Impose Price Controls On Gas?
Daily there
seems to be an increase in the clamor for government to impose price controls
on gasoline. The rational is that oil based products are almost as essential as
food to live. We use cars to get back and forth to work and shop for daily essentials.
We also use petroleum to heat our homes and cook.
Price
controls did not work in the 1970’s and they will not work now. President Obama
indicated the United States had 2% of the world’s oil reserves and we consume 20%
of the world’s production of petroleum products. If we controlled prices, the
result would be less supply of oil delivered to the United States and long
lines at the gas pumps. The oil companies will be able to get better prices for
their products elsewhere.
The industry is an oligopoly and I am in favor of enforcing anti-trust laws against it; however, price controls are not the way to go.
The industry is an oligopoly and I am in favor of enforcing anti-trust laws against it; however, price controls are not the way to go.
The argument
to impose price controls on gas is no different than supporting wage controls
on teachers because education is getting too expensive and it is necessary for
our future to have a highly educated workforce.
Oil is a commodity
used by the world. This is not the post World War II era where we are the last
industrialized country standing and we control world markets. Gasoline price
controls would cause higher unemployment exasperating our problems further.
The oil and
gas industry is making progress with increasing the supply of domestic energy.
By the way, this effort would be greatly reduced if we imposed artificial price
controls on the price they would be able to sell their product. We have
recently discovered and are exploring huge domestic natural gas reserves and we
are developing “fracking” technology where oil is extracted from rock. Both
will lesson our dependence on foreign oil and should help stabilize prices at
the pump.
Further, we
should demand the President explain why he is holding up construction of the
Keystone Pipeline that would transport oil from Canada to our gulf coast. I
suspect the delay is strictly political and if not, he owes the American people
an explanation. He does not want to upset the environmental voting block.
There is
another problem involving energy that only we the people can address. Do we
really care about future generations? Are we willing to make sacrifices now so
the next generation’s future is at least as good as what we experienced? Are we willing to make the sacrifices
necessary to assure that our heirs have sufficient energy to live the life style
we do? Are we willing to make the
necessary sacrifices now in order to assure future generations have a clean
environment to live a long and healthy life?
For more
than forty years, we have talked a good game concerning turning over a good
environment to future generations. So far, all we have done is talk. We want
our children and great grand children to live in a clean and healthy environment,
as long as our life style is not affected.
Our instructions
to our political leaders are to make sure we pass on a good environment to
future generations, but do not expect me to pay for it. I am having too much
fun playing with my boats, planes, automobiles and high tech toys.
Choose,
choose wisely!
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