Merits to high gas prices

WACO, Texas — About this time eight years ago, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore warned that dipping into the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a way to lower gasoline and heating oil prices would be foolhardy.

With only weeks to go before the election, Gore did an about-face and called for a raid on the nation's crude oil reserves established as a backup for national emergencies.

In another instance, Gore called for higher taxes on gasoline as a way to make alternative energy sources more economically competitive.

As the election neared, Gore flip-flopped.

In both instances, Gore was right the first time and wrong when he changed positions in an effort to please voters whom politicians routinely treat like children.

As this year's election nears, the presidential candidates are again treating the voters like children with more promises of sugar plums.

Republican John McCain has called for a gasoline tax holiday as a way to reduce pump prices. The hard facts are that a gas tax reduction would severely hurt the government's ability to fund needed highway construction and repairs while doing nothing to reduce the price of gasoline.

Even if the temporary tax reduction was passed along to consumers, which is unlikely, lower gasoline prices would only promote more driving, which would increase demand and drive up gasoline prices.

Democrat Barack Obama properly condemned McCain's gas tax holiday (as a political gimmick.) For the same reason, Obama opposed raiding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Now that the election is drawing closer, Obama has changed his tune and has called for drawing down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

With polls showing most Americans and members of Congress now favor more offshore drilling, Obama also has changed positions on this issue.

Politicians want voters to think that they have the power to control the price of oil and gas. When gasoline prices go up, the standard response by politicians is to call for congressional investigations and blame the oil companies.

In the first presidential debate in 2000, moderator Jim Lehrer asked Gore what he would do to prevent future oil price and supply problems like the one recently experienced. Gore quickly said, "We have to free ourselves from the domination of the big oil companies that have the ability to manipulate the price."

The problem with that answer, which is still heard on today's campaign trail, is that the big oil companies do not have the ability to manipulate the price of oil.

Although the United States has a huge appetite for oil, the price of oil is not set by this nation, its politicians or even the big oil companies.

Oil is a global commodity and its price is being constantly adjusted in the global marketplace based on supply and demand factors.

Umpteen congressional investigations costing taxpayers unknown millions of dollars have reported this finding to Congress long after the initiating oil crisis was forgotten.

As difficult as it is for presidential candidates and members of Congress to admit, they do not run the world. There are things they have little power to control.

The United States may not be able to control the worldwide price of oil, but it can control how much foreign oil is purchased on the open market by reducing demand and increasing supplies domestically.

That's where politicians should be concentrating their promises. They should drop the gimmicks and stop scapegoating the oil companies. Instead, they should get behind a comprehensive national energy policy that aggressively emphasizes conservation, development of alternative energy sources and expansion of traditional energy supplies from all sources while protecting the environment.

Do it all. And stop treating voters like children.

Rowland Nethaway writes for the Waco Tribune-Herald.