Alpha Patriot has a good article about gas prices. He’s got the right idea, but I think some things need to be done differently, and in some ways, he doesn’t go far enough.
Establish a moratorium on federal taxes for everything petroleum until next spring.
I’d say abolish federal gasoline taxes permanently. First, just on the general principle that they are taxes. Second, nothing in the Constitution gives the federal government the power to tax gasoline purchases. And third, as mobile as we are, taxing gasoline is an unethical and unnecessary burden for the federal government to impose.
Worse yet, over half of the existing refineries have closed down over those twenty five years (308 in 1979 to 146 today) due to the prohibitive costs of meeting ever-more-stringent government regulations. This trend is expected to continue, especially among the smaller facilities.
Abolish the EPA altogether. It is nothing more than one more unconstitutional federal bureaucracy, it has done nothing more than pass expensive regulations and drive people out of business.
Using the Interstate Commerce Clause of the federal constitution, create a national standard for gasoline formulation and require every state to honor it — even California.
I sympathize with this, but don’t agree. I’m far too strong a believer in federalism. Let the Soviet Republik of California pass all the restrictive regulations they like, but don’t give them a penny of federal money to pull them out of bankruptcy. If we’re lucky, California will slide off into the ocean and we won’t have to put up with their whiny crap any longer, anyway.
Simplify clean-air regulations.
Abolish them altogether. Nothing in the Constitution gives the federal government the power to pass them in the first place. Let the states pass them if they like. Federalism again.
State governments could help here too. Every state should pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting local governments from further taxing gasoline or requiring additional blends or regulating refineries, much as many state constitutions prohibit local governments from passing more stringent gun control laws.
Conservative states will; liberal states will not. Gas will be cheaper in conservative states, there will be fewer idiotic regulations, and businesses will continue to migrate to them from the liberal states. That will solve all kinds of problems.
