Natural Gas Gets Government Cash: More Welfare For Business
Veronique de Rugy writes at reason about why there's no need for the shovels of cash in subsidies that the natural gas industry is looking to pull out of Washington (and which, of course, lawmakers are eager to shovel in their direction):

The rationale behind NATGAS is familiar. Backers say that they've got a whiz-bang technology whose benefits are guaranteed. The only problem, they say, is that transition costs to the new and better technology are really high. In this case, investors are reluctant to spend the billions of dollars in capital expenditures necessary to earn natural gas the much larger share of the transportation market it supposedly deserves. Such a view is as self-serving as it is ahistorical. The automobile itself provides a counter-example. The shift from horse-powered vehicles to gasoline ones came about without tax subsidies for filling stations. And in fact, some companies are already converting trucks, cars, and buses to run on natural gas without the NATGAS Act's large subsidies. Honda, the only company that sells factory-ready natural-gas-powered cars in the country, is offering buyers $3,000 of free fuel as an incentive.

Natural gas does in fact provide a proven, less-polluting alternative to conventional fuels for cars and trucks. But the reluctance of investors to pour the $130 billion to $210 billion that may be needed over the next 20 years to build for the natural gas infrastructure alone stems from precisely the sort of market forces that government should respect. Natural gas prices are well below historic levels while oil prices are well above historic levels. There's no guarantee that these prices will stay at those mismatched levels over the life of the capital expenditure needed to ramp up the market for natural-gas vehicles.

If the recent string of government-subsidized energy failures such as Solyndra teaches any lesson, it's that government should be extremely slow to overrule investors' reluctance to wager their own money. Just as it does with more chic "green energies," the acknowledged need for subsidies shows that natural gas technology is not ready for prime time. Tilting the scales in its favor will introduce even more economic inefficiency into the market while putting taxpayers on the hook for yet another "sure thing" that will help America move forward into a future of cleaner and greener energy.

As it stands, natural gas companies are already set to benefit from regulations that hamstring competing energy sources.

She's absolutely right that government has to stop overriding the free market. When we don't, we pay.

And I love her example of the automobile and gas stations. Accordingly, Henry Ford didn't get a wad of money from the government, and it's not like we're all saddling up Rambler to get to the office.