St. Louis Post Dispatch, Dec. 12: Consumers are enjoying the lowest retail gasoline prices in years, a welcome ray of light in an ever-darkening economic picture.

But in the long run – as difficult as this is to accept – low gasoline prices hurt America more than they help. They encourage continued reliance on gas-powered vehicles and harm the efforts to lower carbon emissions that contribute to global warming. They discourage research into new, nonpolluting transportation energy sources – the single greatest technological challenge of the 21st century.

After years of failed attempts to increase mileage requirements for new cars – efforts steadfastly opposed by American auto manufacturers and their unions, Congress finally succeeded last year. As a result, U.S. cars must average 35 miles per gallon by 2020. European cars, in contrast, averaged 38 miles per gallon in 2006.

If increasing mileage standards has been difficult, hiking gas taxes has been unthinkable.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported in 2004 that increasing the federal gasoline tax – which has been 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993 – would reduce consumption faster and at less cost than increasing mileage standards.

Congress should raise the federal gas tax and push America toward innovation and energy independence.

Dallas Morning, Dec. 16: During President Bush’s first trip to Iraq, under cover of darkness in November 2003, security was so tight that Iraqis didn’t even know he had been there until he was long gone. Iraq’s progress has been so dramatic that, for the president’s visit Sunday, he left the security of U.S. military bases and, in daylight, held a joint news conference with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The atmosphere turned nasty when an Arab journalist hurled shoes at the president while shouting about what the suffering Iraqis have endured since the 2003 invasion. Iraq might be a much more secure place today, but as Bush told reporters, “there is still more work to be done.”

His admission underscores one of the great lessons of this war: Patriotic slogans and an overly positive appraisal of progress might help rally supporters, but it’s no substitute for good planning, realistic expectations and honest assessments of the challenges ahead.

Los Angeles Times, Dec. 15: Five Blackwater security guards indicted in the shooting deaths last year of 17 Iraqi civilians are innocent until proved guilty, and even if convicted might be freed because of ambiguities in U.S. law. But the Justice Department is right to seek to put before a jury its allegation that the guards recklessly caused a bloodbath on Sept. 16, 2007.

The decision to prosecute the Blackwater contractors, which follows a searching investigation by the FBI, addresses a source of conflict between Iraq and the United States. But diplomatic considerations alone aren’t sufficient justification for this prosecution. The weightier imperative is to prove to Iraqis and Americans that, to the extent possible under U.S. law, justice will be done.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 16: Every gun fired by drug traffickers dealing death in Mexico is one that might as well be aimed at the heart of U.S. well-being.

As the Homeland Security Department has acted as if illegal immigrants doing U.S. jobs represented the dire threat, Mexico bravely has launched a campaign against the drug violence that has claimed more than 8,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon assumed office in December 2006. More than 5,000 have died in 2008 alone.

It’s a fight that the United States cannot allow Mexico to lose. It has pledged $400 million for Mexico’s police and courts, releasing $197 million of that recently.

It’s not enough.

This country long has recognized what economic distress in Mexico has meant: more immigrant workers. This, at least, has had distinct benefit for this country. But there is nothing beneficial about this other export, which will only increase in volume should Mexico not prevail.