Academia versus politics?
I’m thrilled about Obama’s pick of Steven Chu for Secretary of Energy. In case you haven’t heard, he’s an experimental atomic physicist and Berkeley professor, as well as current director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Oh, and he won a Nobel Prize. I’m glad that someone with scientific expertise — and lots of it! — will be in Obama’s cabinet.
I’ve been simultaneously entertained and saddened, though, by the stories surrounding Chu’s training for his confirmation hearings. Erika Lovley at Politico reports:
While Chu’s appointment is expected to be fairly non-controversial, statements he made as an academic could come back to haunt him. Murkowski and other lawmakers, who have scoured his record, plan to raise concerns over comments that suggest he supports a steady increase in the federal gas tax over 15 years to adapt the country to more efficient vehicles.
Obama opposes a gas tax hike now, an area where experts warn Chu must be careful not to contradict the president-elect.
“A lot of academics held that belief, but it’s not something we think Republicans will support,” said Robert Dillon, spokesman for Murkowski.
It seems that back in September, Chu told the Wall Street Journal, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” and they’ve just now gotten around to reporting on it. I understand that his views are more newsworthy now than they were before he was named Secretary of Energy, but perhaps for the same reason his advocacy will be tempered by the Democratic party platform. He’s not an idiot, guys.
More importantly, he’s right. Gasoline prices are ridiculously low in the US, especially when you compare to Europe. If the price is going to go up to $4 a gallon, it should be because of taxes, not because of sudden supply fluctuations. That way, the money goes to the government, which can spend it on research and innovation to help reduce the amount of gasoline we consume (or reduce other taxes to improve incentive structures), rather than oil companies, which will just use it to line the pockets of their CEOs.
Mostly, though, I just think it’s funny to hear that there is a consensus among energy experts and economists that a particular policy is the best, but that it’s not politically viable. Please, people, they’re called experts for a reason. Academia and politics shouldn’t be warring factions. Politicians should be listening to the people who have done the research and crunched the numbers, and should work on selling their recommendations to the public — rather than championing the public’s ignorant opinions in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary.