Americans need to shed their gas addiction

Stacy Standley, Las Vegas

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 | 2:03 a.m.

We are obsessed with our “birthright” to cheap gas and the right to drive monster vehicles. And, when confronted with the reality of market-priced gas, we recoil against big energy and the government and then demand subsidies for relief, just so we can go on driving energy-abusive cars and continue to use more than our share of the world’s energy — by a large margin.

The reality is that we have had it too good for too long and now it is coming home to roost. President Reagan let the automakers off the hook when he bowed to their demands to soften the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards because the oil crisis of the ’70s was over. They have never looked back, and we are still paying the price.

The rest of the world lives with expensive gasoline. French drivers pay $8.04, in London a gallon sets you back $8.38 and in Norway they pay $8.73. Even in India, with a per capita income equal to a food stamp subsidy in the United States, drivers pay $4.50.

An interesting point is that Norway, at $8.73 a gallon, is completely self-sufficient in oil production and is the world’s third-largest exporter of oil after Saudi Arabia and Russia! So dream on about desecrating the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and our fragile ocean bottoms — they are not the answer to cheap oil.

It is time for Americans to get real and face up to the facts of life — the free energy lunch is over. We have a choice. Demand efficient vehicles and alternative transit modes — Norway, once again, leads the way with a 300-mile highway with hydrogen fueling stations (that’s farther than Las Vegas to Los Angeles), and hydrogen cars are sold in the country.

So to all you Hummer-heads and Esca-ladies, you bought the gas-guzzlers — pay the man at the pump or get energy smart and quit whining.