Do my eyes deceive me? Am I reading that President Bush has joined with the Republican leadership to call for investigation of the oil companies in light of soaring oil and gas prices? Oil hit $75 a barrel recently and apparently transformed the Republicans into Democrats, Democrats of the Charles Schumer and Jean-Francois Kerry variety.

Actually, if they are going to haul in the oil executives for investigation, I suggest they get to the root of the matter and haul in famed economist Milton Friedman. Let him bring his Nobel Prize along for display. Professor Friedman is the fellow who, roughly 50 years ago, revived the world’s awareness of markets, and he has been explicating the consequences of markets ever since, first from the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago and more recently from an office in the Hoover Institution, the conservative think tank named after – who else? – Herbert Hoover. His old adversary John Kenneth Galbraith once erupted in oratorical excess on the television show “Firing Line” that there is not any such thing as a “market.”

Well, we now know that there is. One of the reasons for the robust economy in so many places around the world today is the existence of markets, which establish the value of resources, effectively allocate those resources, and establish sustainable profits for product. With the booming economies in places such as China, India, and our own country, oil is now relatively scarce, and the price buyers are willing to pay for it is high. Yet, despite the sudden increase in oil prices, the profitability of oil long-term is not exorbitant. Though it may astonish the Democrats who are now playing the demagogue’s game with the oil companies and the Republicans who apparently wish to join them, investors know that oil’s return on capital is not terribly high. In fact, despite the surge in oil prices in recent months, BP, the world’s second largest oil corporation, reported a 15% decrease in profits for the past quarter, as a consequence of lower output, a refinery shutdown, and increased taxes.

The oil industry is a high-risk operation. As Boone Pickens, one of the industry’s most perceptive entrepreneurs, has been saying for several years now, the production of oil has probably peaked. The world can pump 85 million barrels a day. The world consumes 30 billion annually and will thirst for more as the years go on. That means prices will go up. Moreover, with a madman running Iran and a would-be Fidel Castro running Venezuela, it is not clear we can count on the aforementioned daily production of 85 million barrels.

The politicians may think the answer is to drag businessmen into investigations, but that is not going to produce oil. It may produce votes for the politicians from the electorate’s economically illiterate but not much else. What is needed is more oil or at least a steady contribution to Boone Pickens’s 85 million barrels. That means opening up areas where we know oil exists, for instance, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It means encouraging the creation of more refineries. We have not built a new refinery in the United States in 30 years. It means encouraging alternative energy sources, the best being nuclear.

Unfortunately, these three recourses have all been thwarted by environmentalists, most of whom are Democrats save for the occasional melancholic socialist. One wonders why the Republicans have not made energy growth their response to the high energy prices that are troubling the electorate. Instead of haranguing the oil companies, one would have expected the Republican leadership and the president to unite in blaming the Democratic environmentalists while calling for wider oil exploration, more refineries, and the development of a real alternative to fossil fuels, namely nuclear. Instead the Republicans have continued to forsake their principles. Yet what do they expect to get for this abandonment? Owing to their excessive spending, there already is fear that the Republican vote will stay at home this autumn. Now with the Republicans adopting the economic illiteracy of the Democrats, there is even more pressure for the Republicans to stay home.

I do know how the president could lower oil prices immediately. Suspend all federal taxes on oil through the summer driving period. That would put a smile on the electorate’s face – and it is not nearly as irresponsible as denigrating markets.

Mr. Tyrrell is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator, a contributing editor to The New York Sun, and an adjunct scholar at the Hudson Institute.