If $4 gasoline makes people get rational about energy independence (article), then do we all go back to snorting heroin again now that gasoline has dipped below $2.99?

It's the old amnesia again, and the incentives to become independent of foreign energy have disappeared.

By late 2010, America will be able to mass produce electric vehicles that are competitive if gasoline costs $3.50.   We need to phase in a price signal to direct the markets to a sane outcome.  We need to use game theory to tilt the playing field so that markets innovate in directions that benefit our national security interests in energy independence.

What Congress must do is give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the authority regulate the price of gas through taxes so that gasoline is at a price floor of $3.50 by late 2010.  Revenues collected will not go into the general treasury, but shall be applied by the FERC to apply to subsidies for qualifying alternative fuel vehicles such as using electric and fuel cell. 

Just as Congress cannot be entrusted with the authority to regulate monetary supply by legislating interest rates, Congress must cede authority over gasoline price regulation to an agency with the independence of the Federal Reserve.  It must have its own cash flow independent of the national treasury, and its commissioners must have long terms similar to those for the Federal reserve governors.  This approach was suggested by Tom Daschle in answer to a comprehensive health care solution.  The approach should be applied to energy policy.