Club adds to gas tax

GOSHEN (AP) - About a dozen people in this northern Indiana community near South Bend are taxing themselves an extra 50 cents per gallon of gasoline and giving the money to groups working to break the nation's oil addiction.

The Gas Tax Club of Goshen had its first meeting in April to tally up the tax and donated more than $400 to the Chain Reaction Bicycle Project. The Goshen-based project provides bicycle-powered curbside recycling, recycles old bikes and advocates improving bike paths.

"It's a way for us to be more mindful of how much gas we do use and take that negative use of our oil addiction and put it into something that has a positive benefit," gas club member Eric Kurtz said.

The voluntary gas tax organizer, Karl Shelly, said even though people don't like the rising cost of fuel, those costs don't reflect the environmental and foreign-policy costs of the nation's need for oil. That need contributes to pollution, unhealthy lifestyles, military intervention in oil-producing regions and global warming, he said.

Shelly said he got the idea to start the voluntary tax during a gathering last year in Washington, D.C.

It was "different folks who were concerned about the war and the environment and talking about what can citizens do about this," he said.

What are you doing?

What are you doing to use less gasoline and to reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign oil? Send your thoughts to ddavis@tribtown.com.

Coming Monday

Who's to blame for the gas price crunch? The Bush administration or Congress? See Monday's Opinion Page.