Fuel efficiency standards

Conversely, if the fuel tax actually reflected the true cost of fuel -- 2 wars within the last decade for starters -- the market would demand more fuel efficient vehicles on its own. That would be at least an additional $1.45/gal


5 trillion cost of wars
133 billion gal gas sold per year in us
40 billion gal diesel

... $28+ per gal to pay for just those 2 wars. If paid over 20 years at no interest: ~$1.45/gallon.

 

Yeah but I got news for a lot of you guys, I come home and I can see 4 wells pumping oil RIGHT NOW and their scattered all over this area, you can't go more than a mile without seeing them.

 

And that's all being shipped to China, and we have to import the oil we need. Pretty smart huh?

 

Ah, but where are we importing oil from? Primarily this hemisphere. We barely get any oil from places that we run off to and get folks killed. I was listening to a discussion on energy issues being done by economists and such, and they are all pretty well unified that we will soon be the largest oil producer in the world before long, even beating out Saudi Arabia and other mega producers. This all with no help from the government. If government would get out of the way, then we would be totally energy independent in just a few years.

But I don't really mind getting oil from Canada and Mexico, our main outside suppliers. Even if we sell some of ours to China or whoever. Oil is a global commodity. If we buy it from our own oil wells, it costs the same as if we get it from Canada. What we might ship outside the U.S. would be made up by Canada or Mexico if we didn't. Oil is the same market price if we buy it from Texas or Alberta or the Chicontepec oil fields.

But double yellow has a very valid point. If the real cost of keeping the world supply of oil consistent were applied at the pump, the American citizen could see what all of this really costs. Except for one thing... you can't reflect the cost of American lives, and the wounded, to adequately show the true cost all of this stuff is costing. Wether his numbers are correct or not is really not worth debating. He hits the nail on the head that the American public has no real idea the total cost all of this stuff is. Maybe it is about time that they did. Then maybe public opinion would be more motivated to hold the political class responsible for having a sound energy policy that doesn't cost us, literally, an arm and a leg.