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As we keeppointing out, ever more of the political right keeps coming round to the wisdom of higher fuel taxes. What about the left?

Morevoices traditionally associated with the political right in America are standing up for—and even suggest raising—gas taxes. The wisdom of tax shifting just keeps spreading: raise taxes on waste, lower taxes on work.

The technology for charging drivers for their use of the roads based on the miles they actually drive keeps getting closer to maturity. This article describes some pioneering research at Oregon State University. Hybrid engines may before long create a crisis for state highway maintenance funding. By-the-mile fees may then replace by-the-gallon taxes. Along the way, the fees could be fine tuned to reflect things like vehicle size (and the...

Apropos of British Columbia’s big announcement yesterday, I have some ranting to get off my chest. One of the most frustrating things about US climate policy is the reflexive fear that if we ever raise the price of gas—or of driving generally—people will riot in the streets or something. This makes it exceedingly difficult to re-arrange the economy away from oil and its carbon contents. But, of course, the price...

A decade ago, the economics of heating a home with natural gas were strong compared to alternatives like electric heat pumps. Natural gas was markedly cheaper than electricity. Consumers, eager to capitalize on cheap fuel prices and a promise of cleaner combustion, installed gas appliances. Puget Sound Energy (PSE) and NW Natural, two of the Pacific Northwest’s biggest gas utilities, helped incentivize this growth, adding more than 230,000 new customers...