After the bankruptcy of California solar panel company Solyndra, which received more than half a billion dollars in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) reiterated his opposition to the loan guarantee program, accusing the Obama officials of “picking winners,” using government interference in the free market to favor … hm? [Jon Stewart-style finger to ear] what’s that? … I’m being told we have some archival material coming in …
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, supports loan guarantees as a step to build 100 new nuclear reactors.
Winners … huh.
Anyway, McConnell went on to express outrage that the administration “fast-tracked a half-billion-dollar loan to a politically connected energy firm,” accusing the DOE of … sorry, say again? more?
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell … pressed Energy Secretary Steven Chu to save a uranium enrichment facility in western Kentucky run by USEC Inc. that does contract work for the federal government. USEC is looking to expand its business with the agency through a $2 billion loan guarantee for a new facility in Piketon, Ohio, but its application stalled before the DOE.
Politically connected energy firms … ooookay.
Where were we? Right, so, McConnell mocked Obama’s claims that cleantech industries can create “green jobs,” pointing to the failure of … what? again?
Mr. McConnell made two personal appeals in 2009, asking Energy Secretary Steven Chu to approve as much as $235 million in federal loans for a plant to build electric vehicles in Franklin, Ky.
“I hope you will realize the importance of such job creation to Kentucky,” Mr. McConnell said in a July 2009 memo supporting an application from Zap Motor Manufacturing.
Federal lobbying disclosure records show that Mr. McConnell’s support for the project came after Zap Motor hired a Kentucky-based lobbyist, Robert Babbage, who has been a frequent contributor to Mr. McConnell’s campaigns and boasts on his own Internet site about his close ties to Mr. McConnell.
Oh, hell, now I forgot what we were talking about. Something about how picking winners from among politically connected energy companies fails to create jobs … or something.
