Scrutiny on the bounty

The oil crisis has become a hot topic of the presidential campaign. Obama and McCain have both tossed out a number of ideas to address high energy costs. Most of them, like taxing oil companies more, are awful. Other ideas, like a temporary reduction in gasoline taxes, are harmless efforts to win votes. Then there are the predictable efforts to nationalize refineries (this is particularly awful: why not create a national oil company to just explore in produce in those areas prohibited to private enterprise – that would do some good – while nationalizing refineries will simply insure that our refining capacity does not expand along with market demand, even though refining oil does not cause pollution at all.)