A Fast and Simple Way to Cut Fuel Dependence
The need to reverse our nation’s growing dependence on imported oil is urgent, as you pointed out in your editorial (Feb. 25), “Our Oil Imperatives.” Unfortunately, three of the solutions you proposed--incentives for greater domestic oil production, more energy exploration on federal lands, and development of alternative fuels--are loaded with complex environmental, administrative, and economic problems. No matter how quickly Washington mobilizes to address this new energy crisis, those proposals will require a very long period of time to implement.
But your fourth proposal, conserving energy, could be started--and would bring results--immediately. There is a fast and simple way to reduce consumption of oil, which your newspaper has endorsed in the past: raise the federal gasoline tax.
Gasoline prices have dropped so dramatically in the last year that drivers no longer have any incentive to conserve fuel. Not only is the price of gasoline far below its 1981 peak average of $1.35 a gallon, it is actually quite low by historic standards. At its current price of about 85 cents a gallon, gasoline costs 33% less (in constant dollars) than it did back in 1950.
A higher gasoline tax, which would raise gas prices to more normal levels, would help generate sales of more fuel-efficient vehicles and provide an incentive to cut out unnecessary driving. As we reduce the demand for gasoline, we would lower our demand for imported oil.
Raising the gasoline tax entails no new administrative burdens, since 9 cents a gallon federal gasoline tax already exists. Moreover, it has no environmental drawbacks that could lead to protracted debate, such as that we have had in recent years over energy leasing off California’s coast. In fact, a higher gasoline tax, resulting in less gasoline usage, would benefit the environment by lessening air pollution.
In addition to lowering our dependence on oil imports, a higher gasoline tax would also help solve our very serious federal budget deficit problem. Since each penny per gallon of tax raises about $1 billion a year, a 30 cent-a-gallon additional tax, for example, would reduce our $170 billion annual deficit by $30 billion.
Taxing gasoline has never been popular, but one way or another we are soon going to have to pay more for gasoline. An advisory committee to the U.S. secretary of energy recently warned that because of our increasing dependence on imported oil, OPEC is soon going to be able to exert even more control over the world oil market than it did in the 1970s--and that will lead to significantly higher oil prices. If we reduce our demand for imported oil by raising the gas tax, we will pay the extra cost of gas to ourselves instead of to foreign oil producers.
The need to act--and to act swiftly--to stem our growing dependence on oil is critical. By raising the gas tax, we will reduce oil imports (and, in the process, the U.S. trade deficit), lower the federal budget deficit, and leave our children a more energy-secure future.
ANTHONY C. BEILENSON
Member of Congress
23rd District
Los Angeles
