Could Lower Gas Prices Be Bad?

Sept. 18, 2006 — -- Most Americans have welcomed the news that gas prices are falling, having declined an average of 42 cents nationwide in the past month.

But from the way some people are carrying on, you would think it was the sky that was falling, not gas prices.

Heading up the field is Daniel Akst, whose op-ed piece in The New York Times today lays out the case for the negative effects of lowering gas prices.

"Anything that reinforces the role of fossil fuels -- particularly oil -- as the world's primary energy source, is bad, not good," Akst writes. His argument goes beyond the one laid out by President Bush in his 2006 State of the Union address, when he announced that America was "addicted to oil" imported from "unstable parts of the world."

Akst takes this into consideration, but argues that this addiction's main danger is its contribution to global warming.

"Lower oil prices would promote more driving," Akst notes. He calls this "a dismal outcome" even for the short term, as it will lead to worse air pollution and higher traffic fatalities.

"And then there's sprawl," Akst continues. "Cheaper gas prices will mean more far-flung, automobile-dependent communities," which will lock in the vicious cycle of hydro-carbon devastation.

Fortunately -- at least from Akst's point of view -- some experts say we needn't worry about prices staying low for long.

"Gas prices historically lower at the end of the spring and summer driving season," says Mantill Williams, spokesman for the American Automobile Association. For at least the last five years the trend has been that once the season comes round again, both demand and prices rise.

But Akst, amongst others, would likely not regard this as enough. Like The New Republic magazine's ex-editor turned blogger, Andrew Sullivan, Akst sees "hefty taxes" on gasoline as a shining hope for the future.

Writing in April on record-level gas prices, Sullivan called them "one of the best things to happen in the long time." Taxes, he hoped, could raise them further still, because "only higher oil prices will actually jump-start the new, greener technologies we all say we want (and our planet desperately needs)."