• Some critics attacked a plan to force Detroit to make more energy-efficient cars. If we get more miles to the gallon, the thinking goes, we will drive more — kind of like how water-efficient toilets make people flush more. That would hurt the environment and increase the demand for more highways.

• One alternative, a process to turn coal into liquid fuel, was attacked as harmful, because it would create greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Listen closely and all these combined voices sound a lot like a man I met earlier this year outside a grocery store in Southern California. He was gathering signatures to take to Washington because, "We're sick of the high prices." He had no solutions. He was just angry.

Well, they heard him. I can imagine one of his heroes is Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., who wrote an amendment to the bill that would allow the Justice Department to sue OPEC. Yeah, that'll teach 'em.

A couple of things ought to be clear. The nation still depends on gasoline, which means its economy depends on it, as well. It would make sense to remove restrictions for domestic oil exploration in Alaska and elsewhere. At the same time, real incentives to purchase hybrid cars and to find viable alternatives could nudge the private market in the right direction. An affordable fuel-efficient vehicle is the equivalent of cheaper gas prices. This takes money, of course. It seems only right that the money be raised by taxing oil companies or gas purchases.

If the president realizes his goal of reducing gas usage by 20 percent, we won't need any extra refinery capacity, anyway.

The other thing that ought to be clear is that continuing the same course we're on will solve nothing.

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Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com