I think a tax deduction for vehicles that achieves over 30 MPG would probably fly a lot better than a .50 per gallon tax.
Actually charby, I have to disagree with you.
The best way to reduce consumption in a free market society is to increase the cost of the product you want to reduce the consumption off.
Take your 30MPG vehicle credit. Will it actually reduce consumption? Looking at CAFE standards in the past, not really. Unless the tax deduction is HUGE, people will just ignore it. If it's good, you'll have a lot of people in 30mpg vehicles - but which is better, 2 31 mpg cars on the road with a single passenger each or a single 25mpg car with 2 carpoolers?
Keep the marginal cost of gasoline down, subsidize high mpg cars, and you'll create a situation like in the past where people thought nothing of running 10 miles for a simple errand and not batching trips.
Increase the marginal cost of gasoline, not only will people tend towards higher mpg vehicles naturally, they'll engage in other means of reducing their usage. Carpooling, living near work, taking the bus, only going on one shopping trip every other week rather than twice a week, etc...
So you've become a democrat now? Given your hatred for Republicans, I'm not surprised.
I'm not a democrat, simply addressing how I'd 'solve' the 'too much oil usage' problem in the USA, given my preferences. Given that I dislike mandatory 'standards' and like the free market, the easiest way to reduce gasoline usage is to increase it's cost. The easiest way to do that is to tax it more. That'll spur conservation, alternatives, all that. Putting the money raised towards promoting alternatives would be a bonus. Personally, I'd slap the .50/gallon tax on metropolitan areas and use the money to set up a PRT system.
50 cents, a dollar? Doesn't matter. The demand curve for gasoline is so inelastic that people will buy what they need regardless of the cost. There is no other altenative.
It might be short term inelastic, but long term it's at least somewhat elastic. Look at all the more fuel efficient vehicles coming out now that prices are such that the extra cost for the fuel efficiency makes sense - I'm seeing much more in the way of 6 speed transmissions, for example. There's also varying levels of 'need'. I've seen people cut back from multiple trips to stores a week to going to more of a once every other week schedule.
Mass transit - nice thought but it isn't gonna appear out of thin air.
Really fuel efficient autos - again nice thought but overnight they're not gonna be here.
I like the idea of PRT(personal rapid transit) as I see it as a better solution to replace the car than buses or standard trains, but yeah, that'll take time. Fuel efficient autos have always been out there, and they're showing up now. Heck, fuel costs have reduced demand for the really big SUVs, to the point that profit margins aren't as good for them as they used to be.
Cars that don't use gas - their energy comes from somewhere and my bet it would be electric. What do most electric plants burn to make electricity - a petroleum product and since the conversion losses from petroleum to electricity and back into auto motion is more than from petroleum to gas to motion going electric isn't gonna solve anything.
Actually, most electric plants don't use petroleum, they use coal. Still a hydrocarbon, but not a liquid from the middle east. That also discounts that we're finally looking at building new nuclear plants.
As for the efficiency, a car that gets 30% is lucky, and that's going by the energy going into the tank, not the energy needed to get the gas to to the fuel pump. An electric car is powered by an electric plant that can get 50-60% efficiency over power lines that get 90+%, modern charging is 90+% efficient, and the final usage is something like 95%. Ending up about 41% efficient overall, which stomps all over gasoline. Not to mention superior pollution control at the power plant(and getting the pollution away from inner cities).
Hydrogen - when someone comes up with a cheap way to extract it then yes but once again the infrastructure to deliver it isn't gonna appear overnight.
Over on slashdot, there's a saying: Hydrogen isn't an energy source, it's an energy storage method. There are no 'hydrogen mines' or wells. Most of it is obtained by cracking hydrocarbons today, and electrolysis is inefficient. In most cases it's more efficient to burn the hydrocarbon directly or use batteries.
And on and on. Americans are addicted to having a personal means of transport. Not gonna give it up without a fight. All tacking extra taxes on that transport is gonna do is tick off the people.
Thus my suggestion for
PRT.
Note: I wouldn't call high gas prices a good thing, just that it's the only realistic way to preserve limited resources. A 50 cent tax now could spur our movement away from petro fuels by quite some time.
