OSLO,
April 23 - Car owners in
the United States may
grumble as the price of
gasoline hovers around
$2.25 a gallon. Here in
Norway, home to perhaps
the world's most
expensive gasoline,
drivers greeted higher
pump prices of $6.66 a
gallon with little more
than a shrug.
Yes,
there was a protest from
the Norwegian Automobile
Association, which said,
"Enough is enough.
"
And a
right-wing party in
Parliament, the Progress
Party, once again called
for a cut in gasoline
taxes, which account for
about 67 percent of the
price.
But
"those critics are
but voices in the
wilderness," said
Torgald Sorli, a radio
announcer with the
Norwegian Broadcasting
Corporation who often
discusses transportation
issues. "We
Norwegians are resigned
to expensive gasoline.
There is no political
will to change the
system."
Norway,
the world's
third-largest oil
exporter, behind Saudi
Arabia and Russia, has
been made wealthy by
oil. Last year alone,
oil export revenue
surged 19 percent, to
$38 billion.
But no
other major oil exporter
has tried to reel in its
own fuel consumption
with as much zeal as
Norway. These policies
have resulted in
Norwegians consuming
much less oil per capita
than Americans - 1.9
gallons a day versus
almost 3 gallons a day
in the United States-
and low car ownership
rates. On city streets
and rural roads,
fuel-efficient
Volkswagens and Peugeots
far outnumber big sport
utility vehicles.
[Norway's
gasoline policies stand
in contrast to those in
the United States, where
President Bush made
cheaper gasoline a
priority during his
discussion of energy
policy at his news
conference on Thursday.]
Gasoline,
of course, is not the
only expensive commodity
in Norway, a
traditionally frugal and
highly taxed nation. At
a pub in Oslo, for
instance, a pint of beer
might cost the
equivalent of $12 and an
individual frozen pizza
$16. But expensive
gasoline is rare among
large oil-producing
countries that often
subsidize fuel for their
citizens. Gasoline
prices in Norway - with
a currency, the krone,
strong in comparison
with the dollar - have
climbed 30 percent since
1998, outpacing a 15
percent increase in the
consumer price index in
that period, the
national statistics
bureau said.
Having
the world's highest
gasoline prices is just
one strategy to combat
greenhouse gases in this
redoubt of welfare
capitalism and strict
environmental laws.
Overall energy
consumption, especially
of electricity, is quite
high, however, with
Norway blessed with not
just oil but ample
hydropower resources.
Norway
not only taxes its
gasoline. Norwegians
also pay automobile
taxes as high as $395 a
year for each vehicle,
and in Oslo there is
even a
"studded-tire"
fee of about $160 for
vehicles with
all-terrain tires that
tear up asphalt more
quickly in the winter.
Then
there are the taxes on
new passenger vehicles
that can increase the
price of imported
automobiles. Norway has
no auto manufacturing
industry aside from an
experiment to produce
electric cars, and
economists have
suggested that that has
made it easier to limit
automobile use in Norway
because there is no
domestic industry to
lobby against such
decisions as in
neighboring Sweden, home
of Saab and Volvo.
Norway
designed the duties to
make large-engine sport
utility vehicles much
costlier than compact
cars. For instance, a
high-end Toyota Land
Cruiser that costs
$60,000 in the United
States might run as much
as $100,000 in Norway.
Economists
argue that gasoline
prices and other auto
taxes in Norway are not
so expensive when
measured against the
annual incomes of
Norwegians, among the
world's highest at about
$51,700 a person, or the
shorter workweek of
about 37.5 hours that is
the norm here.
(Norwegians also get
five weeks of vacation a
year.) The government
frequently makes such
arguments when
responding to criticism
over high fuel prices.
"We
do not want such a
system," Per-Kristian
Foss, the finance
minister, said in a curt
response to the calls
for lower gasoline taxes
this month in
Parliament.
Other
European countries have
also placed high taxes
on gasoline, and some
like Britain and the
Netherlands have
gasoline prices that
rival or at times
surpass Norway's. In
Oslo, as in other
European capitals, there
is ample public
transportation,
including an express
airport train that
whisks travelers to the
international airport
from downtown in 20
minutes. Yet Norway,
with a population of
just 4.6 million,
differs from much of
Europe in its breadth,
with an extensive
network of roads,
tunnels and bridges
spread over an area
slightly larger than New
Mexico.
"Rural
areas without good
public transportation
alternatives are hit a
little harder,"
said Knut Sandberg
Eriksen, a senior
research economist at
the Institute of
Transport Economics here
who estimates the
government collects
about $2.4 billion in
fuel taxes alone each
year, or about $519 for
every Norwegian. Some of
the revenue supports
Norway's social
benefits.
"Our
government has been
grateful to use the
automobile as a supreme
tax object," Mr.
Eriksen said. "The
car is its milking
cow."
Perhaps
as a result of such
policies, Norway has
lower levels of car
ownership than other
European countries, with
427 cars per 1,000
people in 2003 compared
with more than 500 cars
per 1,000 people in both
France and Germany,
according to the
Economist Intelligence
Unit. The United States
has more than 700 cars
per 1,000 people.
The
average age of a
passenger car in Norway
is 18 years when it is
scrapped, though this
might be changing in a
strong economy with the
lowest interest rates in
50 years. Registrations
of new passenger cars
last year climbed 29
percent from 2003. But
the frugality of some
Norwegians, even in
rural areas, suggests
older cars will remain
at many households.
"Personally
I have no need for a new
vehicle; I'm proud to
hold on to my own for as
long as I can,"
said Johannes Rode, 69,
a retired art and music
teacher and owner of a
29-year-old red Volkswagen
Beetle in Ramberg, a
coastal town in northern
Norway. "To do
otherwise would be
wasteful and play into
the oil industry's
hands."
Caution
about oil's risks is
common in Norway. The
government created the
Petroleum Fund more than
a decade ago as a
repository for most of
the royalties it
receives from oil
production. The $165
billion fund, overseen
by the central bank, is
intended for the day
when oil resources in
the North Sea start to
dry up.
Meanwhile,
unlike other large oil
producers like Saudi
Arabia, Iran or
Venezuela, Norway has
done little to encourage
domestic petroleum
consumption. In part
because high gasoline
prices deter such a
luxury, Norway consumes
little more than 200,000
barrels a day of oil
while exporting nearly
its entire production of
3.3 million barrels a
day. This confounds some
Norwegians.
"Norway
is a rich, oil-producing
country with no foreign
debt," said Egil
Otter, a spokesman for
the Norwegian Automobile
Association, a sister
organization to AAA.
"We think that
Norway, with its
enormous and complicated
geography and distances,
deserves pump prices at
an average European
level. Motorists find it
very difficult to be
taxed into these
extremes."
Such
opinions contrast with
the quick defense of
high gasoline prices
often voiced around
Norway, which is
celebrating its 100th
year of independence
from neighboring Sweden
and so far has opted out
of joining the European
Union.
Sverre
Lodgaard, director of
the Norwegian Institute
of International
Affairs, said Norway had
a responsibility to
manage its oil resources
soberly because of its
support of worldwide
limitations on
greenhouse-gas
emissions.
"We
are engaged on this
front," Mr.
Lodgaard said. "It
is difficult for us to
view the example of the
United States, which is
overconsuming to an
incredible extent."
The
United States, which
uses about a quarter of
the world's daily oil
consumption, had the
cheapest gasoline prices
of the 27 industrial
countries measured by
the International Energy
Agency in its most
recent analysis of fuel
prices. Taxes accounted
on average for just 20
percent of the price of
gasoline in the United
States, the agency said.
Even
amid Norway's bluster on
gasoline prices,
however,
environmentalists
suggest the nation could
do more to achieve
greater energy
efficiency. One sore
point is the consumption
of electricity,
traditionally generated
by hydropower but soon
to depend more on a
fossil fuel, natural
gas.
Producing
oil for export in Norway
requires large amounts
of electricity, and
homes in the country,
with much of its
territory above the
Arctic Circle, use
electricity for heating,
creating much higher
electricity consumption
levels than elsewhere in
Europe. It is not
uncommon to drive on
well-lighted roads even
in remote areas.
"There
are areas in which we
have done O.K.,"
said Dag Nagoda, a
coordinator in the Oslo
office of the WWF,
formerly known as the
World Wildlife Fund.
"And there are
areas in which we can do
better."