One of the great undercovered aspects of U.S. energy policy is the fact that most of it happens through the tax code. That's one reason it's so unbearably lame.
Why do we do energy policy this way? There are many reasons, but a big one is that decades of conservative agitprop have made it almost impossible to spend money (eek, big government!) on a particular industry (eek, picking winners!) in a way that's transparent and democratically accountable. Oh, we still direct money to favored industries, of course; we've always had industrial policy and always will. We just don't do it honestly.
Instead, legislators cram the tax code full of credits and loopholes. That way a) they can pretend it's not really spending, b) they can renegotiate it every year or two, ensuring a continual stream of lobbyists and contributions, and c) they never have to answer to voters about it, since the whole process is so completely opaque. It's great for politicians, terrible for policy.
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