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Harvard: Erm, that WH policy means tripling the price of gas.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 3rd, 2010 at 11:30 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

But, hey: small price to pay to pander to people’s religious beliefs, right? It’s not like Democratic politicians ever pump their own gas.

To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.

To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010.

Ace of Spades Headlines has already used the ‘tar, feathers, and pitchforks’ joke, so let me go to my backup response: if the 111th Congress raises the average price of gas to seven bucks a gallon, the major result will be that the 2010 Election Night map will give the impression that the entire country was dipped in raspberry jam.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    We see from the healthcare debate (and AIG before then) that when companies behave in accord with economic laws rather than in accord with politicians’ fiats, that instead of admitting that the policy is flawed, the President and Congressional leaders will blame greedy companies for colluding to raise prices and earn profit on the backs of “suffering” Americans, and call for a government take over.

    Perhaps they will settle initially for price controls and Congressional inquisitions (c.f. Toyota), but government ownership is the goal.

    Just review Hugo Chavez if you want to see the game plan in action. (Along with the consquent mismanagement of the energy industry that creates misery for everyone but become grounds for advancing further a full-blown dictatorship.)

    What was that called again when government controls the means of production?

    The goals of the left haven’t changed in the past hundred-plus years.

  • Repair_Man_Jack

    I would laugh if people this enstupidated with wrong-headed big-think were running someone else’s country. This proposal reads likea Swift satire. The 3rd world is always 1 election away.

  • yoyo

    Think about it. That figure doesn’t take account inflation or a falling dollar.

    The Treasury is printing Benjamins faster than we can Blog about it and we are going to HAVE to experience some sort of inflation eventually because we just CANNOT go any lower.

    Given the typical understatement of even bad news (in an effort to have your bad news taken seriously) I suspect $10 p/g would be more like it.

    JMHO

  • The_Gadfly

    the proximity to the current election, I think they’d be targeting that price for after 2010 but before 2012….

    I don’t think they’d make it to the next election, and I’m not so sure it would be raspberry jam on the map.

  • Raven

    Liberalism is the little death that leads to total oblivion. I shall not be Liberal.

    Wow. That scene does not appear to be on Youtube. It’s from Dune, for those who don’t recognize it.

  • Repair_Man_Jack

    And I meant that in the kindest way possible.

  • Raven

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcArnepkhv0

  • macjedi

    for diesel. AND that was two years ago! Remember, two-thirds of that price is TAXES…. nothing to do with free market forces there…
    I have always mused that the PEOPLE (in the UK) need to rise up against these excesses of government, but they are numb to it. Some of that taxation is already ‘carbon usage’ taxation too!
    Over here in the USA, I really want all the progressives to step to the microphone and honestly tell us that this is what they want for the USA. I know the people over here WILL rise up and throw these kooks out of office, AMEN!
    PLEASE, anyone, get Joe Biden a microphone… let that man talk!

    MacJedi

  • Raven

    The next comment below by me is pure nerd-cred…

  • larueladue

    There would be a massive and quick change in the government and who ran it.

    And it might look like raspberry jam on the map…. sort of….

  • Raven

    The price has come down worldwide since then.

  • kyoufuu

    The goal of the environs is to force people to use fewer fossil fuels. The only way for them to achieve this is through an increase in the cost of said fuels, which will come from the imposition of taxes and regulations.

    For being an ivy league university, Harvard sure does have some stupid researchers.

  • macjedi

    But you know, the UK government, unlike most of the USA, charges its petrol taxes on a percentage, not a fixed amount per gallon/liter/etc. This is another mafia like tactic that the progressives in the USA long to get, along with at Value Added Tax. Trust me, we don’t want either or any of that crapola in the USA.

    Sure, our fuel prices are down now, so what? The fact that taxation is used to MANIPULATE if not MANDATE our compliance is what I find unacceptable. Everyone should.

  • The_Gadfly

    know one of its primary flaws even if I were to accept either the premise of peak oil or AGW: demand for fuel was highly elastic when cars weren’t the primary mode of transportation, but now the demand curve is highly inelastic. So I don’t really believe it would be possible to get where they claim they want to go at only $7/gallon, maybe at $12/gallon, but possibly higher than that. Factor that into the economic mess we are in now and you have collapse on the order or pre-Hitler Germany/pre-Mussolini Italy. Yeah, after the rioting is finished, there might not be a Social Security, Meicaid or Medicare problem, but I’d really rather not do it that way.