Congress To America: Gas Prices Are Too High. No, Wait. Gas Prices Are Too Low.

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The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is holding a hearing on soaring gasoline prices this afternoon to

…listen to the personal impact of gas prices on a single mom and small business owner from Virginia Beach, VA; an air conditioning service businessman from Metairie, LA; the head of a school bus service company in Youngstown, OH; and a farmer from McPherson, KS. The four will tell the committee how rising gas prices have affected their bottom line and their industry.

Gas prices hit a record $3.07/gallon nationwide average last week, the 13th straight week in which prices have risen. Prices have climbed 20 cents in the past two weeks and by nearly a dollar since the first of the year. The previous record was $3.03 per gallon on August 11, 2006.

But wait a minute–aren't higher gasoline prices part of the solution to man-made global warming? As the Denver Post notes :

Ending 20 years of indecision on global warming, Congress is speeding toward sweeping energy legislation that targets everything from utility plants to light bulbs…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told lawmakers she wanted a global-warming bill by July…

Key House bills are likely to come in July and in the fall…. The first will be easier to pass, focusing on incentives for conservation, energy efficiency and renewable fuels.

The second will be more controversial. It's more likely to include limits on new coal plants, increases in fuel- efficiency standards and caps on carbon dioxide production…

"There is at the end of it all a price to be paid," [Rep. Rick] Boucher [D-Va.] said. "The price translates into a higher cost of energy."

Most of these Congressional proposals will increase the price of energy including the price of gasoline. Somehow I doubt that at today's hearing that Select Committee members are going to tell the single mom, the air conditioning guy, the bus driver and the farmer, that higher gas prices are exactly what Congress has in mind for the future.