Word: higher
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...comment on the state of the politics of energy that consumers must pay even higher prices for oil products at a time when oil companies are making near-record profits. Decontrol is, unfortunately, one of the few options open to a president concerned with reducing American dependance on foreign oil. Although the Senate Energy Committee passed a standby rationing proposal, more stringent measures, though desirable, are politically unfeasible. The failure of Carter's 1977 energy proposals and the imminent watering-down if not complete destruction of his windfall tax proposals serve as ample evidence that the strong oil lobby within...
...energy policies. In addition to producing limited increases in conservation and domestic oil production, decontrol should have the additional effect of further alerting the public to the gravity of the present energy situation. Longterm solutions to the energy problem can only come when voters see the crisis in energy; higher oil prices are, sad to say, apparently necessary...
...costs of decontrol far outweigh its minimal benefits. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that it will cost consumers a staggering $16 billion annually in higher prices, not to speak of a higher rate of inflation throughout the economy. And the distribution of this cost will fall most heavily on the elderly and the poor, who spend a greater proportion of their income on fuel...
Proponents of decontrol contend that higher oil prices will induce consumers to conserve energy. But the demand for oil is highly inelastic: price increases do not lead to a proportionate decline in use. From 1973 to the present, the price of home heating oil increased by 184 percent; but instead of falling as the theory would predict, consumption rose 17 percent. The CBO estimates that by 1985 decontrol will reduce current levels of consumption by, at best, a meagre 1.7 percent...
...SENSIBLE WAY to encourage conservation is to attack the causes of high consumption: for instance, uninsulated homes and offices, huge investments in highway systems, and utility rate structures that reward large energy consumers. Higher prices have proven themselves an ineffective and costly method of forcing conservation...