More than 20 states now require that utility companies derive a certain fixed percentage of their energy from renewable sources. Government has encouraged the private sector in the past with incentives and subsidies: In the mid-nineteenth century Congress gave railroad companies the land to build transcontinental rail networks and commissioned the first telegraph lines; in the twentieth century, the federal government financed the research that led to the creation of the Internet; in the twenty-first century, government continues to encourage alternative technologies.

Internet Assignment Find out what Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, has dubbed the “bouillabaisse of incentives, mandates, subsidies and related . . .

ingredients” that government entities are offering the private enterprise to help them go green. What government policies seem to be the most innovative? Most effective at achieving sustainability goals? Identify the stakeholders in the government subsidy context. Who benefits, and who is harmed?