Better short- and long-term answers are cutting consumption and developing biofuels and other renewable energy sources that do less damage to the environment.

Rep. Chris Cannon's claim that oil shale is the answer to higher gasoline prices is nothing more than political grandstanding, designed to use the fears of Utahns to his advantage just two weeks before the Republican primary.

Although Utahns are as frustrated as all other Americans with the high cost of fuel, we believe they are not so gullible as to buy Cannon's pitch that he can provide relief by tossing out regulations meant to protect the state's natural resources from plunder by energy speculators.

Cannon is sponsoring legislation that would let developers more easily obtain permits by sidestepping a ban on oil shale leasing imposed by Congress last year. Cannon's bill has almost no chance of winning approval by his fellows in the Congress, who are well aware that the technology to make oil shale development feasible is at least a decade away.

The ban, sponsored by Colorado Democrats Rep. Mark Udall and Sen. Ken Salazar, delays the completion of Interior Department rules for leasing public lands for oil shale development. The two congressmen are rightly concerned about the potential impacts of opening up thousands of Bureau of Land Management acres in Colorado to developers who don't even have an economically viable way to turn shale rock into oil, let alone an environmentally sound method. Wyoming and Colorado governors share their view.

Cannon obviously has no such concerns about lands in eastern Utah. Commenting on the odds against his legislation passing, Cannon said Democrats elected in 2006 can be pressured by voters to support it in order "to do something about high energy prices." "This, by far, is the best thing," he said, though he admits oil shale development cannot bring down gas prices in the short term and probably not in the long term, either.

But, he reasons, speculators might stop bidding up the price of crude if they fear a large U.S. oil source is about to be developed.

We doubt it.