ARE THEY SERIOUS? $7 a gallon gasoline may become a reality in the near future. Why, you may ask?
THE LOSS OF REASON: “To meet the Obama Administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector by 14% under 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The 14% target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010.”
As most of you know, I wrote a lengthy article regarding the Cap and Trade legislation that passed the Senate last year. During the course of the debate, it has become obvious that this legislation has very little support from the American people and that such a system will not reduce emissions. Instead, it would increase the cost of energy, which will dramatically hurt the economy, especially fleet-based businesses.
With those facts on the table, you would think that the debate would then turn to finding new and alternative ways of producing eco-friendly energy. Au contraire.
Like a petulant child that has not gotten his or her way, the Administration has now turned its focus on potentially increasing the price of fuel to exorbitant levels, such as $7 per gallon in order to get you to reduce your driving and use of fossil fuels.
In other words, they are talking about artificially increasing fuel costs through a levy on fuel producers in order to raise the price of fuel to levels that will make you drive less to emit fewer pollutants to lessen supposed global warming. Think about that. If fuel prices go to $7 per gallon or more, what will the effects be on our daily lives, and on a chauffeured transportation operation. We’ve already seen what happened when gas prices rose to more than $4 per gallon in the summer of 2008.
Will food, commodities, and retail prices increase? Will construction and manufacturing cost increase? Will the cost of your limousine services increase? Well, of course. But the Sherlocks in the Obama Administration could care less.
Once again, they have devised a plan that achieves the administrations politically motivated task of reducing CO2 emissions, all the while severely burdening the American people and the private sector that pays the bulk of the tax dollars. If you operate a limousine service and your costs were to double on fuel usage, how would that square with the aftermath of the recession and the slow recovery?
I fear that for a somewhat dubious cause, our industry as well as other small businesses in the U.S. are facing real and serious challenges. I use the term dubious cause because simply put, CO2 is the most prevalent and necessary gas on this planet, and it comes from millions of sources including rotting vegetation, the exhalations of all living things, ocean evaporation, and volcanic activity, which by the way produces more carbon emissions annually than all mankind has since the beginning of our existence.
My friends, please pay attention. The Obama Administration is dead set on leaving a legacy that says they were the ones to bring about the biggest reduction ever of the use of fossil fuels and petrochemicals. If they achieve that goal, our way of life may be forever altered and limited. That was not the change I and most Americans had in mind.
— Jae Morey is vice president of business development with CheapLimoRates.com. He writes two separate blogs that focus on the limousine industry. “LIMO-U” is a blog that is educational in nature and covers numerous topics about how to use limousine services for various events and other industry related topics. His blog “The Limo Lane” is about all things limousine with topics that are of interest to limousine operators and customers of the industry.
Print | posted on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 5:01 PM