Gas Pains for Long-Winded Candidates

Senator Al Gore '68 has written that he'd like to see the internal combustion engine made obsolete in 25 years. This may be wishful thinking, but it is certainly a good environmental and economic goal. Reducing gas consumption would decrease our dependence on foreign oil.

And however you may scoff at the campaign to save the snail darter, environmental concerns about natural resource depletion are not contrary to the interests of American business, because businesses like the auto industry are only viable as long as we have enough of the resources their products consume.

But how are these goals to be reached? None of the candidates seems to have a clear idea. Clinton's proposal to raise fuel-efficiency standards sounds most promising, but the danger is that negative pressures rather than positive incentives would be used to make businesses comply. Bush, picking up on this possibility, advocates a hands-off approach and scares voters with images of companies going bankrupt due to strict regulations.

Perot prefers a gasoline tax to discourage the use, manufacture, and purchase of gas-run automobiles. Bush's and Perot's solutions, however, are inefficient and, in Perot's case, unprincipled.

Trying to repeat his brave defense of American economic interests against environmentalism at Rio, Bush represents himself as the laissez-faire man. But what was courageous in Rio is short-sighted now. Regulations like the Endangered Species Act similarly pose a conflict between environment and economy, and Bush has rightly pointed out the absurdity of saying to American businesses, "You can't build a factory here because we're protecting the grass." What Bush fails to realize, however, is that not all environmental regulations conflict with business interests.

Unlike "save the beetle" legislation, which envisions business and most other human activity as a boot stomping on the face of Mother Nature, fuel-efficiency regulations work to the long-term benefit of the auto industry. Rather than curtailing human mastery of nature, they enable us to manage our natural resources prudently and spur us to develop new technologies that will let our technological civilization last longer.

As Francis Bacon said, "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." Or, to use an economic metaphor, spending your seed capital may bring short-term prosperity but in the end leaves you broke because there's nothing left to invest and no more money coming in. Similarly, using up all the oil will eventually put auto companies out of business.

Moreover, Bush's seemingly pro-business approach treats America as an isolated system. He ignores the fact that Americans are consumers in an international market. They choose to buy Japanese cars because these cars generally get better gas mileage than American ones. For whatever reason, the prospect of this competition has not sufficed to spur American manufacturers to improve. Governmental incentives and/or regulations might really force American auto manufacturers to start improving. It worked in 1978, when Congress set corporate average fuel economy standards that made many auto companies race to bring themselves up to par. In the process, they developed new technology that helped the industry.

At the other end of the spectrum from Bush, Ross Perot wants an "activist government" approach to gasoline use: namely, penalizing car owners. This plan has received more praise than it deserves. Whenever a candidate talks about sacrifice, the press calls him courageous. Taking money from the middle class isn't courageous. The most courageous sacrifice Ross could make would be to say: "Instead of raising taxes on hard-working folks or on productive capitalists, I'm donating a few spare billions of my own to the Federal Treasury."

The gas tax is a punitive, Prohibition-style measure that would basically make average-income car owners suffer for having bought gas-using cars (even though there was no other kind of car for them to buy). Gas, like liquor and cigarettes, would be taxed like a sinful indulgence, allowing government policy-makers to look virtuous and hard-line on environment protection--on the people's backs.

Of all these plans, Clinton's has the most potential to be constructive rather than punitive. If elected, he should consult with scientists and engineers to determine how high standards can be raised without becoming unrealistic and forcing companies out of business. Tax breaks for companies spending a lot on research would also give them the financial leeway to experiment with alternatives to the internal combustion engine. Maybe then Al Gore's dream will come true without forcing the rest of the country into an economic nightmare.