OPINION/COMMENTARY

The Good and Bad of the Energy Bill

The energy bill is getting older, but it isn’t getting any better. Congressional debate over energy legislation has dragged on since 2001 and is starting up again in the 109th Congress. The House has marked up its most recent version of the energy bill, and the Senate will follow soon. If both bodies pass their bills, the many differences between them will have to be ironed out in conference. Though late in the game, Congress still has the opportunity to improve what remains a flawed approach to addressing the nation’s energy challenges. Energy markets work better than central planning—this simple fact is too often lost in the energy debate. A sensible federal energy policy should reflect the market approach. Decades of central planning, in the form of energy and environmental laws, have left energy markets considerably less than free. Virtually every major element of the nation’s energy infrastructure—oil and natural gas wells, pipelines, refineries, electric power plants, and transmission lines—has been saddled with federal red tape. The feds have even gone to such micromanaging extremes as dictating specific recipes for gasoline....

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