At the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Chris Horner has been asking questions. At PJM, he finds that despite the bubbly bull**** about how green jobs are going to be a competitive advantage, the actual experience is quite to the contrary.

After two studies refuted President Barack Obama’s assertions regarding the success of Spain’s and Denmark’s wind energy programs, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveals the Department of Energy turned to George Soros and to wind industry lobbyists to attack the studies.

Via the FOIA request, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has learned that the Department of Energy — specifically the office headed by Al Gore’s company’s former CEO, Cathy Zoi — turned to George Soros’ Center for American Progress and other wind industry lobbyists to help push Obama’s wind energy proposals.

So the government is using wind industry lobbyists and Soros front groups as scientific and economic experts. Now why do you suppose George Soros is involved in this? And what exactly is the experience in Spain and Denmark?

Some European economists took a look. In March, a research team from Madrid’s King Juan Carlos University produced a detailed, substantive, heavily sourced, two-method paper: “Study of the Effects on Employment of Public Aid to Renewable Energy Sources.” The paper concluded that Spain’s “green jobs” program was an economic failure, in fact costing Spain many jobs.

The president of Spain’s renewable energy association — along with a Communist Party affiliated trade federation — decried the paper’s lead author as being unpatriotic.

The former wrote in Spain’s leading paper, El Mundo, slamming the research paper. However, he did not critique the paper itself — he agreed with its conclusion. He was furious only that the study was publicized. By revealing the truth about Spain’s increasingly mythologized “green jobs” and renewable energy experience, the revealed study threatened the prospects for Spain’s companies to be bailed out by the U.S. repeating these mistakes.

Oh, dear. We can’t have such inconvenient truths coming out, now can we? Meanwhile, back in the US:

Back in the U.S., the American Wind Energy Association — the lobby for “Big Wind” in Washington, D.C., which includes a few Spanish wind giants — also attacked the publication of the Spanish paper.

Soon, the Obama administration published a five-page talking points memo assailing the economic assessment — written by two young, non-economist, pro-wind activists from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Boulder, Colorado.

NREL is an extension of the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). EERE is run by Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi, who, until assuming this post, served as CEO to Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. Zoi is responsible for many millions of the “green jobs” stimulus dollars pushed for and designed by Van Jones (this according to Jones himself).

Where have we heard that name before? Something about crackpot 9/11 conspiracy theories? Well lo and behold! Also from PJM, it seems that he’s such a brilliant intellectual, Princeton University is so delighted to have him, they could just ejaculate. Richard Feynman just rolled over in his grave (but I’m sure Woodrow Wilson is getting a boner in his grave):

He’s back. In fact, he never went away. The Center for American Progress, John Podesta’s left/liberal think tank in Washington, D.C., announced that Van Jones has been appointed Senior Fellow working on Green policy initiatives. And then Princeton University announced that Jones has been appointed as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, as well as the Center for African-American Studies.  Jones has scored a “two-fer,” two appointments — two big salaries — all because of his outspoken left-wing views, and the notoriety he obtained largely due to Glenn Beck’s expose of his background before he was appointed to his former White House job as Obama’s Green Czar.  No wonder Jones keeps thanking Beck!

The world has gone mad.