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What I've seen around the world is if the regulatory desires are combined with things that affect consumer behavior - such as in Europe, they tax gasoline very heavily - you do get people to move to very fuel efficient cars; trade off bigger vs. smaller cars.

The only way people are going to change their car buying habits, and the only way government will get behind alternatively fueled vehicles, is if gasoline prices continue to go up.

Let's give people more incentives to get fuel efficient vehicles.

I don't see a groundswell of people willing to raise gas taxes right now. That leaves fuel economy standards as the only effective tool we have as a nation to make a dent in our dangerous and ever growing consumption of oil.

We need to do more to conserve fuel or face tougher choices such as steep price increase or even quantitative restrictions.

There is no reason why, with the huge potential for market out there in the world for fuel-efficient vehicles, we can't be the cutting edge for change.

Certainly, we are hurt by the high fuel prices because it raises our cost.

So we in Congress have a very clear choice. We can take largely symbolic action and sit back and fiddle while Americans burn more gasoline. Or we can pass concrete, effective legislation that will save consumers money while significantly reducing U.S. oil consumption.