JOHN CARTER

This past week we marked Summer Solstice - the first day of summer. And with the summer months upon us, more families will be taking to the roads for vacation and other summer activities.

The average Central Texas driver is paying $2.94 per gallon at the pump – a vast increase from what they were paying a year ago. Americans are feeling the crunch of high gas prices everyday, and it is time that Congress takes meaningful steps to develop a long term energy strategy of independence and reliability in order to help alleviate the problem.

While Congress must take action, there is a big philosophical difference in how the Democrat majority and conservative Republicans want to fix this problem. Democrats have no solutions to the root causes of high gas prices – limited supply and increased demand. The only solutions they have offered are to tax the supply and to set phony price gouging standards.

While conservatives believe that any instance of illegal price fixing can and should be vigorously fought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice, they also believe in attacking the source of the problem – low domestic supplies of refined gasoline in the face of increasing consumer demand.

Congress recently passed H.R. 1252, the Federal Price Gouging Act, that claims to protect consumers from price gouging. I voted against this legislation because it does nothing to alleviate increasing gas prices. In fact, both the Department of Energy, as well as the FTC has found no credible evidence that the rising prices of gas are due to market price fixing or any other unlawful behavior among oil companies. Many economists believe that the real result of the Federal Price Gouging Act will be to impose price controls on gasoline that could very possibly result in shortages, gasoline rationing, and 1970’s style gas lines.

This misguided legislation comes just months after Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic majority passed legislation repealing tax incentives approved by the previous Congress that would have encouraged oil producers to increase their domestic production and their refining capacities. These incentives would have invested in our energy infrastructure something that would actually help bring down prices and improve reliability.

America needs policies that will encourage greater investment in refining capacities, which will in turn infuse our market with a greater supply of gasoline, thereby reducing prices at the pump.

Congress needs to use common sense when it comes to reducing prices at the pump. Only increasing American supplies of refined gasoline – not vague definitions of price gouging – will work. We need a balanced policy that will increase domestic production, speed up refinery expansion, invest in the renewable and alternative fuels of tomorrow, and improve our fuel efficiency and conservation.

Government regulations don’t always provide the automatic solution to everyday problems for consumers. Right now, American families need help; but the Democrats insist on creating a weak solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, which doesn’t make much sense at all.