By this standard, gas is cheap

When someone rolls up to the gas pump next to you in a behemoth that's a black hole for fossil fuels, at least you have the satisfaction that at least they're having to pay a lot more than you for fuel.

Not really.

You're actually subsidizing that driver's gas guzzling life in paradise. And under the most aggressive scenarios, you and fellow drivers are paying more for that gas than they are.

An International Center for Technology Assessment study suggests that immense government subsidies for fossil fuels mean American consumers pay much of the cost of their gasoline through taxes rather than their gas company credit cards.

And that means that even if you're working hard to conserve, you're paying disproportionately for those who overconsume.

The status of the “real” price of gas is of interest in the face of new federal energy legislation, which the federal government had to water down to get through Congress and to gain a Presidential signature. Does it finally level the playing field with respect to the true costs of fossil fuels versus alternatives?

The House version would have added taxes that might balance some of the tax-breaks and subsidies to the oil companies, but the taxes were dropped in the face of Senate opposition.

We weren't able to find a current study of the true cost of gas, so the up-to-date numbers may be somewhat different than the ones we found, but they're a nice example.

The International Center for Technology Assessment, in “The Real Price of Gasoline,” a study that's now nearly a decade old but was updated in 2005, found that government has established a multi-tiered subsidy program that reduces significantly the price consumers pay at the pump for gasoline.

That doesn't mean you're not paying the full price, just that the sucking sound comes from costs beyond the pump—like when you're paying your taxes.

(See the 1998 study and the 2005 update under publications at www.icta.org.)

Among the study's listed subsidies to oil companies are the percentage depletion allowance, nonconventional fuel production credit, immediate expensing of exploration and development costs, enhanced oil recovery credit, foreign tax credits, foreign income deferral, accelerated depreciation allowances, and more, They add up to billions upon billions of bucks.

The report says that since most states base their taxation on federal calculations, those benefits also apply when the fuel firms calculate their state income taxes.

“Provisions in the tax code reflect unparalleled government support of the oil industry and significantly distort...the real price of gasoline,” the report says.

Still, all those subsidies only amount to a few pennies per gallon.

The report says the bigger subsidy is in the government's support of highways, waterways and harbors to promote the transport and use of petroleum fuels, government costs of oil spill cleanup, government sale of oil leases at cheap prices, the government and public costs associated with air pollution caused by the burning of the fuels, the costs of dealing with climate change and so forth. It goes on and on.

If you toss in all the subsidies and costs—and admittedly, you could make a strong argument for not including at least some of those costs—it adds up to hundreds of billions of dollars. And if those costs were included at the pump, a gallon of gas—in 1998—would have cost from a low of $5.60 to a high of $15.14 per gallon. The 2005 update, which adds the costs of the Iraq war and others, adds 20 or 30 cents to that.

The difference between the actual and unsubsidized price represents the indirect tax consumers pay for fuel. You also pay direct taxes at the pump. The American Petroleum Institute in a July 2007 report says the national average tax on fuel is 46.9 cents a gallon. API listed Hawaii as sixth highest in the nation at 51 cents a gallon. (See data on fuel taxes and other issues at the API website, www.api.org.)

Understandably, the petroleum industry argues that it's paying plenty of taxes and it argues against changing the playing field.

Says a statement on its website:

“In 2004, America's major oil and natural gas companies paid an estimated $48.36 billion in income tax. In addition, these companies collected over $45 billion in excise taxes in 2004 on behalf of the IRS. Additional taxes and fees imposed on the industry include gross production or severance taxes, import duties, and property, sales, and use taxes. U.S.-based petroleum companies must compete in the global oil and gas market to ensure a stable supply here at home. Taxes can affect our companies' ability to stay competitive in the world market.”

Does the artificial deflation of pump-paid fuel cost affect things like driving and automotive choices? What if you paid the real cost of fuel at the pump rather than paying it through income taxes and other costs? The international example suggests costs can drive changes in behavior.

Parts of Europe are familiar with gas in the $6-per-gallon range. In England last year, prices were closer to $7 a gallon.

One result? Europeans buy cars with nearly double the average fuel economy of those in the U.S. The average fuel economy in Europe is more than 40 miles a gallon, while ours is in the 20s.

Even the new federal energy bill will only push U.S. fuel economy up into the 30s by 2020.

The next time you suffer sticker shock when you see the price of gas at the pump, take a deep breath. Chances are, that price is cheap compared with what you're actually paying.

© 2007 Jan W. TenBruggencate

Gas is cheap

When someone rolls up to the gas pump next to you in a behemoth that's a black hole for fossil fuels, at least you have the satisfaction that at least they're having to pay a lot more than you for fuel.

Not really.

You're actually subsidizing that driver's gas guzzling life in paradise. And under the most aggressive scenarios, you and fellow drivers are paying more for that gas than they are.

An International Center for Technology Assessment study suggests that immense government subsidies for fossil fuels mean American consumers pay much of the cost of their gasoline through taxes rather than their gas company credit cards.

And that means that even if you're working hard to conserve, you're paying disproportionately for those who overconsume.

The status of the “real” price of gas is of interest in the face of new federal energy legislation, which the federal government had to water down to get through Congress and to gain a Presidential signature. Does it finally level the playing field with respect to the true costs of fossil fuels versus alternatives?

The House version would have added taxes that might balance some of the tax-breaks and subsidies to the oil companies, but the taxes were dropped in the face of Senate opposition.

We weren't able to find a current study of the true cost of gas, so the up-to-date numbers may be somewhat different than the ones we found, but they're a nice example.

The International Center for Technology Assessment, in “The Real Price of Gasoline,” a study that's now nearly a decade old but was updated in 2005, found that government has established a multi-tiered subsidy program that reduces significantly the price consumers pay at the pump for gasoline.

That doesn't mean you're not paying the full price, just that the sucking sound comes from costs beyond the pump—like when you're paying your taxes.

(See the 1998 study and the 2005 update under publications at www.icta.org.)

Among the study's listed subsidies to oil companies are the percentage depletion allowance, nonconventional fuel production credit, immediate expensing of exploration and development costs, enhanced oil recovery credit, foreign tax credits, foreign income deferral, accelerated depreciation allowances, and more, They add up to billions upon billions of bucks.

The report says that since most states base their taxation on federal calculations, those benefits also apply when the fuel firms calculate their state income taxes.

“Provisions in the tax code reflect unparalleled government support of the oil industry and significantly distort...the real price of gasoline,” the report says.

Still, all those subsidies only amount to a few pennies per gallon.

The report says the bigger subsidy is in the government's support of highways, waterways and harbors to promote the transport and use of petroleum fuels, government costs of oil spill cleanup, government sale of oil leases at cheap prices, the government and public costs associated with air pollution caused by the burning of the fuels, the costs of dealing with climate change and so forth. It goes on and on.

If you toss in all the subsidies and costs—and admittedly, you could make a strong argument for not including at least some of those costs—it adds up to hundreds of billions of dollars. And if those costs were included at the pump, a gallon of gas—in 1998—would have cost from a low of $5.60 to a high of $15.14 per gallon. The 2005 update, which adds the costs of the Iraq war and others, adds 20 or 30 cents to that.

The difference between the actual and unsubsidized price represents the indirect tax consumers pay for fuel. You also pay direct taxes at the pump. The American Petroleum Institute in a July 2007 report says the national average tax on fuel is 46.9 cents a gallon. API listed Hawaii as sixth highest in the nation at 51 cents a gallon. (See data on fuel taxes and other issues at the API website, www.api.org.)

Understandably, the petroleum industry argues that it's paying plenty of taxes and it argues against changing the playing field.

Says a statement on its website:

“In 2004, America's major oil and natural gas companies paid an estimated $48.36 billion in income tax. In addition, these companies collected over $45 billion in excise taxes in 2004 on behalf of the IRS. Additional taxes and fees imposed on the industry include gross production or severance taxes, import duties, and property, sales, and use taxes. U.S.-based petroleum companies must compete in the global oil and gas market to ensure a stable supply here at home. Taxes can affect our companies' ability to stay competitive in the world market.”

Does the artificial deflation of pump-paid fuel cost affect things like driving and automotive choices? What if you paid the real cost of fuel at the pump rather than paying it through income taxes and other costs? The international example suggests costs can drive changes in behavior.

Parts of Europe are familiar with gas in the $6-per-gallon range. In England last year, prices were closer to $7 a gallon.

One result? Europeans buy cars with nearly double the average fuel economy of those in the U.S. The average fuel economy in Europe is more than 40 miles a gallon, while ours is in the 20s.

Even the new federal energy bill will only push U.S. fuel economy up into the 30s by 2020.

The next time you suffer sticker shock when you see the price of gas at the pump, take a deep breath. Chances are, that price is cheap compared with what you're actually paying.

© 2007 Jan W. TenBruggencate

Sex, evolution and picture-wing flies

In what was certainly a harrowing voyage, a tiny fly 26 million years ago made the trip across the ocean to what is now Hawai'i.

(Photo: Some of the diversity in wing patterns of Hawaiian picture-wing flies. Image courtesy Ken Kaneshiro.)

It would have been a different place then. The atolls that are now Midway and Kure would have been where the Hawaiian Islands are today. Now, they're more than 1,000 miles to the northwest of Kaua'i. (See www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html for more on the geography.)

Many of the plants and creatures that later were found in the Islands weren't here yet.

That single fly thrived, evolved to feed on the available food sources, and eventually flew or blew from island to island as new islands erupted, evolving further as it went.

Today genetic studies suggest there are close to 1,000 distinct species of the fly genus Drosophila that are found only in Hawai'i, and all of which are believed to have descended from that single fly.

It's an amazing amount of genetic change in a very short period. That diverse assemblage of closely related species is a goldmine for the study of evolution, and in the latest step, researchers have been comparing genetic markers with the wing patterns on one group of the Hawaiian Drosophila.

That group, perhaps the most famous, is known as the picture-wing flies. The different species can sometimes be distinguished from each other by the patterns of dark and light on their tiny wings.

The work was published earlier this year under the title, “A Database of Wing Diversity in the Hawaiian Drosophila,” in PloS ONE, a peer-reviewed online publication of the Public Library of Science. The authors are Kevin A. Edwards of Illinois State University and Daisuke Yamamoto of Tohoku University in Japan, and at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Center for Conservation Research and training, Linden T. Doescher and Kenneth Y. Kaneshiro.

It's all about flies, but from a broader scientific standpoint, this research is about learning how to link differences in the physical appearance of things to the genetic basis of those differences.

Researchers have been studying the Hawaiian flies for a generation, but even with these small, simple creatures, there's lots to learn. One key thing: Why did all those wings develop those distinct patterns? Scientists believe there must have been a reason that has something to do with their survival—maybe it's camouflage or perhaps a certain pattern has a link to sexual attractiveness, but researchers arent

sure.

“Without a firm grasp on their functional relevance in the wild, it is difficult to assess why the patterns have diversified so extensively. We speculate that...the patterns strike a balance between the need to hide from predators and the need to attract mates,” the authors write.

Among the findings is that very small changes at the genetic level can result in dramatic differences in actual appearance. The wings display an amazing variation of spots and dots, stripes and swirls, patterns like scales and ones with feather-like shadings.

Still, Kaneshiro said the bigger question for genetics is how this fly managed to evolve so dramatically in “such a short period of evolutionary time.”

Kaneshiro's groundbreaking genetic work suggests that much of the diversity in Drosophila can be explained by sexual selection—the tendency of females to select mates based on certain characteristics, thus favoring those characteristics in the resulting population. That kind of selection may have been key to the early development of the Drosophila after their arrival in the islands, he said ina n email.

“Sexual selection appears to have played a much more important role at least during the initial stages of speciation, in the generation of novel genetic recombinants, upon which the forces of natural selection can act during adaptation to new habitats,” Kaneshiro said.

A dozen of the 112 species of picture-wings are on the federal endangered species list—one listed threatened and 11 endangered.

© 2007 Jan W. TenBruggencate

Climate change to disrupt marine life generally, and fisheries

Marine life follows oceanic temperature bands, nutrient-rich areas and current flows—but how will all those things change in a changing climate?

(Photo: Hawksbill turtles are among the top predators whose reactions to climate change will be studied. NOAA photo.)

Researchers aren't sure, but what they are sure about is that as the ocean changes, the habits of marine creatures will, as well.

“Oceanic top predators respond to changes in their environment by changing their behavior and shifting their distribution,” said John Sibert, manager of the Pelagic Fisheries Research Program at the University of Hawai'i.

The could mean significant disruptions in locations of fisheries as well as the ability of the oceans to produce food.

“Ocean ecosystems may experience changes in the relative abundance of different species, as well as changes in overall productivity. This can have major economic impacts and may determine the food security of many coastal communities in the developing countries of the world,” Sibert said.

Hawai'i researchers joined 150 international scientists in Mexico this month to launch a 10-year research project to try to get a handle on the changes. It has the acronym CLIOTOP, for Climate Impacts on Oceanic Top Predators.

Their goal is to study the impacts of climate change on tuna, billfish, shark, whale, dolphin, sea turtle and seabird species.

They'll be looking at air and sea temperatures, wind changes, ocean currents and rainfall.

Sibert, who helped organize the CLIOTOP symposium and serves on its steering committee, said oceanic changes are likely to affect feeding, migration, population size and much more.

The threat” “Global warming may lead to severe contraction of favorable reproductive zones for some species of tunas that will have larger effects than fisheries on tuna stocks by the end of the 21st century,” Sibert said.

© 2007 Jan W. TenBruggencate

For more information see web.pml.ac.uk/globec/structure/regional/cliotop/cliotop.htm

Where's Hawai'i in fuel economy battle?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, insisting that it has auto fuel economy well under control, has refused to allow 17 states to demand more.

California, at least, says it will appeal. Other states can be expected to join in.

Hawai'i, arguably a state with the most to gain, is ironically not participating in this little example of “think globally, act locally.” That's despite having some of the highest fuel prices in the nation, having an economy critically dependent on fossil fuel imports, a coastline now eroding due in part to climate change, immense traffic problems, parking space issues statewide and so on.

The New York Times listed three arguments used by EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson to support the agency's decision to ban state action.

1. The state rules are pre-empted by federal authority.

2. The new federal energy bill, which President Bush signed, makes the issue moot.

3. And furthermore, “The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution, and not a confusing patchwork of state rules. I believe this is a better approach than if individual states were to act alone,” he said

Never mind that the EPA has approved virtually all previous California waivers of the Clean Air Bill, that no “clear national solution” has been described, and that the new rules, watered down to gain passage in the Senate, don't go nearly as far as some of the states wanted to go.

The Congress brought the U.S. to automotive fuel economy of 35 miles a gallon by 2020.

Auto makers say they're working hard on improvement fuel economy, but it's not as if this is going to take a monumental technological leap. In Europe, average fuel economy is 20 percent higher than that right now.

The states demanding more fuel economy in cars are Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Utah and Washington. They represent something like half the cars in the nation.

Several of those states have some of the highest fuel costs in the nation (see below for a link to state-by-state fuel costs), although emissions rather than fuel cost is the primary target of mileage standards. Hawai'i, which currently the highest-priced gasoline in the country, is notably missing in the group insisting on tough fuel economy standards.

California says it will appeal the EPA decision: "California sued to compel the agency to act on our waiver, and now we will sue to overturn today's decision and allow Californians to protect our environment," said a statement from the office of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The California fuel economy plan would have taken that state's fleet to close to the European level of fuel economy by 2016. Twelve states have already adopted the California standard.

“Let's be clear; the California standard is stronger and more effective than the 35 mpg floor established in the new energy bill," said David Doniger, climate center policy director for the National Resources Defense Council.

In a statement on the NRDC website, Doniger added: “California is suffering severe impacts from global warming. Mr. Johnson's 'policy preference' for a different approach is exactly the kind of illegal free-lancing the Supreme Court rejected in its landmark April decision on global warming.”

The auto industry earlier tried to block state-by-state fuel standards, but a federal judge in September 2007 threw out their suit, saying he wasn't convinced that they couldn't meet the California requirements.

President Bush, in a press conference, seemed committed to a national energy strategy: "The question is how to have an effective strategy. Is it more effective to let each state make a decision as to how to proceed in curbing greenhouse gases, or is it more effective to have a national strategy?”

The Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, which represents the major car makers, insists its members consider fuel economy a priority, but that the states have no right to establish fuel economy standards independent of the federal government. In a statement issued today (Dec. 20, 2007), AIAM president Michael Stanton said:

“AIAM supports efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improve fuel economy but believes strongly that it is the federal government’s responsibility to establish one uniform national fuel economy standard rather than permit a patchwork of state laws. We look forward to working with EPA and other federal agencies to develop nationwide GHG emissions regulations for motor vehicles that will more effectively address global warming and climate change concerns related to CO2 emissions from automobiles.”
© 2007 Jan W. TenBruggencate
Some numbers: According to the AAA's fuel cost report updated to Dec. 20, 2007, (www.fuelgaugereport.com/sbsavg.asp), Hawai'i's price for regular gasoline was the highest in the nation, leading California by nearly 20 cents and Connecticut by a quarter.