china energy corp

Kent was in Huntington Beach, Calif., earlier this week to present the keynote address on "The Future of U.S. Energy Policy" at the CoBank Annual Meetings.

I hope he didn't have to rent a car. If so, he's probably still suffering from sticker shock.

The average price of regular gasoline in the Golden State is around $4.32 - a record high for this time of year.

He probably would have been better off cruising down to Mexico to refill his tank instead.

Thanks to government regulations to artificially suppress the price, American drivers can find gasoline in Mexico for up to $1.50 a gallon cheaper than in the U.S.

But drivers also have to ignore U.S. State Department travel warnings. A willingness to cross the border anyway shows just how important inexpensive fuel is to drivers living on a budget.

It all comes back to the subject that Kent and I have written on with a lot of passion in the last few months.

The U.S. has lacked a cohesive energy policy for the last four decades, with every President since Nixon ignoring his own calls for energy independence and an effective strategy moving forward.

And as the global economy becomes more competitive, access to less expensive sources of oil wanes, and political tensions drive greater uncertainty, there's new irony to our lack of a real energy policy.

And it's leading to new competition for fuels in our own back yard.