*Terminal at the very pleasant Green Airport looks like something that would fly.*

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

The local economic impact of Breeze Airways setting up a “base” at Rhode Island T. F. Green International Airport (what a name -- after you’ve said it you might have miss your flight) is probably exaggerated by state officials, though it’s certainly another feather in the cap of the indefatigable Iftikhar Ahmad, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, and his colleagues, who have been working very hard to expand the airport’s services, which COVID has made a particularly laborious workout.

Remember that all promises by companies tend to be even more provisional than those by your friends and family, mostly because the economy and ownership can change fast.

I’d be more hopeful if the airline’s long-delayed nonstop service to the West Coast had finally started. Now it looks like that won’t happen until next year, apparently mostly because of staffing problems. And the airport is not yet really “international,” despite its name. But there’s lots of potential to market the ease and accessibility of cute, cozy Green compared to Boston’s congested and expensive Logan International Airport, including in getting frequent service to Europe. (Green’s “International” moniker reminds me of little colleges calling themselves “universities” to sound more important.)

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*On the MBTA’s Orange Line, closed for repairs until late September. Most of the T’s problems stem from delayed maintenance and bad labor contracts.*

The exasperating problems of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority – line closures, equipment breakdowns, etc., etc., are Rhode Island’s problems, too, since Boston is the regional capital and depends on its mass transit to help maintain its prosperity. Lots of Rhode Islanders work in Greater Boston.

*In Green Airport’s terminal lobby*
*— Photo by* *Antony-22*

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

There’s at least some good news -- locally. After years in which businesses and individuals have pleaded for nonstop air service between Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport and the West Coast, Breeze Airways has announced that it will start twice-a-week service to Los Angeles in late June. The initial plan is only for summer service, but obviously that would change fast if demand shows the need for it to be year-round. I think that will happen. T.F. Green serves a large and densely populated area and is a pleasant alternative to braving the nasty traffic to Boston’s Logan International Airport.

Other new, twice-weekly destinations to be offered soon will be Columbus, Jacksonville, Savannah and Richmond, though Savannah will, like L.A., be summer-only to start.

Kudos to the folks at the Rhode Island Airport Corporation for pulling this off.

However, given the international situation, I doubt that new flights from Green, or indeed other airports, to foreign places are in the offing.

With a mass-murdering tyrant on the loose in Europe and, as a result, aviation and other fuel prices likely to rise even more; a recession possible, and COVID still hovering, all plans can be seen as even more imaginary than usual these days.

On those fuel prices, will Americans finally embrace smaller, fuel-efficient gasoline-powered cars and/or electric or hybrid cars instead of gas-guzzling pickup trucks and SUVs (which most people buy on credit)? Probably not….

If you want to make a patriotic gesture, get a smaller car.

*1957* *Heinkel Kabine* *bubble car*
*— Photo by* *Lothar Spurzem*

When the worst of the current crisis is over, Congress should (but probably won’t have courage to) raise the federal gas tax from its present 18.4 cents a gallon -- set in 1993! -- to discourage gasoline-fueled driving, accelerate electric-vehicle use and use some of the money to aid lower-income people to deal with higher energy costs; the last thing was done in the 2008-2009 recession.

Federal payments to individuals under the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan last year have softened the blow: Far more people than usual have hefty savings. (The law of unintended consequences!)

Raising the gas tax would not only reduce the power of tyrannical and corrupt petrostates such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, whose fossil-fuel sales finance their crimes; it would also weaken over time the pricing power of American oil companies, which are now gleefully profiteering from the world crisis.

America would be in safer shape today if we had raised the gas tax long ago.

Total average U.S. state and federal gasoline taxes were 52 cents a gallon in 2019, compared to an average of $2.24 in other industrialized countries.

Oh, yes. There’s also that not-very-slow-moving catastrophe called global warming from burning fossil fuel, which we’ll still have to do lots of for some years to come. And indeed, for a couple of years we’ll probably have to extract more U.S. oil and gas than before the current world security crisis, made possible, ironically, in part by our addiction to fossil fuel.

Of course, the gasoline-cost surge will also encourage a reversal in the back-to-the office migration that has accompanied the waning (for now) of the COVID pandemic. Far too many Americans live in exurbs and suburbs far from their workplaces, and they drive gas-guzzlers. Putin has given them a good reason to go back to Zooming, in a new blow to downtowns

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Note: The cost of energy from wind-power has gone up 0 percent since the current energy crisis started.