Editorial: Oil is not the future

Friday, June 22, 2007 | 7:50 a.m.

Most Americans understand the danger of proceeding too much further into the future without undergoing a dramatic reduction in our country's dependence on imported oil.

Without such a reduction, tensions between us and the major oil-producing countries, especially those in the Mideast, are almost certain to greatly escalate.

The tensions would likely arise from us having little control over the supply and cost of oil in an age of rapidly increasing demand. In other words, the future is likely to bring gasoline prices well above anything we're seeing now if we do not act - soon - to bring large amounts of alternative energy sources into the marketplace.

Democrats in the Senate are working to bring about this major change in how we think about energy, and they were able to gain passage of a provision in an energy bill that will increase fuel economy standards for cars and SUVs. Republicans, however, seem to be incapable of seeing

beyond the short term.

"Instead of reducing gasoline prices, this bill is going to add to the cost of gasoline," said Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., summing up the Republican position. In our view, this is very shortsighted.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., pointed out that American oil companies will earn more than $1 trillion in profits over the next 10 years, the life of the proposed legislation. In that perspective, $32 billion is a small amount to protect against even higher gas prices in the future. With Republicans so stuck in the mud, a political solution to speeding up our alternative-energy industries may be a long way off. A quicker solution would be if American oil companies would publicly acknowledge the coming energy crisis and begin investing much more heavily on their own in alternative fuels.

Even oil companies should recognize that oil is past and present, and alternative fuels are the future.