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Robert J Samuelson-Judgement Calls Why Cheap Gas Is a Bad Habit Higher pump prices would help push Americans away from gas guzzlers. Hurricane Katrina's impact was felt far beyond New Orleans. Mario Tama / Getty Images Hurricane Katrina's impact was felt far beyond New Orleans.
We don't need it today, but we do need it over the next sev en to 10 years via a steadily rising oil tax. Coupled with stricter fuel -economy standards, higher pump prices would push reluctant auto compani es and American drivers away from today's gas guzzlers. The deafening silence you hear on this crucial subject from t he White House, Congress and the media is a sorry indicator of national shortsightedness. Katrina's message is clear: we are vulnerable to any major cutoff of oil. This cutoff came from a natural disaster, but the larger menace is a po litical cutoff. Two thirds of the world's proven oil reserves lie around the Persian Gulf; these countries, led by Saudi Arabia, now provide abo ut a quarter of today's oil supply. This flow could be interrupted at an y time for many reasons-terrorism, war, domestic upheaval, deliberate cu ts. Many other oil exporters are similarly unreliable: Russia (the No. Until oil's geography changes, a prudent society would respond to this un avoidable insecurity. After the first oil "crisis" in 1973, Americans di d Congress created a Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and mandated fue l-economy standards. For "light trucks" (a category covering pickups, SUVs and min ivans), the gains were from 10mpg to 16mpg. Fuel economy stagnated, as millions of Americans sh ifted to SUVs and pickups. Americans re-embraced the notion of cheap gasoline a s a "right" that, if impaired, must be blamed on greedy oil companies, m onopolistic OPEC or some sinister conspiracy. Thus, "gouging" was last w eek's acceptable explanation for the sharp run-up of gasoline prices. More than 60 percent of our oil use goes for transportation, dominated by road travel. It's a myth that encouraging more fuel-efficient vehicles means that we will all have to drive shoeboxes. The advent of "hybrid" v ehicles-combining internal-combustion engines and electric motors-promis es fuel-efficiency gains of 10 percent to 50 percent based on existing t echnologies, says David Greene of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. But it's also a myth that simply issuing tougher fuel standards will bring instant relief.
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