Energy Bill Blues

From Jerry Taylor & Daniel Becker:

With great fanfare, a conference committee has disgorged a 1,725-page energy bill advertised as a 10-year $14.6 billion hit on the Treasury. Most is a mind-numbing array of direct and indirect subsidies for various energy corporations.

We think it's time for both liberals and conservatives to rethink the energy subsidy arms race. Policymakers should free the energy industry from dependence on government, get rid of energy subsidies and let the best fuels and technologies win.

Why should liberals cut off clean-energy subsidies? Because that's a small price for ending the enormously larger handouts that drive destructive drilling, mining, polluting power plants, and gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs. Why should conservatives eliminate incentives for more oil, gas and nuclear energy production? Because with energy prices so high, subsidies simply aren't needed to encourage investment in new supply.