E&E Daily headline today: “House Dems seek to create gov’t corporation to commercialize clean tech.”

I suppose naming these beasts like hurricanes is only appropriate, given the havoc they wreak; Fannie and Freddie are taken. How about Flunkie?

Of course, Fannie and Freddie aren’t the acknowledged inspirations: the bill “would create a government corporation, akin to the United States Export-Import Bank, to commercialize emerging clean-energy technologies.”

I guess someone hasn’t informed them that, as a government entity, ExIm Bank is having its projects held up because of green-group litigation claiming that energy projects – overseas energy projects, no less – not only require environmental impact statements but must address the cumulative impact including on climate change of such technology if widely deployed (which is one of the pay-fors that any cap-and-trade legislation supposedly would clean up, but which the pressure groups will never let the Dems agree to).

This particular NEPA requirement does not apply to private sector entities, so only by commercializing the energy technologies through the feds do we invoke them.

Of course, James Hansen has testified already that even one coal plant will lead to the extinction of 400 (unnamed) species. There is no doubt that any technology offering any emissions will be the subject of similar demagogery and possible prohibition on their release.

For now, I’m unwilling to entertain the prospect that these congressional advocates actually know such things. That would be even more irresponsible.