I think in an ideal world, sure. But the fact is that the global landscape of oil consumption and production pervades too complexly and in equal parts through society, government, and economics making any prohibitive legislation near impossible to enact. 

We're a few months away from the one year anniversary of the BP oil spill and the political dialogue has moved on. In America at least Energy is not a hot topic and won't be until it needs to be. Unfortunately that might already be too late. 

Anyways, I'm not exactly sure government intervention is the most effective way to promote the implementation of new and cleaner energy solutions. Economic sustainability will be key to the success of new technologies. New models for energy use are going to have to be cheap. Therefore I think the government's role in promoting a more efficient and healthier energy system needs to be dynamic. They need to offer subsidies to the scientists exploring the new technologies, tax breaks for the early users of those technologies, and incentive for companies to change their model. 

New technologies are always going to be more expensive at the start, but eventually the prices will diminish. It's a hard hump to get over, but I think we are slowly moving in the right direction. What seems evident to me, in America at least, is our national opportunity to engage a national dialogue about energy. It seems so obvious that we should want to change our infrastructure to be healthier, cleaner, and green. It's an issue that should transcend bipartisan political discourse and unite us as a cohesive nation. It starts with only a dialogue and ends with prosperity, economic and otherwise. Imagine if we cut our military spending in half and put all of that into the energy sector? It would create jobs that would end up creating more jobs and would mean America was manufacturing again meaning we are lowering our GDP to debt ratio and becoming more economically sustainable, less reliant on the import of products from abroad.

 But again, these are pipe dreams.