It is a shame, but not a surprise, that George W. Bush didn't try to capitalize on 9/11 to try to encourage reducing our dependency on foreign oil.

If sold as part of the sacrifices we have to make to fight back against Al Qaeda, you could probably have pushed a $1 or $2/gallon gas tax, which would have helped slow demand and raised revenue that could have either helped pay for tax cuts (which would have been better targeted to working class people affected most by a regressive gas tax increase, but I digress...) or infrastructure improvements, such as the rail you mentioned above.

The International Energy Agency is cutting its long-term oil supply forecasts, which implies higher prices as demand continues to grow. As India, China, and Brazil continue to modernize, their consumption is likely to rise, faster than our own.

CAFE standards have to be raised. As long as U.S. automakers are getting hit hard anyway, now would be a good time for a public/private partnership to invest in a crash R&D program for near-term delivery of more gasoline-efficient engines and vehicles.

Alternative-fuel engines likewise need immediate development, a la the cars used in Brazil.

Light rail, alternative biomass, wind, solar and fusion reserach could all use a boost, as well. But the problem boils down to one thing: Iraq is siphoning off all our money that we need for infrastructure development and research.

As a side note, a few weeks back I went on a short vacation and took the train. About 800 km (500 miles or so), three countries - Germany, Austria, Czech Republic.

I was mildly surprised that in all three countries, I saw new tracks being laid, likely high-speed capable, and I saw train stations restored and upgraded. Almost as if someone was thinking ahead (which is highly unlikely!).

A future resource war in the Middle East is a frightening possibility. However, I'm sure we'll be well out of oil by then. Plus you need some measure of security to drill oil. We can barely keep the oil wells in Iraq pumping without pipelines and the wells themselves being attacked. I don't think the people of the Middle East would be willing to just sit around while we punk them for oil.

Btw...this site posted by another contributor earlier blog. http://www.sierraclub.org/wecandoit/home/electric_cars.asp
It's an electric car powered by the solar panels of a person's house. Not only do the solar panels gather enough energy to charge the car, but they power the house! I want one! If I just had $45,000K...

Jet fuel is the highest refined, and most costly, of all the petroleum energy products.

I believe this is just wrong. Jet fuel essentially is like kerosene but cleaned up a bit. It's doesn't take a lot of steps to make i.e. it's not highly refined. The refining process isn't all that costly which isn't to say it isn't pricey. The price of jet fuel will probably kill (not bankrupt) at least one airline by the end of the year.

New breeds of cars like the Axon might go a long way toward cutting demand for oil. Carbon fiber construction can cut the weight of a vehicle in half; the Axon weighs 400 kg, or less than 1000 lbs, and gets 80-100 mpg on its 40hp engine.

While I agree with Ripper McCord that we need upgraded CAFE standards, the fact is that we've already passed higher standards, and they are going into effect slowly in the coming years.

Too slowly.

An aggressive mandate can cause a vehicle fleet to turnover in about five years. Brazil had to institute such a mandate around the turn of the century to get everyone driving ethanol-optional cars. As I recall, they didn't have too many problems. Now look at them; they're world leaders in biofuel production. Not that cane-ethanol doesn't have its own critiques, but here at least we see an energy policy that worked, reduced oil demand significantly, and executed a rapid fleet turnover.

We could do the same thing with a more aggressive set of CAFE standards. Instead of bringing the US to a par-with-the-world CAFE of 35 mpg by 2020, we do it much faster, say by 2013; we can provide tax incentives and/or writeoffs for people who need to buy new cars to comply with higher fuel economy standards. Just think of where we'd be if we'd all been driving Geo Metros for the last twenty years.

I agree with CT that we need to make changes, and fast, to address the energy problem. I say if we want to keep our cars, we've all got to start looking at getting the most economy out of the existing infrastructure and technology. That means we embrace driving small, light cars if we want to keep filling them with gasoline. Otherwise, it's probably back to rail travel for all of us in the not-too-distant future.

I see all these SUV's on the road with their "For Sale" signs and think back to that time of fat Bush tax deductions for buying fat cars. Bush could have started to do something about this problem at that time and did the exact opposite.

BTW Ford isn't just cutting back on production of SUVs. They're coming to a screeching halt on production. They won't make another SUV or big pick up truck for the rest of the year.

And on that note it's time to start drinking.