The Gas Tax–Yes We Can
President Obama’s inaugural address last week touched on many themes. One of the most noteworthy of these was the idea that the government could only be part of the response to our economic troubles; that citizens would have to participate in the hard work of national economic recovery. After eight years in which we were blissfully encouraged to reject personal sacrifice—of paying for two wars with tax cuts, of responding to 9/11 with shopping sprees, of reacting to the end of the internet bubble with the creation and perpetuation of a vastly more destructive housing bubble, it was indeed refreshing to hear a politician actually asking something of the American people. But what does this have to do with the environment?
Plenty, in my humble opinion. Last year, when gas prices spiked to over $4.00/gallon, we began to see the emergence of a national consensus on the need to rethink the way we consume energy in the US. People in mainstream America, and in Detroit, started talking seriously about creating more fuel-efficient cars and investing in research and development to cultivate new energy sources. Though this sentiment was born out of the economic reality of high gas prices, economics were not the sole reason being expressed for why we ought to purchase hybrids or build more wind turbines. Instead, everyday Americans spoke about greater conservation and alternative energy creations as ends in their own right. There was a palpable momentum the likes of which I had never experienced; a momentum which, if maintained, led to the feeling that there was a legitimate possibility of enacting real change.
The problem, though, is that gas prices have dropped precipitously since then, and people during a recession are inclined to vote with their pocketbooks rather than with their consciences. If the market is left to its own devices (a proposition whose dangerousness has been laid bare over the past four months of economic disaster), people will not be willing to pay more for electric cars or energy-efficient home insulation but will instead continue to purchase cheaper gasoline-fueled cars and home heating oil. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/opinion/28friedman.html And if this continues to occur, the fledgling market for new technology cars and alternative energy investment generally will collapse. We will be left vulnerable and exposed whenever the next energy shock occurs because we will have failed to develop the energy infrastructure needed to mitigate our reliance on foreign oil. And we will continue to cause irreparable harm to our planet in the process.
So what should we do? I believe it goes back to President Obama’s inaugural address. We need to be willing to act against our immediate self-interest to provide the incentive necessary to continue the alternative energy momentum and avoid slipping back into complacency. There is one clear-cut way to do this—a gas tax. Yes, I know, raising taxes is anathema in America during tough economic times. But instituting a tax, along the lines articulated here http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/opinion/27sat1.html?scp=2&sq=gas%20tax&st=cse, will achieve what we all know is in our economic, environmental, and foreign policy long-term interests. Though in the short-term raising gas prices will be hard on certain sectors of the economy, these sectors—like Big Tobacco before them—over time will find ways to compensate and should continue to thrive. And we will finally stop vacillating in the economic wind about our commitment to a greener, safer, and more secure energy policy.
