Christina:

Good article and good response, but you did not answer one of Dave's questions.

Why yes, they could. They could shovel subsidies at biofuels, which will enrich their huge agribusiness and oil company friends (who else will grow the corn and sell the ethanol?). They could shovel subsidies at "clean coal," thus enriching the coal industry. They could shovel subsidies at nuclear power.

In the absence of a powerful and vocal lobby ( instead of hodge-podge alliances), we still remain vulnerable to the industry sponsored "fix" that does nothing to solve the problem, but makes a big appearance of doing so.