Energy Policy in the U.S. Is a Broken Process

My mother wrote to me earlier today about the need for immigration reform, noting that any successful political party needs to embrace the notion.  At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I responded:

I agree, both that a) our immigration processes are broken, and b) everyone associated with law-making needs to participate actively in fixing this and all other broken processes (or at least appear like they’re participating), lest they leave voters angry, and anxious for retribution.

This is what has me so vexed about our energy policy, as it is so clearly wrong—yet no one seems to want to even talk about it, let alone do anything about it.  As I’ve written in the past, if I asked you to design an energy policy that was as stupid and unfair and destructive as possible, I would defy you to come up with anything too different from what we have now.  The fossil fuel boys enjoy huge subsidies that come in 10 – 15 different flavors, and are part of federal laws; i.e., they can only be changed with an (extremely unlikely) act of Congress.  Renewable energy lives in a confusing and ever-changing chaos that actively deters investors.  The oil companies love it, but the entire rest of the country (not to mention the world) is suffering—and it’s only getting worse.