The true cost of petroleum is hidden: subsidizing protection of assets, consumer/producer pricing, and risk in production and refining. However, long-term the hidden costs will implode on the taxpayer but favors those who keep things hidden. Example people are concerned about the national debt and government spending but fail to realize why hidden costs wreak havoc on our long-term expenses. This fuels even greater political power to those who reward certain industries with regulations that protect them from real costs and those costs at some point will fall onto taxpayer.

Problems are complex and don’t fall into stupid talking points or fake political ideologies on 24-hour cable news TV. Example using subsidies efficiently for EVs may mean more government spending but could result in less government spending in the future. So sometimes certain regulations or spending could result in future reductions in government spending or the size of government.

Just because a few Democrats are selling the American Clean Energy & Security Act, be careful. As always the devil is in the details. There are 101 short-term energy schemes that can threaten this legislation. This happens by getting the bill side-tracked or watered down. So some healthy criticism or questioning is helpful to keep this legislation honest.