A different sort of oil crisis

Where is the outrage? Where are the drivers lining up to carpool or take mass transit to work?

Clearly, this is not your father's oil crisis.

Thirty years ago, Americans reacted quite differently when gas prices began to rise to unprecedented levels. Last Friday, the price of crude hit $67 a barrel, but Americans, now used to paying more than $2 a gallon for gas, barely batted an eye.

Analysts call this a speculative bubble, but they say it won't burst until either supplies increase or demand decreases. So far, American drivers don't seem interested in reducing the demand.

Maybe that is because, when inflation is taken into consideration, the price of oil still is considerably lower than it was in 1980. In today's terms, the price that year was $90 a barrel.

There are other possibilities, of course. One is that Americans really do have so much disposable income that they can easily absorb the extra cost without any trouble. The other is that they're simply filling up their credit cards and going about their merry ways.

In any event, consider this: The per barrel price of oil is 46 percent higher today than it was a year ago. and yet the demand for gasoline in the United States is up 1.4 percent over that same time.

Also, consider the irony of Americans enriching nations, such as Saudi Arabia, which, although friendly to the United States, are breeding grounds for terrorism and resistant to democratic reforms.

The energy bill Congress just passed includes some incentives for alternative fuels, but it is clear that much more needs to be done. Major incentives should be offered to companies and consumers who buy hybrid vehicles, which use a combination of gasoline and electricity. Innovation and inventiveness should be valued and richly rewarded. Surely a nation with such might and intellectual talent should be able to devise efficient vehicles that rely on something other than gasoline.

In the 1970s, people were angered at Middle Eastern oil cartels and at the nation's dependence upon them. Today, no one seems to mind much that President Bush had to grovel earlier this year to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and his staff, begging them to increase oil production.

True, it is good news that the U.S. economy is strong enough to absorb the extra costs without so much as a twitch. But every American should understand by now how dangerous and counterproductive it is to be too dependent on the volatile Middle East. Consumers apparently won't push for change until things get much worse, so it's up to government to act in the nation's best interest.