Corn Is King

Four years in the making and 1,700-pages long, the energy bill Congress recently presented might well be called the “No Energy Lobbyist Left Behind Act.” <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

An energy bill worthy of the name would remove political barriers to the production and distribution of affordable energy. There are some bona fide market-liberalizing measures in the bill.

For example, the bill repeals depression-era Public Utility Holding Company Act restrictions on energy company mergers, repeals the Clean Air Act motor-fuel oxygenate requirement made obsolete by today’s clean-burning computer- controlled engines, and authorizes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to overcome NIMBY (not-in-mybackyard) opposition to the siting and licensing of liquefied natural gas import terminals.

But most of the bill is pork—$14.5 billion in targeted tax breaks and authority for $66 billion in new in spending, according to the taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against Government

Waste.

Download the PDF [2]to read the whole thing.