On a large scale, I can say that I’ve never been into biofuels. I’m not really glad my hunch has been vindicated so many times, since we’ve put a lot of money into biofuels, especially of the worst sort.
Making the gas tax comparable to what it was 30 years ago (adjusted for inflation) would be great, though. Gas, quite frankly, is too cheap for our own good, and the gas tax is exceedingly low (even hurting those who drive in some ways — for example, fluctuations in crude oil prices affect us much more than Europeans, and we are all getting screwed by climate change, of course, with rising food prices and ‘natural’ disaster costs). As reported recently, out-of-date gas taxes cost the U.S. $130 billion a year, according to one recent study.
Many in the transportation sector (most in the transportation planning sector, I think) support raising the gas tax. Check out Streetsblog and Infrastructurist articles on the gas tax for more.
But, getting back to what got me started on this topic, below is a post on a new study finding that biofuels, as the title indicates, are 14-31 times more expensive than raising the gas tax. Another notable finding (which has been found before) is that biofuels have a harmful net effect on global warming. Check out the piece from Gas2:
About Zachary Shahan
