Blue Highways: Is Driving Patriotic?

(MoneyWatch)  One of the most interesting developments in the current recession is that the vehicle miles traveled by Americans is still down considerably (a 1.6 percent drop in December from the year before), despite the fact that pump prices have been stuck at half last year's $4 a gallon peak (though they're edging up).

According to Doug Hecox, a spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration, the motivation for the driving decline seems to have morphed seamlessly from oil price shock to the effects of the economic downturn. People without jobs don't drive to work. The millions of jobless Americans are also contributing to slowing growth in transit use.

A "Talk of the Town" essay in The New Yorker this week presents a somewhat Manichean view of economic and environmental realities. "How do we persuade people to drive less--an environmental necessity--while also encouraging them to revive our staggering economy by buying new cars?" writes David Owen.

Does an answer lie in convincing people to switch to hybrid cars, which lower the environmental cost of driver miles? Not necessarily, Owen says, because the better fuel economy of hybrids may encourage some people to drive more than they otherwise would, erasing any bottom-line gains.

"Increases in fuel efficiency could be bad for the environment unless they're accompanied by powerful disincentives that force drivers to find alternatives to hundred-mile commutes," Owen writes. "And a national carbon policy, if it's to have a real impact, will almost certainly need to bring American fuel prices back to at least where they were at their peak in the summer of 2008."

So there it is. Yes, $4 a gallon gas is a net environmental positive--it killed the Hummer and the Ford Excursion--even though it's a drag on almost every aspect of our oil-driven economy. A carbon tax would be the simplest way to push gas prices up, but it's politically untenable even in the Obama administration. A $3 price floor for gasoline--with taxes kicking in when market prices dipped--would be a considerable energizer for alternative energy projects and electric cars, but also unpalatable for elected officials contemplating re-election.

I think Owen too quickly dismisses the benefits of EVs by noting that "the electricity that they run on has to be generated somewhere--" The electricity trains run on has to be generated somewhere, too, and studies show that efficient plug-in cars use a fraction of the energy per mile of their gasoline-powered brethren.

The great challenge of our time is to restart America's economic engine while simultaneously reducing our carbon footprint. There are hard decisions every step of the way, and the imperatives of our angry planet aren't making it easy for us.

Flickr photoRichard Masoner