AIX-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE — When gas prices broke $4 per gallon last summer, a media monsoon was unleashed during a presidential campaign in full swing. Talks about America’s long-term energy policy came to a head as did short-term schemes and dubious slogans promoting the status quo.Oil companies started “green” ad blitzes. T. Boone Pickins entered the common vernacular as a national hero. Hummer dealerships tanked as hybrid sales generated month-long waiting lists.Then — quite mysteriously — the price of oil plummeted. When prices fell off the table, so did the talks about oil independence. You have to wonder whether the members of OPEC watch CNN.Low gas prices are bad for America.Make no mistake — the sooner we get off oil, the more secure, prosperous and healthy we will be as a nation. It will stop sending money to countries that promote instability and anti-American sentiment (15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabian). In general, it will stop the outflow of billions of dollars outside of our borders. It will ultimately lower the costs of transportation. It will benefit our health. It will help us mount a strategy to the catastrophe of biblical proportions — global warming. We need a way to make individuals realize all of the true costs of guzzling gas.European countries like France — which have elevated gasoline prices with taxes — have encouraged more efficient cars, better mass transit and better behaviors (like walking), among other things,. But until the world’s leader of innovation — and biggest market — takes on a similar plan, nothing of the scale we need will change.Thomas Friedman — New York Times opinion columnist and author of Hot, Flat, and Crowded — poignantly states that instituting a gasoline price floor would be the best way to make discussions about alternative energy permanent. By limiting how low the price of gasoline can drop, companies researching alternative energy will have a guarantee their services will be economically viable in the future. Without this guarantee, companies will not make billions of dollars in investments a reality, because the risk is too high, and their competitor is already cheap and easy to get.As Friedman points out, this is the way we guarantee serious progress on alternative energy — create conditions where we can use our powerful markets to drive innovation. But gasoline must cost more for this to happen.The added costs of energy alone would clearly be detrimental to businesses, especially given the current political climate. That’s why it would make sense to compensate by cutting taxes in other areas. Companies would then be in the driver’s seat, determining how much they pay to Uncle Sam by how well they adopt new energy forms. There will be the free market fundamentalists who oppose government doing anything — even building roads. We all have a Ron Paul streak in us, but without using government as a pact to guarantee that we work together and follow a set of rules, it will be impossible to avoid calamity. This is such a big problem that only a concerted, national effort can allow us to avoid the classic Tragedy of the Commons in which individuals acting in their own self-interest lead everyone to demise.Americans have the opportunity to reassert our reputation as leaders and innovators. But to achieve this, we must create the conditions where we can harness our greatest asset — the free market — by raising the price of gas.Mark Macmurdo is a 22-year-old economics and history senior from Baton Rouge.—-Contact Mark Macmurdo at [email protected]