It's Official: Doug Lamborn is an Idiot

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by: Colorado Pols

The AP reports–oops!

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn says he was unaware when he signed onto a letter to cut money for renewable energy that he was also targeting the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden.

Lamborn said he was asking that funds be pulled from the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy grants and it was not intended as an attack on the lab that employs 2,300 workers.

About 90 percent of NREL’s funds come from those grants…

We talked about this letter last week–responsible for thousands of directly-created jobs and many millions of dollars in federal research funding coming into our state, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is more or less universally praised by Colorado public officials on both sides of the aisle–because to fail to do so would be very, very stupid politically.

Enter Doug Lamborn. The Denver paper’s Allison Sherry covers Lamborn’s attempted pullout from this disaster, which appears to have outraged local Republicans and Democrats alike. Apparently, Lamborn didn’t know that NREL gets 90% of its funding from the funds he wants to eliminate. Apparently, he wants NREL to keep going even if the funding that supports it is 90% zeroed out. And apparently, even though NREL is about renewable energy, not just “energy,” Lamborn thinks they can do what they do without picking “winners and losers” in, well, energy.

He’s an idiot, folks. There are some public officials for whom that statement should be sugar-coated or modified some polite way, but we really don’t see the point in this case. Don’t bother trying to extrapolate a coherent opinion from all of this, because it’s pretty clear to us that Lamborn never had one. He regurgitated spoon-fed talking points, and only belatedly realized that what he was saying was actually quite harmful to his own state.

So breathe that sigh of relief, sure, but…

11 thoughts on “It’s Official: Doug Lamborn is an Idiot”

ArapaGOP says:

June 15, 2011 at 7:42 pm

Lamborn said he would work with Rep. Perlmutter to find funds for NREL. I happen to agree that cutting these grants is not good for NREL or the state, but please at least grant Lamborn a modicum of fairness. It’s reasonable that Laborn simply didn’t want NREL funded with the strings of these grants attached, which makes this less stupid than first glance makes it seem.

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1. SSG_Dan says:
  
  June 15, 2011 at 7:55 pm
  
  He claims he didn’t know that he was cutting funds for the NREL lab in Golden, which means he didn’t bother to fucking research the policy position he was busy hooting to his Teapublican base.
  
  When HIS OWN PARTY MEMBERS pointed out what a shrieking dumbass he was, he changed his tune to a variation of “he was against it before he was for it” and now wants to hoot and shriek about another federal agency he doesn’t understand.
  
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  1. ArapaGOP says:
    
    June 16, 2011 at 2:17 am
    
    Or maybe it’s exactly what he says it is?
    
    What do you know about the grants involved, and the strings attached to them?
    
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    1. BlueCat says:
      
      June 16, 2011 at 4:14 am
      
      this would mean killing all those NREL jobs and all the money pumped into Colorado’s economy, ArapGoof. Read the article. Read the quotes. So he’s either a scaredy cat liar now that he’s getting flack from his own fellow Rs or he’s an idiot or both. Those are the choices. And by the way, Paul Revere’s ride was not for the purpose of warning the British already here that we were armed and ready for them and the founding fathers didn’t end slavery. Ignorance is what it is. Rs seem to love it. Whatever.
      
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2. Phoenix Rising says:
  
  June 16, 2011 at 3:05 am
  
  His objection to the grants was specifically to the nature of the grants. According to this Colorado Statesman article, Lamborn explained that he wanted the grant programs cut because he felt that the work paid for was something that commercial ventures should pay out of their own pockets.
  
  The grants are designed to jump-start the renewable energy products market by lowering costs of production, increasing renewable energy generation efficiency, or getting renewable energy products into consumer/business use.
  
  Lamborn, according to the article, wanted NREL out of the private sector and limited to doing strictly research. I’m glad his fellow state Republicans intend to help him understand the true importance of NREL and of these grants.
  
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cdsmith says:

June 15, 2011 at 7:47 pm

The conclusion here, that Lamborn is an idiot, assumes that he wants to be a good representative for the state, or even that he wants to represent his constituency or maximize his approval ratings.

Instead, he knows this simple fact: you don’t win a primary against the incumbent Republican in CD5 by arguing that the incumbent has been too conservative. It will never happen. Lamborn was elected to be an arch-conservative, he wants to be one, and in case of doubt, he will always take the conservative position.

If it really blows up, like it did here, fine. He took it back. Does anyone think it seriously hurt his chances at reelection?

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ChuckZ says:

June 15, 2011 at 11:09 pm

Look what you’re asking your elected officials to do, actually READ legislation before they vote on it. C’mon they have staff for that. And if he read it he’d have to have an opinion on it, that’s a lot to ask.

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jraiffie says:

June 16, 2011 at 11:32 am

Why am I not shocked at, yet more, left of center name calling and personal attacks.

The obvious question here is, clearly, why did he not read the bill? If he would have read the bill before supporting the bill, then it seems to me he would have known of such details within the bill.

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1. JeffcoBlue says:
  
  June 16, 2011 at 2:36 pm
  
  I would direct you to the title of this blog, but I see you’re not into name calling.
  
  If the shoe fits…
  
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  1. notachanceatall says:
    
    June 16, 2011 at 4:33 pm
    
    …comes out and says “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.” Yeah, that makes a lot of sense too eah?
    
    http://blog.heritage.org/2010/…
    
    One good brain deserves another I guess….
    
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    1. Phoenix Rising says:
      
      June 17, 2011 at 2:09 am
      
      If it was anything more than a Republican talking point, taking Pelosi’s comment for something other than it was meant to be.
      
      Try again.
      
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