Fuel Prices

I filled up last night for $2.099 a gallon – the first time I’ve paid over $2 a gallon for gas in many months. Here’s a story from the AP about how oil got over $60 a barrel today.

You didn’t have to be an oracle to see this coming – here’s a link to a rant I had back in early March, about how people were going back to buying big SUVs and trucks once gas dropped below $3 a gallon. And now the fuel bills they thought they could afford are going to crunch them – again.

We need a floor on fuel prices – somewhere between $3 and $4 a gallon – something to keep people from making long-term decisions with short-term thinking. Use the difference between the floor price and the market price to expand commuter rail and get even more people out of their cars.

This isn’t just an economic issue. It’s an environmental issue, a national security issue, and a moral issue. As a country and as individuals, we must use less fossil fuels. And it seems that high prices are the only way to get us to do that.