1087Reduced dependence on foreign oil

posted by Chris on July 19th, 2007

What does that mean, really? I hear all of these candidates and Washington suits blabbering about how they are going to work to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I agree that Americans use a ton of fossil fuels. A lot more per day than almost any other country, but I don’t think people are going to just up and quit driving because gas is getting expensive. They have to go to work, pick up their kids, go shopping, and all that jazz.

CNN has an article with a bunch of mumbo jumbo from all kinds of politicians and candidates.

I’m sure that tons of corporations have fought for the lobbying spot in Washington that pushes our elected representatives around and convinces them what they need to be voting for. There’s going to be a lot of craziness in the coming years in regards to reducing our intake of foreign oil and the way it affects our economy.

I say that while we are waiting on auto-manufacturers to kick up their MPG ratings, we pass legislation that will add a tax on top of the price of any newly purchased car that gets less than 35MPG. For trucks it would be something like 25MPG, and so on, depending on the vehicle class. I think it would convince auto manufacturers to either change out the engines in their less efficient vehicles with engines that live up to the normal requirements, or to just cease production of the least efficient models.

When buying a car, theres two things I look at: The highway MPG and the MSRP of the car. The MPG could be considered one of the most important aspects that should be factored into the cost of ownership. For example, if you get a cheap car that gets only something like 22MPG, you could be wasting a lot of money when you get another car that is only around two thousand dollars more but with 37MPG, something that will keep saving you money as long as you own the car. The MPG serves as the variable cost of ownership, since the price of gas changes, while the cost of the car itself doesn’t change.

Think about it.