New Bill Would Provide Relief from High Gas Prices

Bipartisan Legislation to Provide Transportation and Housing Options Endorsed by Leading National Environmental Group.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - A leading national environmental group today endorsed new bipartisan legislation in Congress that would offer Americans relief from high gas prices by providing expanded transportation and housing options.

The bill, "The Transportation and Housing Options for Gas Price Relief Act of 2008" (H.R. 6495), was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). It is cosponsored by U.S. Reps. Chris Shays (R-CT), Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), Jay Inslee (D-WA), Jerry McNerney (D-CA) and Hilda Solis (D-CA). Both Tauscher and McNerney are members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has jurisdiction over this legislation.

Gas prices in the United States have tripled during the past seven years. As a result, Americans now spend an average of more than $2,000 a year on gas to commute to work. Transportation costs are now Americans' second largest average expense after housing.

"This timely bill provides Congress with a great opportunity to show it is responding to Americans' pain at the pump, insufficient public transit and costly housing options," said Michael Replogle, transportation director at Environmental Defense Fund and a former consultant for the U.S. Federal Highway Administration and the World Bank on sustainable transportation strategies (http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=961). "America has less than three percent of the world's oil reserves, so we will never be able to produce what we need domestically. Our best bet is to use our limited domestic gas supply wisely and facilitate alternatives to driving where possible, as this legislation does."

"The Transportation and Housing Options for Gas Price Relief Act of 2008" would allocate funds to:

-- Expand public transportation and to help transit agencies deal with high fuel prices;

-- Encourage pay-as-you-drive auto insurance policies that discourage driving by rewarding low mileage drivers with lower insurance premiums;

-- Reduce commuting costs by providing incentives to employers and employees to take transit, bicycle, carpool, walk, or telecommute to work;

-- Help local governments create walkable, bikeable communities well-served by transit by providing funding to local governments to support programs to manage transportation demand and for transit agencies to make needed investments;

-- Help Americans make smart transportation and housing choices by educating them about their options;

-- Spur the availability of "Location Efficient Mortgages," which make owning a home near transit more affordable for all Americans;

1) Upgrading key websites for easier access to services without having to leave home and work; and

2) Encouraging federal agencies and offices to participate in local Transportation Management Agencies, which provide transportation options.

"Public transit use and demand for other transportation options are continuing to rise throughout the country," concluded Replogle. "This bill would support current transportation options while encouraging the creation of new and necessary transit alternatives. It would ultimately benefit all Americans by saving them gas money, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, alleviating traffic, and reducing pollution."

Environmental Defense Fund, a leading national nonprofit organization, represents more than 500,000 members. Since 1967, Environmental Defense Fund has linked science, economics, law and innovative private-sector partnerships to create breakthrough solutions to the most serious environmental problems. For more information, visit edf.org

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rytmitz December 12, 2008 9:48 pm (Pacific time)

there's nothing new about higher gas prices as it always been an issue ever since. And we are all affected! better alternatives is to use electric or hybrid vehicles with fuel saving additives than the fuel-dependent ones.

Henry Ruark July 21, 2008 8:20 am (Pacific time)

B.K. et al: Sorry if any ref. here ever appeared "boasting", when intent was to share some painful facts learned via deep involvement at many levels over too many decades. First lesson learned by any sensitive teacher is that the student must know and trust that teacher, which requires establishing credibility, leading to that trust. Would you suggest any other approach ? If so, on what basis do you found it ? Any experience, special training, further commercial background in production for learners ? Might try it here via share of your own life experience to build some credibility other than "universal whining". easy to do, simply mention en passant as in face-to-face conversation, for same purpose of establishing trust. Yours defies facts well established, obviously for own purposes. Unions do NOT shape nor control education OR issues; that's myth implanted by Reagan for political and personal purposes. LOCAL control is unique American principle from our earliest days, still reigns paramount, with all that means for curriculum AND funding responsibilities. State oversees, while the legislature sets standards, writes laws to establish them, and shares badly-failed responsibilities for moving enterprise into 21st Century, primarily via lack of usages now well established across the entire culture. Learner achievement is badly affected by what teachers must cope with, including weakened home environment, deep funding dissipations, and both culture and economic change. That's what hampers, slows, denies and thus defeats what many thousands of dedicated teachers and support personnel do every day, often then given only ignorant and insensitive appreciation by far too many whose own success stems from the very schools they now pillory, not that much different except for what change educators have been able to wreak while manipulated for political purposes. Like far too many Americans you have bought completely into precisely the perverted views your economic masters want you to accept while they plunder and pillory the heavy assets due education but converted to wasting wars and destructive other neocon policies. Your insights displayed here scrambled, insensitive, badly uninformed, and distorted; ID self to Tim and will list for you ten or so Op Eds dealing with each issue you mention, in deference to others here.

Bernard K July 21, 2008 7:15 am (Pacific time)

Seems that your educational background and association with public education is nothing to boast about when one looks at the current state of public education and what it once was decades ago. The performance level of our students coupled with their growing dropout rate is absurd. We need either a clean sweep of current leadership, or better yet, begin a voucher program and let true competition begin. The unions have demonstrated that their stranglehold on educational policy has brought about the current abysmal conditions. If you know of another reason, love to hear it Mr. Ruark.

Henry Ruark July 19, 2008 9:47 am (Pacific time)

Actually et al: Still was "farrago" for me...if that is revealing, so be it. Re degree, mine are M.Ed. Oregon State, D.Ed. Indiana abd. Left dissert. to become first information director for national association in D.D., never looked back, ended up with ten-years OrDeptEd, ten more in Chicago consultant/writer on learning media. SO ? Critical opinion is just that...no need ever to justify except via characteristics of critic...which you now have. Worked with famed USC-later expert in learning process, at I.U., did national mag articles with him. "Farrago" ain't bad-word; means " a motley assortment of things", which seems to me fair enough for that one...

Actually July 18, 2008 7:18 pm (Pacific time)

Frankly speaking was a straight forward opinion piece in a comment section. I enjoyed it. There was clarity. I have a Doctorate in Behavioral Science from UC Berkely, so I am hard to enertain/impress. I believe this is boilerplate Ann Coulter.

Henry Ruark July 18, 2008 11:43 am (Pacific time)

F-S et al: What a farrago of nonsense and nonentity-talk built on misapprehension, further distorted misinformation and misogny. Nothing "frank" herein, but sloppily-done propaganda relay perhaps assisted by painful case of dispepsy, obviously due to continuing deeply frustrated political experience brought on by the unavoidable necessity of observing collapse of whatever minute basis there ever was for what is basically neocon rant... SO go swallow a handful to Tums, and massage b/button or other parts as you feel now demanded...

Frankly Speaking July 17, 2008 11:00 am (Pacific time)

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or as she is called on the Big Dogs blog, "the worst speaker in the history of Congress," explained the cause of high oil prices back in 2006: "We have two oilmen in the White House. The logical follow-up from that is $3-a-gallon gasoline. It is no accident. It is a cause and effect. A cause and effect." Yes, that would explain why the price of oral sex, cigars and Hustler magazine skyrocketed during the Clinton years. Also, I note that Speaker Pelosi is a hotelier ... and the price of a hotel room in New York is $1,000 a night! I think she might be onto something. Is that why a barrel of oil costs mere pennies in all those other countries in the world that are not run by "oilmen"? Wait -- it doesn't cost pennies to them? That's weird. In response to the 2003 blackout throughout the Northeast U.S. and parts of Canada, Pelosi blamed: "President Bush and Rep. Tom DeLay's oil-company interests." The blackout was a failure of humans operating electric power; it had nothing to do with oil. And I'm not even "an oilman." But yes -- good point: What a disaster having people in government who haven't spent their entire lives in politics! That explains everything. A government official with relevant experience or knowledge about an issue is obviously a crisis of gargantuan proportions. This must be why the Democrats are nominating B. Hussein Obama, who finished middle school three days ago and has less experience than a person one might choose at random from the audience of "American Idol." Announcing the Democrats' bold new "plan" on energy last week, Pelosi said breaking into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve "is one alternative." That's not an energy plan. It's using what we already have -- much like "conservation," which is also part of the Democrats' plan. Conservation, efficiency and using oil we hold in reserve for emergencies does not get us more energy. It's as if we were running out of food and the Democrats were telling us: "Just eat a little less every day." Great! We'll die a little more slowly. That's not what we call a "plan." We need more energy, not a plan for a slower death. But there's more! Pelosi announced that the Democrats also plan to push for "an historic investment in biofuels, efficiency, conservation and the rest." The "rest" is apparently what she called our "important and essential" investment in alternative energy. That certainly would be historic: We would make history by throwing our money away on unproven energy boondoggles that have eaten up untold billions since the 1960s without producing a single net kilowatt of power while we all starve to death. The proposal to use energy sources that don't yet produce any energy is like the old New Yorker cartoon with Obama in Muslim garb -- no wait, that was a different cartoon. The cartoon is: A scientist has written out his extremely complicated theory on a blackboard and is showing it to another scientist. The theory consists of numbers and characters and takes up the entire blackboard. About two-thirds of the way across, reading left to right, appear the words, "then a miracle happens," followed by more numbers and characters. That's the Democrats' plan to run cars on biofuels, solar and wind power: Then a miracle happens. The current Democratic mantra on energy is: "We can't drill our way out of this problem." Apparently their plan is to talk our way out of this problem. Democrats are also alleging that the oil companies are sitting on millions of acres of oil but are refusing to drill -- presumably because oil company executives hate the American people and perversely don't want to make money. Manifestly, those acres are being explored for oil or have already come up dry. If the Democrats really wanted oil companies to find more oil, they'd allow oil companies to drill offshore and to drill in ANWR, which we happen to know is bursting with oil. But they don't. They don't want drilling. They don't want more oil. They want humans to ride bicycles and then to die. We deserve it: We were mean to the polar bears. It's good to know that in the middle of a crisis, the Democrats are still liars. As long as we're fantasizing about "alternative" energy sources, what we really need is a car that runs on Democrats' lies.

sts July 17, 2008 7:41 am (Pacific time)

herding everyone into the control grid city, and making them reliant on government services. how quaint

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