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There Is No Quick Fix To Gas Prices

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By DONALD J. MYERS

A Mind of My Own

Published: June 21, 2008

Now that gasoline is more than $4 a gallon and diesel is about $4.50 a gallon, we are paying attention. Sen. John McCain has proposed that we consider allowing the states to drill off our coast and in the Gulf. Sen. Barack Obama has stated that drilling will have no immediate impact on the price per gallon.
When the subject of ANWAR is broached, the response is that it will take 10 years before the drilling comes to fruition. Former president Bill Clinton used that same excuse when he vetoed the proposal more than 10 years ago.
The left and the environmentalists claim that the answer is conservation, the development of new technology, wind and solar power. That also will provide no immediate relief to high prices. I anxiously look forward to watching the first airplane fly with wind or solar power. Naturally, I will not be one of the passengers.
Congress in its infinite wisdom continues to blame "Big Oil" and wants to punish it for having large profits. Coca-Cola had a larger percent of profit from its sales than oil companies. Since oil is such a large organization, the amount of profit is huge; but the percentage is in line with business as a whole.
If government did punish oil companies and took their profits, will that reduce prices? That would merely be additional money for the government to waste. I am sure that many retirement funds and mutual funds would love to see their money disappear from their investments in oil companies.
Many who are old enough will recall the gas lines and shock of price increases in the 1970s. As usual, we did many stupid things and never truly dealt with the root cause of the problem. We implemented procedures to build cars with better gas mileage, and we toyed with conservation such as turning down the thermostats and wearing sweaters in the house. Government agencies were required to trade in big cars for compacts.
I was at The Defense Supply Agency (DSA) as the aide to the director. We had a Pontiac that got about 20 miles to the gallon and could carry five or six people. We had to trade it in for a smaller car that got the same mileage but could only hold four people. In many cases we were forced to use two cars when before we could use one, but it sure did look good to drive a smaller car.
I have a humorous story from that period concerning the fuel. One of the subordinate units of DSA was responsible for all the fuel used by the defense department -- Defense Fuel Supply Center (DFSC). My boss was told to report the total amount of fuel that was currently available to DOD. The director of DFSC got together with his staff and gave the figures to my boss. They looked at all the tanks in the inventory and the capacity of each and came up with a figure.
The following day, the admiral in charge of DFSC came back and said that the earlier figures did not account for the fact that the tanks could not be filled to capacity because in heat the fuel would expand and the tanks overflow. As a result they were filled to only about 95 percent. My boss reported the change to DOD.
The next day, the admiral returned and said that the tanks could not be completely emptied because of sludge at the bottom of the tanks. That was another percentage.
The next day, the admiral again returned and stated that the pipelines could not be emptied unless something was used to push out the fuel so another percentage was reduced.
We ended up with graphs of a fuel tank with a percentage at the top depicting the inability of not filling to the top. The bottom of the tank showed a percent due to sludge, and the pipeline showed a percent that could not be retrieved.
This all sounds funny and a little stupid now, but at the time it was anything but. The point being that when data is required in a hurry, things are overlooked.
This current fuel crisis is another problem that we must face and decide to solve. Our ability over the years to defeat problems is legendary and this one will be also. We must look at this current problem in two parts -- the near term and the long term.
In the near term, we must do things that will have immediate effect such as eliminating the tax on gas. The long term must include more drilling of our own oil in ANWAR and along our coasts.

Donald J. Myers, a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, is a regular columnist for Hernando Today. He lives in Spring Hill and can be contacted at DMyersUSMC@aol.com.

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