open up the reserve in Anwar. As nice as that may be it is only a short term solution. Oil prices of over $70 make it economically feasible and indeed cheaper to extract oil from shale which we still have plenty of and could revitalize lagging economies in many areas.

However, the best solution would be encouraging the production of ethanol in this country and loosening restrictions on importing the product from Brazil and other countries. What is more we already pay farmers not to grow crops on a significant amount of land. Rather than letting that land lay idle, why do we not use that land to grow corn for ethanol's production, which will not significantly affect the prices of corn sold as food to other countries.