Gas-Tax Break Shameful Policy

The “McCain-Clinton” gas-tax vacation is an abomination of energy policy, Thomas Friedman declares in the New York Times. “This is money laundering: We borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks.” Worse than just despicable pandering, it would encourage gas consumption and drive the renewables market overseas.

“Are you sitting down?” Friedman asks. Legislative stalemate means that tax credits for wind and solar energy will expire at year's end, dumping 100,000 jobs and $20 billion of investment in 2009 alone. And, Friedman says, that's happening at the very moment when we need to be launching new technology and making it competitive—while subsidies for the oil and gas industries persist. (More renewable energy stories.)