McDonnell and Bolling Brag About "Green Energy," "Green JOBZ;" Romney Mocks Them

by: lowkell

Thu Oct 04, 2012 at 13:50:16 PM EDT

So what was Romney talking about when he told Obama, "in one year, you provided $90 billion in breaks to the green energy world?" Hard to say. According to a study by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in fact, all "renewables" received only $14.7 billion in federal support in 2010, up from $5.1 billion in 2007. So, one could argue that the Obama "stimulus" added a bit over $9 billion in one-time support for clean energy in 2010. That's not chump change, but it's not even close to the $90 billion "in one year" figure Romney threw out last night (unless, perhaps, he was counting money spent over several years in a variety of areas, including home weatherization and other energy-related areas, not just what most people think of as "green energy" - wind, solar, geothermal, etc.). Who knows.

Also, as my analysis here showed, "non-'stimulus' (alternately, we can call them 'business as usual') subsidies for wind, solar and geothermal in 2010 were down about $140 million from 2007." Of course, Willard doesn't mention this, but again, who knows what that guy's talking about, as most every word that comes out of his mouth is a lie or distortion. I know that actual facts are painful for pathological liars like Romney and Ryan, but I wanted to put them out there for the rest of us.

Anyway, the gist of Willard's comments last night was to diss "green energy" and "green jobs." At one point, Romney even claimed - completely, wildly wrong!!! - that "about half of {green energy companies}, of the ones have been invested in, they've gone out of business." In fact, there was at most "a 10 percent failure rate representing roughly 2 percent of budgeted funds for the program - a big difference from the 50 percent failure rate that Romney claimed." Whatever, details details (and can't expect the corporate media to do its job and call them on this crap).

Sounds good, right? Well, not according to the presidential nominee of McDonnell's and Bolling's own party, who goes around mocking "green energy" and "green jobs" (as an aside, I'd point out that when Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he touted clean energy, helped create a "cap and trade" program for greenhouse gas emissions, said coal plants "kill people," said we'd be better off with "European gas prices," etc.). I wonder if McDonnell and Bolling will set Willard straight on this one, or if they'll just suck it up and take one for the team, so to speak?

P.S. As for the politics of all this, check out the new poll showing overwhelmingly positive views of solar and wind power among U.S. voters, in stark contrast to the not-so-hot views of coal and oil held by those same voters.

P.P.S. Also worth noting is that Bob McDonell has been a major Romney surrogate who was reportedly on Romney's short list for VP, while Bolling is state chair for Romney in Virginia.