>I've been a little curious about why this issue is, in the
>discussions of the past year or so, mainly framed in terms of taxing
>gasoline rather than in terms of taxing gas-guzzling vehicles.
>Taxing fuel is no doubt a sensible way to encourage conservation
>over the long run, but as listmembers have rightly pointed out, the
>impact is regressive. But I would guess that a tax on SUVs would be
>much more progressive, and would have a much faster impact on the
>average fuel efficiency of vehicles on the road.
Excellent point, but there are so many aspects to American excess. Not only do we drive less efficient vehicles than the rest of the world, we drive them more and are more likely to take solo trips. So a gas-guzzler tax would hit one aspecct of the problem, but leave the others untouched. You have to change the math on locational decisions and density practices, as a higher gas tax is one way to get that started.
Re: the chicken/egg problem, the US can't reduce its energy consumption without changing our spatial layout. So pointing to the spatial layout as a way of saying that higher energy costs would be impossible isn't a refutation, it's a confirmation of the problem.
Doug