Oil prices; where's government?

In the past couple of days, oil executives have been grilled by congress about soaring oil prices; if this isn’t demagoguery, I wonder what is. Simply put, big oil can’t control supply and demand for fossil fuels and at best, our government should cut all subsidies still granted to these hugely profitable businesses, and that’s about it. The culprits are the administration and congress that should have seen the energy train wreck coming ever since the first oil shock of 1973. Instead of keeping highway speed limits set by Jimmy Carter, of raising CAFE standards instead of ignoring them, and adopting some aggressive conservation policies, nothing has been done and today the political class is suggesting rebates to “ease people's pain at the pump.” What must be done is just the opposite; namely, immediately levy a hefty tax on fuel and use its proceeds to fund a monumental effort of researching alternative energy sources and developing new conservation methods. That undertaking should at least be of a magnitude comparable to the race to put a man on the moon back in the sixties. This would mobilize the nation, tap into our country’s brightest minds and thrust us once again at the forefront of modern technology. It’s not too late to start; our politicians simply need to get off their butts and start thinking normally instead of solely responding to lobbyists and crawling before George Bush and Dick Cheney…