NYT looks at some of the myriad issues involved in the energy bill.

The more I look at it, the more I think a national energy policy is a dumb idea. Our congressmen are not smart enough to understand a complex industry and the result of their attempts to interfere — tens of billions wasted on synth-fuels, billions more on ethanol to pollute the air and drive up food prices, billions more for oil companies to do what oil companies do anyway — have been laughable.

No, let the market decide. Restrict the federal role to funding basic research and environmental controls, but get them out of the micro-management and subsidy business. They don’t know what they’re doing. Would you want a bunch of lawyers rushing in and telling you how to do your job? Why do we have this national delusion that energy is somehow a different industry and government can run it better than the people who have spent their lives within it?