Ideas to Reduce Gasoline Prices Now!

As our recent post noted, McCain and Obama have had little to offer in the way of immediate relief to high gasoline prices. To add salt to our wounded pocketbooks, Congress has done nothing to address this issue and will take a undeserved holiday next week.

My suggestion is to e-mail your Congressman and ask what they plan to do about this issue. We pay their salary! Isn't it about time they actually earned it by working together to address the nation's critical issues. If they don't have any solutions or blame the other political party, remind them that you will remember that when they ask for your help in the next election.

When you talk to them, if they condescend to take your call, tell them you don't want to hear about greater demand in China and India. The requirements in these economies did not cause the leap in prices.

Here are a few things that our government could do today to help this issue:

1. Reduce the speed limit on federal highways to 55.
2. Suspend the federal tax on gasoline.
3. Tighten regulations in crude oil and gasoline financial markets.
4. Stop all military related trade with oil producers especially Saudi Arabia until the producers increased output by 5%.
5. Sell oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at the current market price and create a fund to replace the volume when prices drop to below $70/B. I like the concept of allocating a dollar amount each month to buy oil when prices are low and selling oil when prices are high.
6. Reduce discretionary governmental travel. Eliminate "fact-finding" trips and conferences.

These measures will help reduce demand and add new supply immediately.

The government should not impose price restrictions or nationalize the industry.

The oil industry does not need further incentives to increase production. If an oil producer cannot make money at current prices, perhaps he should consider another line of work.