I’m sure there are plenty of other Dems who would love to do this. It’s just taxpayer money — so it’s free, right?

Ohio manufacturers could get the gravy without the lumps when it comes to the federal government helping businesses pay for clean-energy investments while also controlling carbon emissions.
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Wednesday that he is prepared to take his so-called IMPACT proposal out of the “cap-and-trade” carbon emission bill — which many predict is doomed to stall in the U.S. Senate — and instead attach it to a jobs bill or another piece of legislation.
That decoupling would mean Ohio manufacturers could get access to $1 billion or so in federal assistance to make their facilities more energy efficient or to produce alternative-energy products without a cap-and-trade bill that likely would drive up their costs.
IMPACT, short for the Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology Act of 2009, would provide capital for manufacturing companies with 500 or fewer employees through a revolving loan fund.