I need an economist!

I just read Max Boot's column about how the inflated oil prices are enriching dictators and autocrats around the world. His solution strikes me as reasonable:

The most important step would be to increase the federal gasoline tax, currently a paltry 18.4 cents a gallon. Congress should enact a sliding-scale tax that rises as oil prices fall and vice versa. That would shape demand, which would in turn shape prices. The goal would be to create a "floor" at, say, $50 a barrel, which would avert the kind of precipitous price collapse that in the past has eviscerated investment in alternative energy sources and kept low-cost oil producers such as the Saudis and Russians in the driver's seat.

Maybe a sliding scale tariff on imported oil with the revenues devoted to funding development of oil shale and other promising alternative fuels like biodiesel, etc. I'm not enough of an economist to see the flaws in it, however. I'm not sure I trust the bureaucracy and the companies to use the money wisely either. I just hate to think how much evil we've spawned in the world by buying oil from these creeps. They'll get along just fine without our 25%, but I'd sure feel better.

My guess is that this would be counterproductive somehow, that it would be wasted on boondoggles like windmills and similarly unreliable projects. I'd prefer that the funds went to upgrading coal-fired power plants with better pollution controls. Coal is abundant and it allows these plants to run regardless of weather. I'd prefer to use gas to heat homes because if it becomes too expensive people will go back to wood stoves and other, dirtier heat. Coal and oil aren't good home heating fuels because home furnaces burning them can't be as efficient as gas.

I would also like to see more done to figure out how to tap the reserves of methane locked up in hydrates in the ocean. They're a ticking timebomb, if we don't use them, they could let go suddenly from temperature rising or some other cause and then we've got huge amounts in the atmosphere. Even if it isn't enough to burn off the oxygen it's a worse greenhouse gas than CO2. Running our cars on natural gas makes more sense to me than depending on the corn harvest every year. But, what do I really know about anything?