There's lots of talk of a gas tax these days, and more talk of "forcing" auto manufacturers to increase fuel economy - especially for those horrid SUVs!
Ironically, often such talk is from people who are on the side of liberty in the war. The fact that they never see the incongruity tickles me.
First let me talk about the gas tax. Any reason put forth in favor of this applies just as strongly to oil itself. We import a lot more oil for non-automotive use than for gasoline. So a gas tax, as opposed to an oil tax, rests more heavily on motorists, and also must be at a much higher rate to have the same effect. To add insult to injury, a gas tax merely distorts the oil market. Oil will tend to flow into non-gasoline uses. That's how you get silliness like corn-fed ethanol. Or spending a few thousand in high tech fuel efficiency in your new car to save a few hundred dollars on gas over the life of the vehicle.
Think that's extreme? Let's do a little math. Assume a car that gets 30 MPG, is driven for 100k miles, and gas at $2.00 a gallon. Total fuel cost, $6,667. Now, by government fiat, require 10% better fuel economy, which will not be inexpensive. 33 MPG yields a fuel cost of $6,060. $607 over, what, 5 years? That's if you drive a LOT, and in that case why would you be complaining about excessive resource use? For most folks we're talking about under $100 a year saved.
For that $100 a year, you were probably required to take a vehicle significantly smaller, lighter, less crashworthy, less roomy, and more expensive to maintain, all else being equal. To say nothing of the higher purchase price, and hence higher down payment, interest payments, tax, title, and insurance.
Maybe that ends up being a good deal for you. Maybe it's not. My point is, that fuel economy increase wasn't free. It cost you real, significant dollars, whether that expenditure made economic sense or not. At the macro level, it diverted resources away from other areas of our economy where they might have done much more good. Those areas were, in effect, penalized. And citizens like myself, who don't drive much, are also penalized. My commute is less than 5 miles round trip. A 15 gallon tank of gas lasts me three weeks. Any idea how long it would take me to amortize that 10% gain in fuel economy?
Now, it may well be that for reasons of national security, stewardship of the Earth, desire to save resources for coming generations, or any number of laudable goals, we might want to reduce our use of oil. In that case we should tax oil, not gasoline, and we should not attempt to legislate engineering solutions at all.
I myself might argue that oil should be heavily taxed in order to reflect it's replacement cost - and by that I mean the many-million year incubation period. When we're out, we're out. Putting aside energy expended to drive our fat behinds around, where does plastic come from? Or synthetic fabric? Or fertilizer? Or solvents, paints, coatings? Lubricants? Or literally millions of products? Oil. There are other sources of energy. There are no replacement raw materials for these items. You could easily argue that oil is simply too valuable to burn and its price should reflect that.
But tax gasoline in a fit of pique at SUV drivers and leave oil untaxed? Pshaw, that's wacky! :)
If we're serious in our concern for oil we should go full-tilt on breeder reactors and try and eliminate the use of oil for fuel - not by fiat but by making alternatives cheaper. That would have the delicious side-effect of pulling the rug out from under the oilachracies. How do you get that to happen? You pass laws to remove non-safety restrictions on the siting and building of nuke plants. You pass laws to restrict lawsuits against same. You fund breeder and fusion research. You tax oil (not gasoline!), but not so much as to make us uncompetitive in the world economy. You let the market work out the rest.
This is now pretty long, and it's my bedtime, so the magical thinking part will have to wait 'til tomorrow.
UPDATE
I forgot to mention that this post was inspired by one of Roger Simon's, Do You Know Your Wife's Car? Needless to say, I disagree with Roger on this one, except for his comments on Kerry. :)