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Monday, July 11, 2005
Gas prices: no to NOPEC
I was very excited when I learned about the launch of Open CRS:
American taxpayers spend nearly $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, a "think tank" that provides reports to members of Congress on a variety of topics relevant to current political events. Yet, these reports are not made available to the public in a way that they can be easily obtained. A project of the Center for Democracy & Technology through the cooperation of several organizations and collectors of CRS Reports, Open CRS provides citizens access to CRS Reports already in the public domain and encourages Congress to provide public access to all CRS Reports.
Most of what I've read, though, has been lacking context or details. Still, I've checked the recently added RSS feed like any good blogger with dreams of mediocrity. Finally, today, I read this brief on gasoline prices and learned a thing or two:
- The real price of gasoline is now higher than at any time in the last 20 years.
- Consumer spending on oil reached its low point in 1998 at around 2.5% of GDP. By 2000 -- the latest year included in that part of the report -- spending was nearly 4% of GDP. That's still less than half the rate from the early 1980s.
- On June 21, the Senate adopted the No Oil Producing or Exporting Cartel Act of 2005 (NOPEC). The adoption is not reported on Thomas, which lists no action since April 14.
NOPEC sounds to me like a silly, juvenile response to high gas prices. Are we really expecting the federal government to haul Saudi Arabia into federal court? If so, do we really expect Saudi Arabia to recognize the authority of the court? Do we really think supply, not demand, is the issue?
The bill seems ridiculous on its face. So, why are so many respectable senators lined up as cosponsors?
1 Comments:
Back in the days before the internets a debate nerd friend of mine showed me the section of our campus library that had the CRS reports. If one of them happened to be on topic for a paper you were writing it was llike striking gold. I don't know if there was any way of searching them other than pulling out the box and digging thru the pile but it seems like that problem has been solved.
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