Pin The Blame

Seems like every time gas prices shoot up, Big Oil CEOs are summoned to Capitol Hill for a ritual hazing.

It's appropriate. We taxpayers are supporting Big Oil with billions in federal tax subsidies. CEOs should have to testify and justify their public windfall.

They can't of course, which is why majorities in both houses on Congress support repealing those subsidies to help invest in renewable energy. It's only not happening because the conservative minority in the Senate keeps filibustering the legislation.

Which is the point. Big Oil CEOs are taking the public beating today. But they are merely the beneficiaries of a rotten energy policy, not the cause.

OK, OK, they helped write the Bush-Cheney energy policy too.

But Washington conservatives in the White House and Congress are the ones that had the power to implement a backwards energy policy -- not based on the need for alternatives to dwindling, dirty oil, but on propping up Big Oil on our dime.

Pin the blame where it ultimately belongs, so we can take care the problem.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future