I love big oil.

Yeah, it's a dirty business and the chemicals that are used nowadays to extract oil and gas in hydraulic fracturing are even dirtier. But whether it's Brent, West Texas Intermediate or Russian Export Blend, this is the stuff that heats our homes, fuels our cars, drives our economy.

Oil touches almost every aspect of our lives; we get thousands of everyday products, from medicines to plastics to fibers for clothing, from oil.

Unfortunately, there are two problems with oil: supplies will eventually run dry and the emissions from gas-powered vehicles are bad for our health.

Which is why I'm hoping that Congress gets its act together and immediately adopts an extension of the wind-production tax credit.

The opposition claims that this tax is anti-free market.

To a degree, they're absolutely right. But they're missing the bigger point. Without a robust mix of alternative fuels, the free market as we know it won't be around to defend.

Depending on your viewpoint, government subsidies can be nothing more than corporate welfare. However, the same fiscal conservatives who are fighting against the extension of this tax don't seem too upset about the billions