Given the current concern about man-made global warming, I fully expected that the rising price of gasoline would be greeted with celebration. Environmentalists and politicians currying their favor have warned us of the need to reduce our carbon footprint. Higher gasoline prices will curb the use of gasoline, encourage consumers to purchase more fuel efficient automobiles, car pool and use mass transit. In short, higher gas prices will lead to the exact behavior environmentalists want Americans to engage in. However, as gas prices near all time highs nationally, the increase has been greeted not with applause, but with shouts of indignation and calls from Democrats like Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for yet another investigation into oil company price fixing.

Over the last 12 years, there have been 20 hearings investigating the same question and not one of them has concluded that there has been any such gouging of prices. Still, Schumer charges – with no evidence -- that oil companies are in collusion, holding back production of oil in order to drive up prices. No doubt, oil companies are also responsible for the violence and sabotage of pipelines in Nigeria, the fires on oil platforms off the coast of Congo, and they no doubt manufactured Hurricane Katrina that took out 15% of American refining capacity. A couple questions for the senator: Who was on the grassy knoll? Is Elvis dead or alive? Just checking.

Schumer’s public indignation is actually political sleight of hand. He points the finger at oil companies to distract from the fact that government -- in the form of federal, state and local taxes -- makes almost twice as much “profit” as oil companies do. In some jurisdictions, that “profit” approaches 50 cents per gallon. Schumer is clearly not opposed to profit so long as those profits fall into the coffers of big government instead of big business.

I suspect Schumer and others wistfully look southward and see Hugo Chavez, of Venezuela, nationalizing the oil industry and think “why not here?” It was no slip of the tongue when candidate Hillary Clinton proposed to “take” the profits of big oil and invest them in federal research into alternative energy. Comrades Clinton and Schumer have clearly forgotten the primary economic lesson of the 20th century to whit: the free market is far more efficient in directing scarce resources than is a market directed centrally. And one way in which a free market achieves its efficiency is through prices.

The rising price of gasoline will spur automakers to meet the consumers increased demand for more fuel efficient automobiles and spur municipalities to improve mass transit systems as citizens begin driving less, all of which will begin to redirect investment capital towards more cost effective alternative sources of energy – the source of energy that best meets the needs of the consumers, which may or may not meet the needs of the geniuses in Washington. The environment will benefit as will our national security by easing our reliance on foreign oil. True friends of the environment should be asking, “are gas prices high enough?”

The answer is no not nearly high enough – not if we are truly interested in changing the habits of American consumers. The fact is that adjusted for inflation and costs relative to income gas prices in the United States are still relatively low, which is why as much as Americans complain about the price of gas we have not significantly altered our behavior.

Rather than point the finger at greedy oil companies, Chuck Schumer and our other political leaders that talk the environmental talk should be offering the public straight-talk about the role prices can play in actually achieving our environmental policy goals.

Unfortunately, Schumer is more an opponent of big business than he is a friend of the environment and as such, he is concerned more with wielding power than he is with actual results, and populist rhetoric about “big oil” gouging poor consumers is good for his political business. So Schumer sticks to the script: Oil companies are evil, government is good. High gas prices are bad, government confiscation of corporate profits is good. What are real policy solutions when you are doing the work of God?

Joseph C. Phillips is the author of “He Talk Like a White Boy” available wherever books are sold.