Cronyism, failure, and the green-energy morass

Democrats apparently decided at some point in the last five years that they were going to stop pushing renewable energy primarily as a way to save the polar bears and spotted owls, but instead as some sort of job creator and economic stimulus.

The glaring wrongness of that argument — that subsidizing solar panels and windmills will make us richer — is why we conservatives and libertarians jump all over stuff like Solyndra’s going bankrupt after a huge federal loan guarantee, and the political coziness involved in the deal.

We get a new story in this realm: Last week, the blog “24/7 Wall Street” posted about SunPower, a subsidized solar company: 

In addition to ramping up component manufacturing in Malaysia, the company announced last month that it is constructing a manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to assemble the solar panels to be installed at the Valley Solar power station!

Well, today, Neil McCabe at Human Events has some interesting details on SunPower: the company’s biggest congressional booster is Rep. George Miller, while his son, George Miller works for the company as a lobbyist at a firm representing SunPower before California’s government.

SunPower’s DC lobbyist is former Democratic aide and bigtime Dem fundraiser Patrick Murphy.

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