High gas prices and a generally spooky economy have curtailed Americans’ driving this summer, across Yonder most of all.

The Federal Highway Administration, releasing its national traffic figures for June 2008 reported a 4.7% decrease in driving since June 2007. According to the Chicago Tribune “Highway officials expected metropolitan areas to show the biggest decline because people have mass transit as an option, but it came in rural areas instead.” From June a year ago, driving on rural highway interstates fell 7%.

In the last year stocks of rural-based companies that benefit from high energy and farm commodity prices have soared. In the last several weeks, however, those same companies have seen some of their gains pared away.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin

As Republicans and Democrats debate whether the Texas oil man in the White House or the San Francisco liberal with the gavel in the U.S. House of Representatives is to blame for high gas prices, one senator is rejecting the premise of the dispute.

“Why do we run cars on gasoline?” U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin said in response to questions from Iowa Independent on a conference call with the media last week.

He added, “Why not have more electric cars?”

Harkin said he plans to introduce legislation requiring that every car manufactured in the United States is flexible-fuel capable — which would be a big boost for E85 ethanol, biodiesel and vehicles not tethered 100 percent to oil. Brazil has made flex-fuel cars a key part of its energy strategy, Harkin noted.

“We could do the same thing here in two years,” Harkin said. “In two years we could mandate that every car sold in America be flex fuel. That would do more in two years to bring down the price of gasoline than any other single thing we could do.”

Harkin said more oil drilling is not a long-term answer — and he thinks most Americans understand this. He noted that President Bush centered a State of the Union speech around the nation’s addiction to oil and its need to break it.

“If you’re addicted to oil it would seem to me the last thing you’d want to do is go out and start drilling for more oil,” Harkin said. “That’s just feeding your addiction.”

“There’s no question it’s the No. 1 issue,” said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

King said he represents thousands of rural constituents who use a gallon or more of gas every day to get to and from work. Their monthly gasoline costs threaten to surpass their rent payments, he said.

The 60-second ad, which is the first mass media buy of the 2008 4^th District congressional campaign, discusses Latham’s view that Congress needs to work immediately to increase domestic energy supplies.

Four-dollars-a-gallon gas hurts Iowa families, and they’re frustrated with leaders in Congress for not doing more about it – and they have every right to be.

I have always been and will continue to be a strong supporter of alternative energy research and production, but we need to work for solutions that get Iowans from point A to point B without busting their family budget.

It’s no surprise that Latham’s first ad out of the gate focuses on energy. In an interview with the Iowa Independent’s Douglas Burns early this week, Latham emphasized how important the issue is, saying the GOP can capitalize on high gas prices during the 2008 campaign.

Latham is a supporter of increased off-shore drilling and opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve for oil exploration. Critics have said both options would do little to lower America’s dependence on foreign oil or bring the price of energy down but would do irrevocable damage to the environment.

Latham faces Democrat Becky Greenwald and Independent William Meyers this fall. Most believe the race could be much closer than Latham’s previous reelection bids, as register Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in the district for the fist time since district lines were redrawn after the 2000 census.

In response to the ad, Greenwald’s campaign released a statement saying Latham is trying to use advertising to divert attention away from recent votes that stand in the way of reducing gas prices.

Unfortunately, Latham, like George Bush decided to play politics with gas prices. Last week, he voted against a bill that would release 70 million barrels of oil from the strategic oil reserve to bring relief from high gas prices. This bill would bring almost immediate relief to high gas prices. (H. Res. 6578)

And two weeks ago, Latham voted against a bill to force oil companies to drill on existing leases. There are 68 million acres of federal land already leased by oil companies. That is two times the size of the state of Iowa available for energy production that is now sitting idle. (H.R. 615)

Latham’s campaign said the early ad buy resulted from a successful fundraising year to date, out raising his opponents by a ten to one margin.

Latham, who represents Iowa’s sweeping 4th congressional district that runs from the Minnesota border down to the Des Moines area, faces Democrat Becky Greenwald of Perry in November.

U.S. Rep. Tom Latham

In an interview with Iowa Independent, Latham said voters will trust the GOP to rein in gas prices.

“Absolutely, there’s no doubt about it,” Latham said. “It will be a very clear distinction between what we stand for and the other party stands for.”

Latham said he supports alternative energy development and conservation. But that’s only part of the mix. The United States also needs to go after more domestic supplies of oil and natural gas. His office has been sending out a battery of news releases and information to that effect.

America’s bill for imported oil is expected to be over $700 billion this year, Latham said. Latham supports drilling in the outer continental shelf and a small slice of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve.

He said U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is blocking efforts to pursue more domestic exploration of natural gas and oil.

“She has publicly said in an interview in the last day or so that she would not allow a vote in the House of Representatives for increased domestic energy production and people are very upset that they’re paying up to $4 a gallon at the pump,” Latham said.

He noted that agricultural costs and food prices are clearly linked to oil.

“Yes, people understand and they will, I’ll guarantee you, understand what the problem is here as far as increasing production, and that’s the leadership with Nancy Pelosi,” Latham said.

He said a large majority of the House would support more domestic drilling, but Pelosi has allegiances “with what a lot of people consider to be extreme environmentalists.”

Moving to Iraq, Latham, who has visited that region three times, says there is reason for optimism.

“The surge has worked as evidenced by the lack of violence in Iraq today,” Latham said. “The political side is not going as quickly as we’d like to see, but there is no question that the surge has been a security success.”

He said Afghanistan will get more attention because that’s were al-Qaeda has been pushed.

“In a campaign, I think a lot of the folks that did not think [the surge in Iraq] would work are obviously on the wrong side of history,” Latham said. And he expects it to play a role in the upcoming campaign.

“Certainly the global war on terror is going to be an issue.”

“We have seen a gutless energy policy over the last 35 years,” Pedelty said.

That goes for both federal and state government, the mayor says.

As the city adapts to higher prices, Pedelty said, the local fallout could have been prevented back in the 1970s after the oil embargo.

Instead of allowing prices to fall then, the government should have taxed gas to fund a move to alternative energy, he added.“Then we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in today,” Pedelty said in an interview this week.

Pedelty, who has attended state transportation infrastructure meetings, thinks both Iowans and Americans should have swallowed some more modest, phased-in expenses through the years to improve roads and reduce dependence on foreign oil rather than waiting to get hit all at once.

In February, at a session in Jefferson with Iowa legislators, Pedelty and others pressed legislators on the gas-tax issue, with Pedelty wondering about the intelligence of the state tax staying flat at 21 cents a gallon for nearly two decades. What happens to state road revenues if gas hits $4 a gallon and fewer people are at the pumps, Pedelty wondered then.

Now we are there with some analysts predicting $5- a-gallon gas.

“I don’t think we’ll see them lower than this,” Pedelty said.

As far as the word on the ground in Carroll with gas prices is concerned today, there is some good news.

Two nuggets of pluses, in fact.

The city doesn’t have to pay federal and state taxes on gas, which amounts to about a 40-cent-per-gallon savings. What’s more, the prices started the steep climb in the summer, long after snowplows have been stored away.

So for the city it is better to have higher prices in the summer than winter “when we push snow all day,” Carroll Public Works Director Randy Krauel said.

Right now, Carroll City Manager Gerald Clausen said, Carroll city officials are working within budgets, absorbing escalating fuel costs by trimming or moving around dollars from other accounts.

“We have not encountered any problems yet relative to the cost of fuel,” Clausen said.

“We are able to live within our budget.”

Clausen said there have been conscious efforts to reduce driving time but the city has not cut services.

“I’m sure the public hasn’t noticed anything,” Clausen said.

City officials may make up the difference by, say, delaying a capital purchase like a computer.

This doesn’t mean the city won’t have to make budgetary or service changes in the future if prices continue to rise, perhaps hitting even $5 a gallon.

“If it continues it will put pressure on where we allocate our funds,” Clausen said.

To just look at what different departments in the city spend on gas doesn’t tell the whole story.

In April, the police department spent $2,078 on gas with an average price of $2.73 (remember, no federal and state taxes). Two years earlier, in April 2006, the police department spent $1,795 with an average price of $2.08.

But the costs borne by the city come in other forms as deliveries of products and services come with what amounts to a gas surcharge, an increase in the general cost of doing business in an oil-dependent American economy.

Here are results of the Ipsos Poll:

Among those who have changed their driving, the median gas price at which they did so was $3.20 per gallon, a level that was reached back in March.

As the price at the pump continues to rise, more and more Americans will be changing their driving habits: at $3.00 per gallon, 35% of Americans had changed their habits; by $4.00 per gallon – a reality in many parts of the U.S. already -, it will be 74%; and by $5.00 per gallon, 85% of all Americans will have changed their driving habits. However, one in ten Americans (9%) say they will never change their driving habits, regardless of the how high the price climbs.

Those who have already changed their driving habits are particularly prevalent among adults with a household income of less than $50,000 per year (73%), parents of children under 18 (72%), those living in the South (72%) and those saying the country is headed on the wrong track (71%).

He so desperately wants to be in the country club crowd that he’s willing to say anything, do the bidding of the cocktail-and-croquet crowd, just to get into the front doors of the aptly named Bushwood (the name of the club in the 1980 movie).

King will even turn on his own just-folks working-class roots and make excuses for the oil industry, the Texas Tea Boys, over Iowa’s ethanol producers — the people he’s supposed to champion.

His bootlicking for Big Oil is so bad that King is now making excuses for the high price of gasoline, excuses that not even top oil officials used in a recent BusinessWeek story.

Record oil-company profits, opportunistic station owners and greedy Middle Easterners are widely viewed as the collective culprits behind higher prices at the gas pumps.

King, an Iowa Republican who frequently dismisses conventional wisdom  in favor of fantasy, says consumers searching for villains behind soaring gas prices should look to “liberal environmentalists."

“Every day we are held hostage by environmental regulations that lead to high gas prices,” King says in an editorial published in some Iowa newspapers. “America is held hostage by environmental regulations that lead to high gas prices.”

Specifically, King believes liberals are preventing oil companies from building new refineries that would boost gas supply and reduce demand.

This is laughable. Big OIl has figured out a smarter way to use its profits to make more money. 

In an in-depth piece in BusinessWeek, Exxon Mobile Chairman and CEO Rex W. Tillerson says flatly that his company won’t build a new refinery in the United States. The CEO doesn’t rip the green movement at all. He says the company has internal research showing that domestic gasoline consumption will level off as renewable fuels play a greater role.

In 2006 Exxon generated $49 billion in operating cash flow, money that could go into refineries.

“With gas prices hitting record heights, Exxon Mobile Corp. ought to be drilling like mad and refining more of that black gold, right?” reports BusinessWeek. “As it turns out the world’s largest oil producer thinks it is smarter to use more of its resources to buy back stock. The indirect result: increased pain at the pump for consumers.”

The buybacks jack up profits and benefit from higher commodity prices.

Exxon is building a $3.5 billion refinery in China with partners because the company believes demand for gasoline is more stable there, according to BusinessWeek.

We could put King's theory to a test: We can have a corporate exec in a suit stand next to a sandal-wearing environmentalist at a gas station. When someone has to pay more than $50 to fill his tank he gets one free punch. He can slug either the greenie or the Big Oil fat cat.

Who do you think is going to need more ice for his face at the end of the day?

We know where the blame lies, and King's tired arguments about "liberals" and the easy fix of drilling in Alaska are fooling no one.

McCain, a leading GOP candidate for the presidency, dismissed the notion that rural Americans are doing a disproportionate share of the fighting and Iraq.

He also spoke briefly about his friend and rival for the GOP nomination, former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn.

The following is text of McCain’s responses to questions from Iowa Independent and the Associated Press.

Iowa Independent: Senator, on gas prices, that’s a big topic around western Iowa. Our congressman, Steve King, has sent out a statement and made comments saying he thinks its liberal environmentalists who are blocking the development of new refineries. If you talk to people at the pump, they think it is local people gouging them or oil companies with their record profits not taking any of the profits and investing in new refineries. Who should people be angry with when they are at the pump?

McCain: I think they should be upset about the entire situation which exists today, our dependency on foreign oil, our failure to move much more quickly on nuclear power and other alternative energy sources. I think it’s very obvious when there is a scarce commodity people will take advantage of that. But I don’t think that’s the root of the problem.

I think the root of the problem is we continue to have an increasing demand for a finite resource. India and China are now obviously taking more of that and other improving economies but we have to move toward reducing dependence on foreign oil and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear power, solar, wind, biofuels, ethanol, all kinds of ethanol, not just corn-based, but also sugar cane, switchgrass, etc. There’s a compelling national interest both from a national security standpoint but also from a climate standpoint. It hits hard on people who are on fixed incomes. I think it lends urgency for us to do it.

I hate to keep coming back to nuclear power. But the technology is there. The ability is there. Eighty percent of the French electricity is generated by nuclear power. We can do it. It’s a psychological problem more than anything else in my view and it’s a shame that we’re not moving more quickly in that direction. Is that the only answer? No. But it’s got the advantage of a large injection of energy and it reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Iowa Independent: On Iraq, a disproportionate number of the people serving are from rural areas, from small population counties, from cities under a certain population size. What are your thoughts on the burden rural America is shouldering in this war? In many ways it’s rural America’s foreign war. We just have so many people from our small towns and small counties serving in Iraq and the military today.

 McCain: I don’t think the numbers bear out that assertion. I think they’re from all over America. They’re not from the wealthiest Americans. I will admit that. I have no statistic that indicates they’re mostly from rural America.

 Associated Press: Other people in this race have criticized your immigration plan. How much of their criticism do you think is motivated by political opportunism?

McCain: All of it. As you well know, all other of the nine announced Republican candidates, including Senator (Fred) Thompson, have opposed this plan. My response to that is I respect your disagreement but what is your proposal?

What is your proposal that will be supported by the president, that will have a majority in both houses so we can sign it into law?

Otherwise, if you don’t have a proposal that means you are satisfied with the status quo and the status quo is unacceptable. Fort Dix just proved that. Three people who crossed our southern border wanted to attack Fort Dix and kill Americans. So what is your proposal?

I’m not questioning anyone’s motives. I can’t divine any of those. But what I am saying it seems you have an obligation if you oppose our president, the leader of our Republican party, and those of us conservative and liberal Republicans, with Democrats, to do what the American people expect us to do and that’s to come up with a solution.

Is anything short of deporting 12 million amnesty? It’s a pretty tough regimen that we are putting people through if they want to have the ability to attain citizenship over a 13-year period. I do think that it’s not really appropriate to call what we’re trying to do amnesty and I do hope that when people examine our proposal they would agree with that.

Can’t we have a respectable dialogue on this?

 Associated Press: What do you think of former Senator Fred Thompson’s affect on the GOP presidential field?

McCain: He’s certainly qualified. He’s already been president two or three times. (Thompson is an actor).

 Iowa Independent: Just about every profile I’ve read on him says he’s lazy. That’s the knock on him. Is he lazy?

McCain: No. We’re very close friends. You know we sat next to other in the Senate. No, I certainly would not say that.