You said: If energy policy falls under the realm of "free market", then why does our government provide tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to the oil industry, which consists of the most profitable corporations on the planet?

Reply: To a free market advocate, the obvious answer to this comment is that the gov't should NOT be subsidizing the oil industry.  Nor any other industry.

You said: What this bill does is divert some of these wasteful subsidies from industries which provide lesser benefits, to those which (potentially) will provide much greater benefits to society as a whole.

Reply: ALL gov't subsidies are wasteful.  The gov't should not spend money on anything that the private sector could do.  This bill enshrines and subsidizes certain forms of energy efficiency at the expense of others (either current or future) which may actually be MORE beneficial to society.

You said: Kind of the definition of government, isn't it.

Reply: Yes, to a socialist.

You said: The free market usually sorts out these kinds of things at the expense of those that can least afford to deal with it.

Reply: I contest the truth of that statement.  That is socialist dogma, disproven by experience.

You said: Personally, I believe that I, and society in general, have a responsibility to care for those who are less fortunate.

Reply: I believe that also.  However, whenever gov't is used as the means to carry this out, it does so very inefficiently, it creates ever-expanding entitlements, and it creates voting blocs of permanent underclasses.  The less fortunate should be taken care of by religious groups and private charities.  This is NOT an essential gov't function (and therefore not a proper gov't function).

You said: I'm happy about this move, as it does indeed help all of us to stop using as much energy and help ensure more "for the rest of us".

Reply: I sincerely hope you enjoy living in your dream world.  This legislation is at best a meaningless feel-good political stunt.  More likely, it is a boondoggle that will ultimately cause more harm than good.

My last word: Something that the private sector cannot do (at least not effectively) is to assign a cost or penalty to actions that cause widespread but dilute harm, especially if this is not immediately obvious.  Second-hand smoke and various forms of pollution are the most obvious examples.  For such things, gov't SHOULD step in, and make the action costly, either by taxing it or by requiring some kind of remediation measures.  (Only in the most extreme circumstances should gov't ban a practice entirely.  Gov't should always strive to interfere as little as possible.)

In the particular case of carbon emissions, gov't should limit itself to taxing the emissions, and refrain from prescribing specific, favored solutions.  Let the marketplace respond, and let the consumer decide.  300 million consumers are collectively MUCH smarter than several hundred legislators.

I'm no expert, but this kinda sounds like a load of crap. Isn't EWPC the kind of thing that led to rolling blackouts in California back in the Enron days? I'll admit that I only skimmed the article and did not read it thoroughly, so you can fault me on that, but what I did read was confusing and filled with a lot of double talk. The whole thing just is not presented well. It sounds like you're proposing another layer of overhead into the delivery system to monitor demand and determine pricing.

I understand where you're coming from, but frankly, I just don't trust private enterprise anymore. The game is weighted too far in their favor and their interests clearly lie with maintaining their profit margin over serving the needs of their customers. Maybe if we had enough transparency and accountability, I'd go along with it, but recent history suggests otherwise.