The U.S. is Running Out of Energy.

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During the 1980s, as it became clear gasoline conservation was working, aided by a nasty recession, one energy forecast after another anticipated ever better mileage. The American Petroleum Institute, swept up by auto-industry fervor, announced in September 1981 that "forecasts of fuel efficiency for new cars now exceed those mandates (27.5 m.p.g.), suggesting an industry-fleet average of 30 m.p.g. by 1985." Not exactly: this year the average is still 27.5 m.p.g. for vehicles officially labeled as passenger cars, but for the entire fleet of vehicles, including SUVs and trucks, it is much worse. The best overall fuel economy of 22.1 m.p.g. (for U.S.-made vehicles) was achieved in 1987-88. Aside from an occasional upward tick, that figure has inched steadily downward, to 20.4 m.p.g. last year.

That's because Congress lost interest in conservation and failed to keep the pressure on the car companies. Lawmakers refused to set new mileage goals. Worse, they excluded from the existing requirements light trucks and SUVs, the fastest-selling vehicles and the ones that use the most gasoline. Contributing even more to the trend, they extended an extraordinary tax benefit to the gas guzzlers, so drivers who used a vehicle for work could write off the cost on their tax returns--even as much as $38,200 toward a new Hummer H2 that gets only 10 m.p.g. As might be expected, consumption rose 1.5 million bbl. a day over the past decade, to 8.8 million last year. But for owners of pricey vehicles like the Hummer, it keeps getting better. The tax-cutting bill signed into law in May expanded the write-off to $100,000.

For its part, the Bush Administration is dismissive of serious conservation. Vice President Cheney, who headed an Administration task force to devise an energy strategy--a group whose work was carried out in secret and whose papers remain secret--expressed the attitude two years ago in a now infamous way: "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." Representative Raymond Green, a Texas Democrat, was more blunt when the House earlier this year beat back an attempt to raise mileage standards. While allowing that he was for "better gas mileage," said Green: "We come from a big state that wants big trucks and big cars."

--ALTERNATIVE ENERGY: HERE COMES THE SUN, AND THERE IT GOES AGAIN. No alternative-energy source has captured the imagination of lawmakers and Presidents like the sun. For three decades, solar energy's champions on Capitol Hill have insisted that the harnessing of this free and unlimited supply of energy was just around the corner. Representative Charles Mosher, Ohio Republican, was among the ardent supporters in 1974. "Much of the technology needed to utilize this nonpolluting source of power is nearly at hand," Mosher said in a speech on the House floor. "In fact, the consensus is that there are no major technical barriers to the widespread application of solar energy to meet U.S. energy needs."