Energy Policies and Gulf War

Roberta Brandes Gratz (“We’re Spilling Blood to Support a Profligate Habit; Now, That’s Immoral,” Commentary, Feb. 6) is right on target; if anything, she understates the case for rationalizing our policies and our behavior.

Based on European experience, Americans could reduce gasoline consumption by 75%. That reduction could save the equivalent of 3 billion barrels of oil annually, or about 15% of the total of the world’s oil production. That is the measure of American extravagance and energy waste.

Our waste is the basis for the world price of oil; it has created the OPEC cartel. And it provided the hard currency with which Saddam Hussein equipped his army and his nuclear weapon and poison gas factories.

If that were not enough, our policies have substantially increased the cost of living, particularly for the poor. They have created the absurdity of our urban transportation system. These same policies are primarily responsible for our air pollution, our acid rain, our concern with ozone depletion and global warming. They have bankrupted our transit systems, further hamstringing the poor.

Because we are spending 25% of our GNP on intrinsically costly cars, trucks and highways, we are unable to make adequate contributions to our savings accounts and to the capital accumulation essential to an industrial power.

Unless we rationalize these policies by shifting the costs to the users (by reducing property and sales taxes, retail prices and increasing paychecks--and by charging motorists and truckers for their use of space and services) our nation is destined for an economic, political and, hence, military decline.

STANLEY HART

Altadena