Editorial: Get tough on gas mileage

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.

The Energy Department reported Monday that gasoline prices are now averaging just more than $3 a gallon around the country, the highest average since the full effects of Hurricane Katrina became known early in September.

Yet despite the high prices, people are driving more than ever. The Energy Department, according to a story in USA Today, said gasoline demand is up 1.9 percent from a year ago.

One theoretical benefit of high gasoline prices is that alternative fuels become much more competitive, spurring the innovations of small and large businesses alike.

This is occurring, but very slowly. Flex-fuel automobiles, which can use either gasoline or ethanol, and hybrids, which are powered by electric batteries when idling or driving at low speeds, are seen on the roads in slightly increasing numbers. And biodiesel, a blend of cleaner-burning vegetable oil or animal fat with regular diesel, is becoming a little more common.

Another theoretical benefit - conservation - is not occurring at all, however. High gasoline prices should be driving down demand through increased use of car pooling and mass transportation as well as an overall reduced level of automotive travel. But this is not happening. Increasing demand at a time of record prices proves what President Bush said in his State of the Union message - we are addicted to oil.

Many members of Congress feel that the best hope for conservation is through laws. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., says it is a matter of national security for automakers to increase the fuel efficiency of all their models. He and seven other senators are sponsoring a bipartisan bill calling for annual fuel-efficiency increases of 4 percent a year, according to a report by Gannett News Service. A bill is also pending in the House to increase the minimum mileage of passenger cars, which hasn't changed since 1986.

If Americans are not going to conserve in the face of high gasoline prices, and if the rate of alternative fuel use is going to proceed only slowly, then tough fuel-efficiency laws, even tougher than those being proposed, should be passed to achieve the national goal of vastly reducing our dependence on foreign oil.