Posted on 07/09/2008 10:37:36 PM PDT by John Semmens
Senator John Warner (R-Virginia) suggested that Congress consider banning unnecessary automobile travel in order to help save gasoline.
“In 1974, when we faced oil prices of $12 per barrel, Congress set a national 55 mph speed limit,” Warner remembered. “Studies showed that this saved 167,000 barrels of oil per day and reduced highway fatalities by an estimated 4,000 per year. Now, with oil prices more than ten-times higher we need more drastic action.”
Under Warner’s proposal all non-essential automobile travel would be banned. A “Bureau of Travel Permits” would be established within the Department of Transportation and charged with determining what travel would qualify as “essential.”
Preliminary discussions have indicated that travel by government officials would easily qualify as essential. Most trips by private citizens are expected to be accomplished via public transit. Carpools of five or more may be granted temporary permits subject to periodic audits of the participating members.
“Considering that about 90% of the travel is likely non-essential—I mean, only a small fraction of the population has truly important reasons for going by car—we could save 18 million barrels of oil daily,” Warner calculated. “We’d also reduce highway fatalities by around 35,000 a year. Our air would be cleaner. And we’d save billions by cutting back on roadway construction.”
Warner apologized for “not getting this brilliant idea sooner,” but expressed gratitude “for the high prices that have enabled me to finally see the light.”
(Excerpt) Read more at azconservative.org ...
This brilliant idea sprang from the fertile mind of a Republican senator.
You really had me going there for a while. What with serious proposals for “personal carbon credits” in the U.K. this isn’t as implausible as you might think.
This has got to be a joke. You want to see a revolution? Can you imagine being a government employee driving past long lines of p*ssed off people walking or waiting for a bus?
Why doesnt congress walk to work? leave the limos at home LOL
And you wonder why some of us don’t recognize the Republican party anymore. We are now Democrats-lite.
ha! my jaw was on the ground, then I checked the link...
Satire alert!
LOL
and we could issue A, B and C gasoline rationing stickers like we had during WW2. - sarcasm on!
Another good reason why the G.O.P. is dead - as it deserves to be.
Warner is behaving like a hysterical old lady.
Damn, you’re good John! You had me going again for a moment, especially when I thought of Dumbkoff Warner’s recent global warming legislation cosponsored by Lieberman. He’s dumb enough to do exactly what you satirize.
When oil prices bottomed out in the 1980s and you could buy a steak in texas for whatever a barrell of crude was going for, why didn’t we raise the speed limit to 90MPH and increase congestion in cities to “help”?
I wonder what warm malodorous orifice he pulled these numbers out of?
Who decides what is "necessary", anyway?
Ok, got me. With the ridiculous nonsense coming out of Congress nowadays, it is getting harder to tell what is satire and what was really said...
This guy is a demented senile moron of the first magnitude.
The Communist Internationalle loves Warren for this one.
AZ is very clever at writing these up...In a showdown, he would likely beat Scrapple..
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