Congress is fiddling while we burn oil.

As everyone knows, oil prices have climbed to record levels during the last year and sent our economy reeling. During the same time, the House of Representatives and the Senate have wrestled with and then refused to pass legislation that would help the country shift from our dangerous reliance on finite and diminishing oil supplies to more sustainable reliance on solar, wind and other renewable sources of energy.

There are hard things the Congress must do as the United States faces the challenge of transforming our economy from one based on fossil fuel to one based on other sources of energy. But passing legislation to continue tax credits for renewable energy investment and production isn't one of the hard things.

It's not difficult legislation to understand: The proposal renews tax credits that have historically been given to promote investment in solar energy and wind power, geothermal, biomass and hydropower production. And it should hardly be difficult legislation to pass: In late 2007, Congress passed similar tax credits for the oil and gas industries.

The credits would provide financial incentives for industry to invest in bringing more renewable energy to the market. They are a typical tool used by government, in this case to stimulate growth in sectors or technologies that are not yet economically viable but have important economic and social potential. According to the Arizona Republic, for example, from 1943 to 1999, the federal government gave subsidies to commercial nuclear power amounting to $145 billion in order to move that industry to the point of commercial viability.

The subsidies proposed today would help propel the country's crucial move toward renewable energy as oil supplies diminish and the U.S. competes for those supplies with galloping economies like China and India.

There are additional subsidies proposed that would grant tax credits to individual homeowners for the installation of energy efficient technologies -- those haven't been passed either.

Why is it that Congress can't seem to pass such abundantly useful and important legislation? House members initially wanted to pay for the credits by taking away some benefits granted to the oil industry. President Bush said he'd veto that bill.

Now, the House has proposed paying for the credits by taking away tax loopholes for hedge funds -- and Republicans in the Senate are blocking the bill's progress. Those Republicans, thankfully, do not include Maine senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who support moving ahead.

In the meantime, investment in solar and wind projects -- desperately needed by this country -- has slowed. The employment represented by those projects has been stalled.

Here in Maine, there's significant wind power development that awaits the passage of the tax credits -- and is unlikely to move ahead without it. As Jaime Steve of the American Wind Energy Association says, "I've got men and women who want to put sticks in the ground" -- but they won't until the legislation is passed.

Congress needs to get past the logjam and do what their constituents sent them to Washington to do: Make progress. Stop fiddling, pass the renewable energy tax incentives and find a way to pay for it.