First the bad news: gas will rise to $20 per gallon. Now the good news: gas will rise to $20 per gallon. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not. It doesn’t matter if the Democrats are in control, the Republicans, or even Ron Paul. It doesn’t matter if you believe in global warming or disbelieve in evolution. Christopher Steiner, in his new book “$20 per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better”, points out that in the gas supply and demand relationship, demand is directly related to the size of the middle class. Prior to 1960, that pretty much meant the U.S. middle class. By the 1970’s, Europe’s middle class burgeoned as did car growth. In 2010, experts are predicting that the size of the world’s middle class will soon quadruple, as the masses in China, ex-Soviet bloc countries, and other Asian countries move up the economic ladder and repeat all the West’s same mistakes, promoting the car as the solution to transportation needs. As evidence of this, on January 11, 2010, the New York Times reported that China surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest car market. The subsequent rise in gas prices will happen rather fast, Steiner predicts, so that by 2020, $20 per gallon gas is quite possible. More importantly, this future change is inevitable.

Soaring fuel prices will trigger a domino effect. Cars will get smaller, public transit use will soar, some airlines will perish, and almost everything will be made more locally. These changes, Steiner argues and we agree, will have an overall positive social and environmental effect. Mind you, though, that many people and businesses will be harmed and lifestyles upended in the process. For that reason, and because we sincerely believe it is better for our country and world, we should start weaning Americans off petroleum now.

The longer we delay, the more could be lost in the inevitable march toward $20 per gallon prices. We will lose opportunity most of all, but also money. People will be paying out of pocket for higher energy prices while they wait for technology and policy to react to the new reality. They will pay at the pump and in their increasing airfare, but many people simply won’t be able to afford mobility. They will have to wait for taxing schemes to change, wait for high speed rail to become a reality, wait for dense, walkable neighborhoods to be built, wait for bike lanes, wait for food distribution to become regional—wait for mobility. We say, why wait?

Well, there are a few people planning ahead. There are significant migrations from suburbs to cities, especially among the very mobile 25-35 year old cohort, where public transportation makes driving less necessary. High speed rail subsidies are beginning, SUVs are rapidly becoming anachronisms, hybrids are wildly popular, and the local produce movement has exploded. Even the most progressive actions taken so far can’t do much to plan for rising gas prices. In fact, in our existing transportation financing system, reductions in fuel use will actually add to the transport infrastructure deficit. The gas tax is charged as a fixed rate for each gallon sold, so even though you will spend more money to fill your tank less often, the government will receive even less in taxes. We should be concerned that this tax is the primary federal funding mechanism for transportation. Roads and bridges already in poor condition will receive less money for maintenance and repairs. Figuring out how to maintain this infrastructure is a big elephant in the room. There are many relevant road infrastructure financing schemes, including a VMT (vehicle miles traveled) tax and regional tolls, but one way that can reasonably sustain road and bridge maintenance is a tax pegged on the price of gas, as a percentage of the price, just like other sales taxes. That way, less driving won’t mean more deteriorating roads. This can be put into place soon, as a safeguard against the plight of decreased gas purchases in the future, by creating a more reliable source of revenue as prices soar. The naysayers will call such tax regressive; we say, why should all the additional money go to OPEC instead of U.S. transportation?

We need to be thinking about how people will get around once car and plane travel become expensive enough to be considered luxuries. Funding for Amtrak has increased recently, thanks to stimulus funding, but while the $8 billion allocated is a big help in maintaining the system, it does little to expand transportation routes nationally. A national rail system needs to be built in a fashion akin to the president’s plan—before people are desperate for it. Without a useful high speed rail network in place when plane travel prices spike, choice will be severely limited. For instance, sending your daughter to another city to attend college can be a burden if it is exorbitant to fly or drive there, especially for school breaks and holidays. Travel within the nation for business and pleasure could come to a standstill. Sure, we could limp by, by limiting our children’s choices to local colleges and relying on conference calls, or we could build a network that will keep our quality of life propelling forward.

Local officials need to legislate and plan for these realities in their jurisdictions. More flexible and forward thinking zoning codes need to be enacted in most areas, which allow for mixed use, so that one day people can walk to the store to get groceries, which they will prefer when driving for even the smallest errand becomes a burden. Greater density should be allowed around transportation hubs so more trips, say to work, can be performed quickly without a car.

If these transportation hubs don’t exist, plans should be made for them. For cities thinking about creating a light rail, subway, or bus rapid transit system, now is the time. These investments take time to plan and build, and they should be completed before large numbers of people need to drastically reduce their car use (and abandon ill-equipped towns, suburbs and cities), not after. National support for local transportation needs to be bolstered and made more accessible so funding for these projects can be a reality. National funding should be used to support more balanced transportation systems rather than prioritizing highway plans over everything else. To complete the picture, transportation departments should create streets that are easy to walk and bike around, extending the reach of the area served by public transit.

Let’s prepare for higher energy prices, whenever that may come, and make the “transition period” as painless as possible by not letting the price of gas dictate our future. Instead of waiting for the rising price of gas to change our lives for the better, we can do it ourselves. We can be in control of our mobility if we guide transportation policies in a sound direction—starting now. In addition to sidestepping a prolonged gas crisis, preemptive changes can also address global warming and stabilize our national economy. Thomas Friedman points this out nicely in his December op-ed:

If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent.

We couldn’t have said it better.

The gas rush could make some Pennsylvanians rich. But, it could also pollute the state’s air and water as the gas-grab can put serious stress on a community’s infrastructure.

And, that’s set up a conflict between natives of the area and weekenders — mostly New Yorkers — who own second homes there. Blueprint America — with Weekend America — goes to Northeastern Pennsylvania to look into what’s pitting neighbor against neighbor in what could unsettle the area’s infrastructure.

[Transcript]

Over the past few years, prospectors have been combing the hills of Pennsylvania. They aren’t looking for gold – instead, the mineral that’s setting off the frenzy is shale. It’s known as the Marcellus Shale, it lies a mile or more below ground, and it’s full of natural gas – maybe enough to fuel the entire United States for two years.

The “gas rush” could make some Pennsylvanians rich. But it could also pollute the state’s air and water. And that’s set up a conflict between natives of the area and “weekenders” – mostly New Yorkers – who own second homes there.

Bill Bryant’s family moved to Damascus Township, Pennsylvania close to a hundred and seventy years ago – in 1841. I observe that that means he has pretty deep roots there. “Yeah, they cleared the land here,” he laughs. “They were Connecticut Yankees.”

It’s gorgeous land – pretty much the definition of “bucolic” – with lush, gentle hills and a view of the Catskill Mountains in the distance. Bryant’s a dairy farmer. But he’s also watching a gas company – slowly – move into the area.

“That whole side hill over there is signed up with Cheaspeake,” he says, gesturing to the north. “And like I say, the guy across the road is signed up with Cheaspeake. The guy across the road probably only signed for $1,400. And that guy” — he gestures back to the north — “signed for a couple thousand. But they did get up to about $2,800 here.”

That’s how much the gas companies were paying per acre just as a signing bonus. At that rate, Bryant would’ve earned $728,000 on his 260 acres. And once the wells started pumping gas from under his land, he’d earn a percentage of the revenues.

But he didn’t sign – in part because he and his family have questions about the environmental impact of drilling.

Here’s why: The fuel’s actually trapped in little pockets in the shale. Tom Murphy of the Penn State Cooperative Extension says that to get the gas OUT of those pockets, energy companies use a technique called hydraulic fracturing — forcing millions of gallons of water into bore-holes at extremely high pressure to break open the brittle shale. Then the gas companies pump sand into the holes; the grains prop open the tiny cracks in the rock. Once the water gets pumped out, the gas can flow up to the surface – and ultimately to your furnace.

The thing is, energy companies aren’t pumping just water and sand into the ground. The fluid that they use is actually a soup that contains scores of chemicals – and some of those ingredients are toxic. They can cause brain and kidney damage, even cancer. And environmentalists say, given the track record of operations like this in Texas and across the West, there’s almost no oversight when it comes to disposing of the fluid. So it might end up in the water table, or in lakes and streams, or even evaporating. And because of those risks, they want the drilling to stop.

Every weekend, Joe Levine and Jane Ciphers leave their home in Brooklyn for a barn that they converted into a weekend home not far from Bryant’s farm. It’s where the anti-drilling movement meets to talk strategy.

Levine and Ciphers helped organize a group called Damascus Citizens for Sustainability. A lot of locals think they’re nothing but NIMBYs. But Pat Carullo, another of the group’s organizers, said there’s something much bigger at stake. “This is not our back yard. This is the drinking water source for 15 million Americans.”

As he talks, he gestures out a wall of windows in Levine and Ciphgers’ weekend home with a sweeping view of the Delaware River a couple hundred feet downhill. New York City’s reservoirs are upstream, and Philadelphia and Wilmington tap the Delaware Watershed downstream.

The locals say they understand that – that, as farmers, they’re well aware of the environmental risks, and they’re trying to minimize them. They accuse the city people of being condescending, treating them like ignorant rubes. They say it’s like the two sides aren’t even speaking the same language.

Pat Carullo says he knows what language he’s speaking “I’m speaking English. I don’t exactly know what language someone might be speaking who says, ‘We understand that the gas and oil industry is operating under total Federal deregulation, we understand that there’s going to be a catastrophic result from thousands of gas wells in a watershed which is protected by a sitting act of Congress, and we’re going to proceed anyway.’ I don’t understand – that doesn’t seem to me like English.”

The locals also say that the gas companies are in Pennsylvania to stay; that drilling is inevitable. But Barbara Arrindell – another organizer of Damascus Citizens – says nothing is inevitable. “The inevitability of someone who was born into an African-American, a Negro, or whatever terminology of dark skin – in this country – it was inevitable that they were going to be a slave,” she argues. “Now, that’s not the case today.”

“But it took a war to establish that,” I say.

“Well, it might take a war to do this,” she snaps back, and her fellow environmentalists laugh. “If someone’s only looking at what’s gonna go in [their] pocket, and [they] don’t care about anything else, then that’s the language that they might have to understand – that they will be sued. That there are costs involved in this beyond what is just going to go into their pocket.”

A lot of the farmers in the area just roll their eyes when you mention the Damascus Citizens. They see the environmentalists as carpetbaggers who just don’t understand farm life. Some of the group’s members are “weekenders”; others live in the area full-time. But most of its leaders are New Yorkers – city people. They’re part of a wave of city people who’ve been moving into the area for years now. As they buy and build homes, property taxes rise. And it gets harder to run dairy farms.

Bill Bryant, the farmer whose family’s been working the land here for nearly a hundred seventy years, says he’s tried to adapt to the changes by opening an artisanal cheesemaking operation. But not without some misgivings. “I’m personally maybe a little bit anti-city-people,” he says. “but the cheese thing works better with the city people. So we’re trying to take advantage of what’s happened in the area. Because the trend in dairy farmers is just to keep getting bigger, and we’re almost the biggest in the county now and we don’t wanna get any bigger, so at that point you gotta look to do something else.”

Fort some of his neighbors, “something else” comes down to two choices: Either sign a gas lease … or sell off the land. “And those places are basically in jeopardy of being subdivided, and somebody from the city would get a hold of them,” he says. “So are we better off with those places subdivided and more city people in the area, or are we better off with the people who’ve been here a hundred years keeping those tracts in the family and getting some money from gas to pay their taxes and keep the land? I don’t know which is worse.”

Bill Bryant has time to make up his mind: Gas companies have cut back on signing new leases thanks to the economy. Meanwhile, else where in Pennsylvania drilling’s already taking place. Its opponents are lobbying lawmakers to stop it before it goes any farther.

# # #

The pace of exploration accelerated in 2008 due to increased demand and higher gas prices. Companies rushed to add acreage, expand leaseholds and submit applications to drill the Marcellus shale. In mid-2008, in northeastern Pennsylvania, gas operators were offering landowners as much as $3,000 per acre and 15 percent royalty over the period of the lease. A landowner with a well on his property could expect to make $800,000 in royalties during the first year of production. Thousands of property owners in Pennsylvania signed leases welcoming the extra income in a region that has long suffered from economic malaise.

As Blueprint America correspondent Rick Karr uncovered, not everyone in northeastern Pennsylvania is thrilled about this new gas rush. The main areas of concern relate to the impact of exploration and drilling on the environment and on local infrastructure.

Environmentalists point to the vast amounts of water (one to five million gallons per well) required to extract gas from the Marcellus shale and to the potential contamination of groundwater and watersheds. Drilling is done horizontally and uses hydrofracking – high-pressured water laced with chemicals is pumped into the earth to break the rock and extract gas trapped 7,000 feet below ground. Frac water is then diluted before being released into waterways. Environmental groups are seeking increased oversight and regulation from state agencies.

At the local level, the gas bonanza can put serious stress on a town’s infrastructure. Increased truck traffic accelerates the wear and tear of country roads and bridges. Children of rig workers must be accommodated in local schools. Pennsylvania does not tax gas revenues. Local jurisdictions with natural gas wells face higher demands for services, but receive little new revenues to pay for those services. School districts, county and municipal governments who own land leased for natural gas are looking for ways to receive windfalls from leasing and royalties. At the state level, Governor Rendell lifted a 2003 moratorium on drilling to shore up the state’s ailing finances. Bidding for oil and gas drilling rights on state forest land atop the Marcellus shale was initiated in September 2008. The lease revenues will go to the Oil and Gas Lease Fund which finances park, conservation, recreation, dam repair and flood-control projects.