Haley Barbour's Green Jobs Strategy

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/10/haley-barbour-green-jobs-strategy

Bill Clinton's DNC chairman, Terry McAuliffe, is getting into the green energy business, Bloomberg Businessweek reports:

In the past year, McAuliffe founded GreenTech Automotive, which he aims to build into a $1 billion powerhouse. In February he bid to convert a shuttered paper factory in Virginia's southeast corner into a biomass power plant; he's awaiting word. He plans to invest up to $1 billion in wind power with a Chinese company, A-Power Energy Generation Systems. He says he's "jacked up" on fuel cells and is scoping out new technologies worldwide. "What the Internet was for the 1990s, green jobs are for the 2000s," says McAuliffe...

Democrats getting into the green energy business is not so surprising; think Al Gore. But then comes this reference to Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association and a possible 2012 Republican candidate for president:

McAuliffe then secured from Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour a package of state incentives to build a 400,000-square-foot facility in Tunica, Miss. Barbour, the former head of the Republican National Committee, is a longtime McAuliffe associate and former Washington superlobbyist.

Nothing wrong with job creation or alternative energy, but the opposition researchers for Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich just created a file named "Barbour-Sweetheart deals for Clinton cronies." The Businessweek article reports that Mr. McAuliffe's green car "accelerates to only 45 miles per hour, travels 70 miles before needing a recharge, and can't go on a highway." Mr. McAuliffe's quote comparing the Internet of the 1990s to green jobs today seems oddly oblivious to the fact that the Internet stock bubble of the 1990s popped.

by Ira Stoll  |  Oct 8, 2010 at 8:53 am Related Topics:  Energy, Politics receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list