By Eric Epstein
"My party, the Republican party, is too deep in bed with the coal, oil and electric utility industries to remember its free market principles."
-Jim Rubens, former state senator from Hanover, New Hampshire
Federal legislation passed by Congress spells the demise of the free enterprise system as a means to address our energy problems. Remember when Republicans were welded to the notion that entrepreneurs should decide what constitutes the most prudent investment? Wasn’t it yesterday that conservatives proclaimed that the market is best suited to determine what technology should move America forward?