Just in time for the summer driving season comes a rise in the price of gasoline, along with the predictable effort by the Democrats to make political hay of the issue. Senator Clinton issued a statement Monday asserting that “Today’s record-high gas prices are the price that the American people are paying for the Bush Administration’s failed energy policies.”

Said Mrs. Clinton, “We need to move forward with a real energy plan that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil by speeding development of biofuels and more efficient vehicles. I have proposed a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund to invest in these and other clean energy technologies. It’s time for an Apollo project for energy to move us away from foreign oil and towards clean energy alternatives that will reduce prices for consumers, protect our environment and increase our energy independence.”

The Senate majority leader, Harold Reid, chimed in with a similar statement, saying, “The news that our nation’s gas prices have hit an all-time high – especially as we approach the beginning of the summer travel season – underscores the urgent need for a better national energy policy that quickly brings clean and affordable renewable fuels and more energy-efficient vehicles to market. We have to make it a national priority to reduce our reliance on oil, especially foreign oil.”

And, as if there were some kind of coordinated talking points on the topic, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, also sent out a press release about the price of gas. “For six years, Republicans did nothing to make our nation energy independent while handing out taxpayer funded giveaways to big oil. Now the American people are paying the price,” Mr. Emanuel said. “This week, Democrats will consider legislation to help prevent gas price gouging and in the coming weeks, we will continue to develop the strategies we need to secure our energy future and protect our environment.”

Luckily, the latest Democratic demarche on the issue of gasoline prices coincides nicely with the release of Vice President Gore’s new book, reminding Americans of where his party really stands on gasoline prices. According to a policy paper from Senate Republicans, in 1990 Mr. Gore blurbed the book “The Population Explosion,” by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, which included the recommendation, “The United States could start by gradually imposing a higher gasoline tax — hiking it by one or two cents per month, until gasoline costs $2.50 to $3. 00 per gallon, comparable to prices in Europe and Japan.” Mr. Gore’s endorsement? “The time for action is due, and past due. Ehrlich has written the prescription.”

In 1993, when the Democrats controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress, the Clinton-Gore administration actually proposed, and Congress passed, a 4.3 cents a gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax, which was a 30% increase in the tax. That tax increase passed on August 6, 1993, by a vote of 51 to 50. All 51 of those who voted for it were Democrats. They included Messrs. Reid and Gore, the latter brought in to break the tie.

If the Democrats were really concerned about high gasoline taxes for consumers, they could today roll back the 30% gas-tax increase they imposed in the first year of the Clinton-Gore administration. They do, after all, control both houses of Congress. But the Democrats will do no such thing, despite their political posture of concern over gasoline prices.

Mr. Gore conceded as recently as last year, in a September 18, 2006, speech at New York University, that he’d like to increase the gas tax even more, eliminating all payroll taxes and replacing them with a tax on pollution. At least Mr. Gore acknowledges that increasing the price of something discourages its consumption. The increase in the market price of gasoline would do more than any “Apollo project” to encourage the sale of more energy-efficient vehicles and cause Americans to use less gas and produce fewer emissions.

If the Democrats really want to get America off foreign oil and reduce carbon emissions, they could be rooting for $20 a gallon gasoline. At that price, alternatives such as ethanol or electricpowered cars would be attractive to consumers strictly on an economic basis. Instead the Democrats want to run their cars on hypocrisy. To complain about high gasoline prices while also urging America to reduce its gas consumption for environmental and foreign policy reasons is as contradictory as complaining about high gas prices while refusing to roll back the Clinton-Gore gas tax increase. Do the Democrats think 1993 was so long ago no one remembers?