What's wrong with the energy bill.(Correction, Please!)

ITEM: After the energy bill passed Congress, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for August 1 commented: "Any way you look at it--economically, militarily, environmentally, geo-strategically--the energy bill agreed to by Congress represents' an abdication of national responsibility."

After listing some perceived problems, the paper asked rhetorically: "What new national policies are we adopting to prepare us for a coming world of scarce and expensive oil? As embodied in the energy bill, our strategy is to pump and burn the world's remaining oil faster and faster. If somebody's gonna burn that last barrel of oil, Congress wants that somebody to be an American.

"And unfortunately, that's pretty much it. Conservation gets short shrift: The bill does not, for example, require our automobiles to become more fuel-efficient, even though efficiency standards haven't changed in roughly two decades. To the extent that global warming is recognized, it is only as an excuse to justify the expansion of nuclear power, a goal that energy companies had long sought anyway.... Overall, when we need vision from our leaders, they give us greed instead."

ITEM: The San Jose Mercury News for August 1 complained that the passed bill did not properly set a national "energy policy." The U.S., said the paper, "needs a policy that focuses on reducing the environmental damage from energy use, especially smog and global warming."

CORRECTION: There is much to criticize in the energy bill, but most of the mass media gripes demanded even more regulations, which would have made the legislation worse.

A free country should not have a national energy "plan." There are many energy resources available to consumers and producers, who utilize substitutions and economic trade-offs when deciding on their actions; in a free market, incentives are provided by prices. Some consumers may decide to use a smaller car because of better gas mileage; others may opt for a larger one for safety reasons.

A national requirement, on the other hand, reduces choices. If producers think it would be worth their while, for example, to go into the solar-energy business, that should be their decision, without a tax subsidy; consumers will provide the demand, or lack thereof, with their purchases. "A price-coordinated economy facilitates incremental substitution, but political decision-making tends toward categorical priorities," explained Dr. Thomas Sowell in his Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy (2000)--"that is, declaring one thing absolutely more important than another and creating laws and policies accordingly."