---

Volume CCXXXV, Number 89   August 14, 2005 

---

GAS STILL CHEAP

By Bobby Baker
Capital Hill Corespondent with Nollie Tangere '03
in Ketchikan, Alaska

WASHINGTON, D.C. – With Americans paying up to three dollars a gallon for unleaded regular, there's one place in the United States where gas is plentiful and cheap: the nation's capital.

Before leaving town on a much-needed vacation [From what? – Ed.], President Bush and the Congress both took time to congratulate themselves on passing an "energy" and a "transportation" bill, producing vast quantities of cheap political gas in the process.

As America reels from demand-driven price increases for gasoline slurped up by its much-beloved three-ton SUV's rolling down highways paid for with federal money on 60-mile commutes made necessary by the generations of underinvestment in public transit, Washington insiders passed an energy bill that, despite the clouds of gas billowing out of the mouths of its proponents, failed to address a single one of the root causes of increased gasoline prices.

Even modest increases in automobile fuel economy could save more oil than could ever be extracted out of America's wildlife preserves and national parks, but you won't find anything the bill requiring Detroit to cut down on massive truck-based vehicles that burn a gallon of gas every ten miles.  Imposing fuel-economy standards on all vehicles (including the currently exempt trucks and SUV's) could save 750,000,000 barrels of oil a year, according to the NRDC.

Cutting through the dense clouds of gas, you'll find some tax breaks and other giveaways to the same oil companies already making record profits on $65-a-barrel oil and $3-a-gallon unleaded regular. Not to mention a few more assaults on the environment and the rights of poor schmucks whose drinking water was poisoned by oil companies. For a summary of the havoc wrought by the "energy" bill, click here.

But, as we said, gas is cheap in Washington, and there was plenty more pouring out of the White House smoke machine when George Bush signed the transportation bill. Those wearing their respirators though noticed that this legislation would exacerbate America's addiction to gas-guzzlers.  And that's only the beginning of the fun.

For starters, George Bush stood tall in his two-wheeler and told Congress he wouldn't accept a bill that spent a penny more than $286 billion. So Congress passed a bill that calls for $295 billion of spending, less a mythical $9 billion mail-in rebate to the Treasury at the end of five years. After OMB Chief Josh Bolten did the arithmetic for George, our Bicyclist-in-Chief could say that Congress had caved.

You might think that one good way to reduce dependence on oil imported from places we have to invade periodically would be to shift money from building roads to mass transit and passenger rail, as those benighted Frenchies have done. When the gas clouds dissipate, though, it becomes clear that the transportation bill actually provides a lower percentage of funding for mass transit, and does nothing to rescue Amtrak from the slow Austin-Powers-like death that Dick Cheney has arranged for it.

But with massive quantities of cheap gas available in D.C., there's more. Lots of money in the highway bill, instead of being used to fix bottlenecks and repair America's lumpy interstates, was diverted into pointless projects favored by Congressional grandees.

Just as one example, Rep. Don Young (R - Alaska) pocketed $223 million to build a mile-long bridge connecting the metropolis of Ketchikan, Alaska (pop. 7,423) to Gravina Island (population, zero, according to the U.S. Census) which comprises a national forest and the local airstrip.

Don, see anything wrong with this picture?  Let's ask the Ketchikan Daily Times:

Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young was beaming Saturday; one day after the $300 billion highway and mass transit legislation he worked on for three years was approved and forwarded to President Bush. Young, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, was in Ketchikan leading a congressional delegation of 11 U.S. House members and their spouses to Alaska on the first day of a six-week summer recess for lawmakers. [A working vacation, no doubt – Ed.] The group socialized and had dinner with about 100 Ketchikan residents Saturday night at the Westcoast Cape Fox Lodge. In an interview before the dinner, Young said he hadn’t had much sleep in the last five days during final negotiations between Senate and House conferees who ironed out differences in the massive spending bill. The bill contains $223 million for two bridges connecting Ketchikan to Gravina Island. . . . “It’s a big thing for this community,” he said. “It’s a big thing for the state.” Young said he was unfazed by media criticism concerning both bridges and for earmarking so much money for Alaska. “I’d be ashamed of myself if I hadn’t taken full advantage of that position (as Transportation Committee chairman). I wasn’t being greedy, I was serving my people,” he said. Young denied that the bridge appropriations are examples of pork-barrel politics. “It’s beef, actually,” he said. He also scoffed at opponents’ labeling both projects as “bridges to nowhere.” The bridges will make life easier for people, open up land and foster economic development, he said. Gravina Island has enough flat land for two Ketchikan-size cities, he said.

And that flat land will come in handy, because Ketchikan is bursting at the seams. In 1990, according to the Census Bureau, its population was 8,263, or 11% higher than currently. At this rate, it will need to expand onto neighboring islands approximately . . . never. Of course, once the bridge is built, Americans from all across this great land will flock to Ketchikan to see where their tax dollars went, or, as nothing in the bill generates any revenues to pay for the gas, where their children's futures went.

To be fair, Washington isn't the only part of the country where gas is cheap. Let's look south to the inferno of Crawford, Texas, where a mother whose son was killed in George Bush's unnecessary Iraqi war is camped out near the Lazy W Ranch. Mom would like to meet with the President for a few minutes to express her anger and sorrow. The Bush Administration's response? Character assassination from Roger's News Network and other Republican mouthpieces, accompanied by some platitudes from Bush about how much he grieves for the war dead. Not enough, though, to pull over on his way to a fund raiser and comfort a mother whose son made the supreme sacrifice.

Gas doesn't get any cheaper than that.