CBS News Portrays $7 Gas as Positive

Expensive gas isn't so bad to the "CBS Evening News," as long as it promotes an agenda that caters to left-of-center sensibilities and makes Americans behave more like Europeans. 

Economists from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) (NYSE:CM) forecasted $7-a-gallon gas prices by 2010, which according to some analysts would force 10 million vehicles off U.S. roads over four years. CIBC based its prediction on $200-per-barrel oil by 2010.

"In fact, by 2012, higher prices could send an additional 10 million vehicles off the road," CBS correspondent Priya David said June 26. Although $7 gas would do the most harm to low-income Americans, David praised the effects it would have in easing congestion.

"It would certainly ease congestion. Having that many cars come off the road would be like permanently parking twice as many cars as there are in the state of New Jersey," David said. "Some look to Europe for solutions to the skyrocketing gas prices."

"They drive nice little cars, which maybe we should start doing," one woman said to CBS during the segment.

David compared the United States to Great Britain, stating that expensive gasoline has already had an effect there.

"Expensive gasoline has led Europeans to also drive less than we do," David said. "In America, over 90 percent of all households commute to work by car. Compare that to just 60 percent of British households."

The grim news was greeted with open arms by global warming alarmist and a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, Joseph Romm.

"People's entire mindset as to what kind of vehicles they drive, where they live, choices they make on holidays and vacations are going to be quite different," Romm said.

Romm once called global warming skeptics "climate delayers" in a March 11 post on the Grist environmental blog.