It was just a matter of time before the inside-the-beltway pundits showed what they don't know. One of them is Ezra Klein in WaPo via RCP.
He argues gasoline is too cheap. It's not. It's about (adjusted for taxes) where it should be.
Some of the best work on this subject has been done by Ian Parry, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future. His calculations -- plus some data from other sources and studies -- suggest that adding all the quantifiable costs into the price of oil would increase the cost of each gallon by about $1.65. According to the Energy Information Administration, the average price of a gallon of gas was $2.72 last week. It should really be as high as $4.37.
RFF is a Big-Government-loving-environmental-chicken-little think tank. They believe, for example you should need a permit to drive on days when ozone is high. No sense in providing a solution that allows people to drive. Just control their lives because they are stupid. Just suck more money out of their wallet. And into their coffers, no doubt.
I'm wondering what "all the quantifiable costs" are. And all Klein's hysteria is based in the assumption that all oil comes from offshore drilling. How about opening up land-based resources? Alaska? The Bakken? How about we employ more nuclear and coal? I'm sure Klein is loaded with excuses to not do that, too.
The question, in other words, isn't just what a gallon of gas costs. It's what a gallon of anything that can replace gas costs.
The above resources are cheaper than deep-water drilling, imports and the religious icons of the Left, solar and Wind. More reliable, too.
Ezra Klein drives, I bet. I suspect he heats his big-ass Metro DC house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Hey Joe....Kiss my ass.
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