SEN. DOMENICI IS WRONG

In an article in the NY Times about oil prices, "American Energy Policy, Asleep at the Spigot," Sen. Domenici is quoted:

“Much of what we’re seeing today could have been prevented or ameliorated had we chosen to act differently,” says Pete V. Domenici, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and a 36-year veteran of the Senate. “It was a bipartisan failure to act.”

I don't want to minimize the role Democrats played in this but it seems to me that beginning with Reagan, the GOP as a matter of principle has opposed doing anything substantive about our energy problem. Months ago, perhaps even a year, I recall hearing Sean Hannity say that he didn't want to change his life style because of high oil prices and he wouldn't buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle until the price came down. Now Hannity can clearly afford to buy any vehicle available, so that statement is more humbug. (Today he praises the GM hybrid vehicle he drives, no doubt because GM is a major sponsor of his radio show.)

In the same NYT article, Newt Gingrich claims that cheap gasoline is part of the American Social Contract:

Indeed, low-priced gasoline has long been part of the American social contract, according to Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and Republican leader. While in office, Mr. Gingrich battled efforts to modulate demand through tools like increased gas taxes and tighter fuel standards, and he argues that voters won’t support such measures even now.

“They will work if you coerce the entire system and if you pretend the American people are Japanese and Europeans,” Mr. Gingrich says. “Our culture favors driving long distances in powerful vehicles and the car as a social expression.”

Rather than call for changes to our culture, which suits them when they try to get the Fundie vote, the conservatives try to pretend that it can't and shouldn't be changed. They even made efforts to do so against the law in 1995:

Congressional Republicans made matters worse in 1995, when they attached a rider to a huge appropriations bill forbidding the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from spending any money to raise fuel standards. That law, in effect until 2001, made any change in CAFE standards impossible, says Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has pushed for better fuel efficiency.