Let’s tax energy

Mike Sodrel, the Republican candidate for the Indiana 9th Congressional District (which includes Bloomington), recently took a trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. What was Mike doing all the way up in Alaska?

He has been doing what plenty of Republicans have been trying to do this election season: make energy an issue that actually help’s the GOP.

On Sodrel’s Web site you can see clips of the beautiful Alaskan wilderness contained within ANWR. This wilderness apparently only provoked thoughts of oil for Sodrel; perhaps he was succumbing to the same emotion that overtook the Republican National Convention crowd as they chanted “drill, baby, drill” at former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s beckoning.

America is finally having a big debate about energy policy and, somehow, I couldn’t be less happy.

Going into this election there were two energy policies I really wanted to see support for. One was an increased gas tax, which is the best way to increase the use of mass transit, encourage the purchases of more efficient cars and reduce congestion.

The other was a carbon tax to force suppliers to pay for the damage excessive carbon emission do in terms of global warming. A tax on carbon, versus simply subsidizing alternatives, would encourage suppliers to find alternatives that actually work.

“We can’t create energy by raising taxes,” writes Mike Sodrel on his Web site. It makes me wonder how he plans on encouraging alternative energy – something many Republicans now support as part of a try-everything to lower energy prices mantra.

Sodrel claims he supports alternatives in the long term, but I haven’t heard him complain about the possible expiration of alternative energy tax credits the way he complained about Congress adjourning before they could vote on drilling for oil offshore and in ANWR.

That is the Republican strategy for this election: focus on the populist notion of energy independence and hope voters forget that Reagan tore solar panels off the roof of the White House. Then pretend Democrats are keeping oil prices high by not allowing drilling in a few select areas.

The Democrats have their own problems on energy policy. Barack Obama has supported wasteful ethanol subsidies and also indulges the protectionist notion of making sure green jobs are American.

There is a lot of pandering because our current energy debate doesn’t exist because of our long-term problems. Increased demand from India and China has brought the price of oil to a record high, and most Americans only seem concerned about one aspect of energy: its price.

People can be forgiven for being upset when their gas bill doubles, but we have two presidential candidates who support a carbon-trading scheme; basically a complex carbon tax.

If politicians can admit that this scheme, while good policy, is going to increase the price of energy, then we would be closer to dealing with our real energy problems – problems that will still be here even if the price of oil creeps back downward.