More than a quarter century has passed since Americans waited in lines to buy high priced gasoline.

There was plenty to time to find new energy efficiencies and develop diversified energy resources. Now we're paying the price for letting things slide.

You'd think the view of the future should have been a little better from those high seats in gas-guzzling SUV's.

Gas prices have spiked to their highest level in the past 10 years. A barrel of crude has tripled in price to almost $40 in the past two years. American concern might not have reached the emotional levels in Europe, where truckers blocked roads in protest, but it won't take much for panic to spread.

Before oil price hysteria takes away good judgment, a few bad ideas need to be spiked.

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Too bad it's already too late to block Vice President Al Gore's proposal to dip into the Strategic Oil Reserve. That should have been recognized immediately as a blatant political ploy to smooth things over until after the election. Even Clinton's own Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said using the petroleum reserve would be ``a major and substantial policy mistake.''

As Sen. Chuck Hagel noted in a speech on energy this week, the 570 million gallons in the reserve were set aside for acute disruptions in the oil supply caused by war or other national emergencies.

An election is not a national emergency. Things could get worse quickly. Already Iraq's Saddam Hussein has starting making threatening noises. His hand is on the spigot of 2.3 million barrels of oil a day in the International market.

The motivation to protect fixed-income Americans from surging prices for home heating is understandable, but relief from high winter heating bills should be provided under existing programs to provide assistance based on need. Tapping the petroleum reserve provides price relief to well-to-do Americans who should be able to absorb the price hikes on their own.

Another short-sighted idea pushed in the United States since prices began rising is to drop taxes on gasoline. The problem with that approach is that it would remove the primary source of funding for highway construction. What good is cheaper gas if the roads are falling apart?

Still another bad idea (endorsed by Hagel, we note with dismay) is to permit oil development in the coastal plains of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. That development, for only an estimated 16 billion barrels of oil, would disrupt caribou calving grounds and migratory patterns that have existed for centuries.

A better approach to high oil prices than jeopardizing fragile environmental areas is to encourage alternatives to fossil fuels. Already available in the market, for example, are BMWs that run on hydrogen. Even in Lincoln consumers can purchase hybrid autos from Honda and Toyota that run on both gasoline and electricity.

Just this week Gov. Mike Johanns pointed out that Nebraska ranks sixth in the nation in terms of wind energy resources. ``We are the Saudi Arabia of wind,'' Johanns boasted. The cost of producing electricity by wind turbine has dropped from 40 cents a kilowatt-hour in 1979 to 4 to 5 per kilowatt-hour.

Retired Iowa farmer Chuck Goodman will earn more than $8,000 this year for the turbines he has on an acre of land. This harvest season, he said, that same acre would earn him only $100 to $200.

Development of a coherent national energy policy is long overdue, as Hagel pointed out in several venues last week. It's important, however, that perspective not be limited to the current obsession with oil prices. Government interference to force cheaper prices is not the answer. The best long-term government response is to work within the framework of the free market to encourage development of new energy sources.

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