Busting Big Oil

Here's the scenario: Sticker shock at the gas pumps, with prices nearly doubling overnight. Long lines at the few stations that are open. Crude cardboard signs reading "out of gas" blocking incoming traffic at the ones that are closed. Huge sales on "full-sized" vehicles. Long waiting lists for econoboxes.

Nineteen seventy three? Nineteen seventy nine? How about 2007? The "high" prices that motorists were paying in the spring of 2000 could be a harbinger of a much more serious crisis in oil production and delivery. In the near term, gasoline prices are expected to recede from $2 per gallon, largely because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has agreed to production increases. The posturing calls in Congress for rollbacks in federal fuel taxes will die out, as will the ad hoc consumer protests.

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