America is too dependent on oil, and consumers are paying the price at the pump.  Oil and gasoline prices have been rising steadily over the last few years, with Hurricane Katrina helping to push these prices through the roof.  Consumers will be hit hard again this winter, with home heating costs estimated to be 71% higher than last year.  Congress should help solve this problem by ensuring that our cars and trucks go farther on a gallon of gasoline and enacting other policies to save oil, reduce energy costs, and protect consumers from price gouging.  Unfortunately, Congress is taking just the opposite path.

H.R. 3893, the so-called “Gasoline for America’s Security Act of 2005,” would imperil public health and safety, while doing nothing to reduce gas prices or increase energy security.  Under the guise of hurricane relief, the bill advances a longstanding industry agenda to roll back key provisions of the Clean Air Act that have no connection either to the hurricanes or to expediting construction of new refinery capacity, the bill’s stated purpose.

Among the bill’s most harmful clean air rollbacks are those related to the New Source Review program, smog clean-up deadlines, and clean fuels.  The bill would essentially repeal NSR, the key tool for cleaning up old, dirty power plants and other industrial facilities, by allowing these facilities to expand or upgrade in ways that increase pollution without ever installing modern pollution controls.  The bill would also delay deadlines to meet national health standards for smog in some of our most polluted cities until as late as 2019, exposing residents to unsafe levels of smog for many years to come.  And the bill would derail the cleanup of the nation’s diesel trucks, buses, trains, and heavy equipment that is slated to begin next summer.

Amazingly, the bill contains new subsidies for the oil industry, even as oil companies are reporting record profits.  For example, the bill contains a potentially unlimited taxpayer subsidy for oil companies if a refinery is delayed because of litigation, even if the litigation results from the oil company violating the law.  The bill also weakens enforcement provisions of the Federal Trade Commission Act by limiting the penalty a company would have to pay for price gouging to $11,000 per day—regardless of the scope of the gouging.