I agree with the ends, but I have my suspicions the ends aren’t going to be as effective as we’ve estimated, because estimating the responses of independent actors to an inducement is really tough even in simple controlled experimental settings, and energy markets are anything but simple. Also, this all just reminds me way too much of when we gave telecom companies subsidies to build out better internet infrastructure in the late 90s and early 00s and they were able to exploit legal loopholes to just take the money without actually building out their networks and serving unserved populations. The companies were dealing with are smart, they’ve been dealing with and exploiting government regulations and institutions for a very long time, and they are masters of having their cake and eating it too when it comes to this stuff.

Moreover, I really think we should not be giving one dime to oil and gas companies under any circumstances, whether its indirectly through these no strings attached tax credits we’re giving to renewable energy companies that are majority owned by traditional energy companies or all the money we’re throwing at carbon capture research that’s probably not going to return meaningfully useful technology in time to matter. With campaign finance and lobbying laws as loose as they are and with these companies’ histories of bankrolling some of the most harmful lawmakers and judges in our nation’s history, we’re basically feeding the monsters we have to fight. Also, it just sends a terrible message to all the other business leaders and corporations of the world if you can literally knowingly destroy the global climate for decades and never face any kind of punishment.

However, the IRA did get passed and those subsidies are out there now, and I think it’s possible they will do some good and that blowing them up now would be really disruptive and damaging to a private clean energy industry that’s currently* our best hope of not completely destroying the environment, so if I could wave a magic wand I would leave everything from the IRA in place and just add a lot more fees and penalties and taxes that targeted the oil and gas industries on top of it. Subsidies of any sort turn my stomach, but I think subsidies plus targeted fees and penalties is our best bet with where we’re at now.

Ultimately, I think we should nationalize all these companies and turn them into public agencies with open records open meetings and elected administrators who hire subject matter experts that guide the administrators’ policy decisions*, but I appreciate that’s a number of steps away from where we are now and I think there will have to be some kind of gradual process to get there.

**This is also what I want to have happen to health insurance, education, housing, and social media (with the stipulation that private market based competition to these public agencies is totally encouraged in situations where it’s practicably possible (e.g. power grids usually require monopolies of certain aspects, but there’s no reason we couldn’t have smaller more specialized private insurance companies in a country with publicly administered single payer universal healthcare))