Drumbeat grows louder for fuel efficiency

Washington Times reports The recently approved energy legislation excluded the biggest item that would have cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil as well as help lower record-high oil and gasoline prices: higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and sport utility vehicles.

Aren't there a number of high fuel efficiency cars for sale right now, but don't the gas guzzlers sell better? If people would start buying the high fuel efficiency cars I guarantee Detroid would start producing cars with even better gas mileage. It does not take legislation to get them to do it. The market place can do a very good job all by itself.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has taken no steps to better manage the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to relieve pressure on oil prices, or use it occasionally to pop speculative bubbles and alleviate foreign supply cutoffs that have helped drive up prices, according to Lawrence Kudlow of Kudlow & Co. and other analysts.

That is NOT the purpose of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and I would not want a President that would use an important strategic resource to try to manipulate prices

John Lichtblau, analyst with the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, said Congress shied away for ideological and political reasons from the most powerful tools available to the government to counter high oil prices.