Yesterday afternoon, Sen. Kit Bond outlined his energy bill, which somehow faltered in the Senate. It seems that typical politicking got in the way of a bill that could have substantially lowered our rising gas prices. Shocking. I know. This bill would have helped combat the ridiculously high gas prices in several different ways. It called for environmentally friendly drilling in places such as Alaska and oil shale deposits in the Rocky Mountains, which would have relieved some of our dependence on foreign oil while increasing the supply. This spike in gas prices may be attributable partly to speculating, but mostly to simple economics. I don’t care how many econ courses I take, it all comes down to supply and demand. With the increase in world demand, something needs to be done to increase supply.

Sen. Bond also called for "Streamlining the oil refinery permitting process, without relaxing any requirements." Hooray! I am OK with taking baby steps to get the the free market, as long as we get there. The U.S. government has put up so many regulations, it has become nearly impossible to build refineries. Hopefully, this "streamlining" can lead to some deregulation, and we can see a substantial drop in gas prices. All in all, I think Sen. Bond summed it up best when criticizing a colleague who actually suggested the oil industry be nationalized (no joke, albeit that is funny):

"I can tell you, you don’t want the government running energy. The free
market may not be perfect, but it doesn’t screw things up like the
government does."

Oh, and of course we can talk about the taxation issue as well, but Justin has already covered that aspect.