Will Pain at the Pump Lead to Change?
Rep. Rob Bishop came to the Sutherland blogger briefing this morning and shared some thoughts on energy policy in the US and his proposal to affect compreshensive change versus the piecemeal approach we have seen over the last 20 or so years. Ethan Millard over at SLCSpin posed the question of why hasn’t Congress done anything substantive to mitigate the issues we are now facing, when they’ve been looking at this data for more than a decade. Bishop’s remark revealed human nature at work in DC. It just wasn’t painful enough for people to make real change.
I guess time will tell if the voters feeling the pain at the pump translates in to pain at the ballot box for incumbents not used to listening to the broader population.
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Bishop is part of a Western Republican Caucus that will be shortly announcing a comprehensive energy policy platform that focuses on THREE areas
- Incentivizing New and Current Forms of Conservation
- Boosting Production of ALL Energy Forms from Wind to Coal and Everything in Between
- Innovation in Energy Solutions from Energy Sources to Energy Delivery Systems
Also in the plan are 12 Steps (reminds me of an AA meeting) to facilitating these strategies. The overall goal of their proposal is energy independence for the United States.
Reach Upward said,
June 16, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
Studies have shown that people do change their driving habits when prices increase, but that the change is temporary. When they get used to the higher level, they tend to return to previous habits. People tend to sacrifice other things in order to maintain their personal transportation patterns.
The thing that really gets people to change their driving habits is inconvenience. When congestion gets so bad that transit options become more convenient than driving, people switch to mass transit. This is one reason that some elements oppose efforts to relieve congestion. They know that once congestion is relieved, the incentive for using their cherished mass transit diminishes.
The one factor that most transportation analyses seem to ignore is the value of people’s time. In reality, time is more valuable to most people than are the extra dollars they pay for higher prices gasoline. It will have to get a lot more expensive before this equation tilts the other way.
Lyall said,
June 16, 2008 @ 4:10 pm
Interesting thought, but I’m not so sure that we haven’t reached a tipping point with peoples’ wallets especially if salaries/wages don’t see any real appreciation over the next year and you combine high gas prices with rising costs for heating and cooling a home.
But I agree that over time people tend to adjust except with our time. Time is money, right?
Reach Upward said,
June 16, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
If fuel prices continue to escalate (which is essentially the same thing as saying, if the administration continues its weak dollar policy), the tipping point may be reached. But people will be powerless to make any rapid change because our entire infrastructure is built on the current system. Still, don’t discount the capacity of human ingenuity to deal with these kinds of factors.
It will be interesting to see what the WRC comes up with. The way the three goals are stated sound an awful lot like massive taxpayer-funded subsidies. Such subsidies skew the market and transfer wealth to less efficient uses. Take a look at how the ethanol subsidies have turned out. I would strongly oppose such subsidies. On the other hand, I think it would be fine to discontinue oil subsidies and let that fuel source fare for itself on the open market.
Cameron said,
June 17, 2008 @ 9:31 am
It was a very interesting briefing - props to Sutherland for putting them on.
I think what Rep. Bishop meant when he spoke about the pain of fuel prices is that it is finally angering enough Joe Citizens that Congress will be compelled to do something, and Rep Bishop is banking on his plan being the “something”.