May 23, 2007 3:52PM # Pet Rocks, Leisure Suits, and Oil Companies By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE The often sensible business columnist at the *Washington Post*, Steven Pearlstein, has [a really bad idea ](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201386.html)today: “Put the government into the oil business.” He wants to create a federal oil company that would be required to “operate at only a modest profit, while doing everything in its power to expand supply, smooth prices and expose collusive behavior.” I can only wonder if the maid cleaned his desk and accidentally left a 1970s folder on top. Back in the ’70s Democrats kept talking about creating a national oil company to “use as a yardstick” to measure the performance of the oil companies. One wag noted at the time that Gulf Oil was going to buy Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus to use as a yardstick by which to measure the federal government. Gas prices go up and down, as Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren [have discussed.](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6375) If prices are being held above market levels by some sort of collusion, then you wouldn’t need a tax-funded government company to offer lower prices; profit-seeking entrepreneurs could do it. Let’s leave the 70s be, and watch for high prices to stimulate conservation, exploration, and alternative sources of energy. ##### Related Tags [Energy and Environment](https://www.cato.org/research/energy-environment) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).