The all-day grilling of Secretary of Energy Steven Chu over the Solyndra bankruptcy by the House energy oversight subcommittee was an eye-glazing embarrassment, reporters agreed. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) tried to defend his belief that the United States can’t compete with China on clean technology by attacking Chu, even calling for his firing. “America faces a simple choice: compete or accept defeat,” Chu shot back at Stearns in the hearing. “I believe we can and must compete.”

Without any evidence of wrongdoing, the Republican-led hearing drove outside observers to tears. “Stop it with the Solyndra nonsense,” Scientific American energy editor David Biello pleaded on Twitter. “Just stop it.”

Fortune editor Dan Primack scathed the hearing as a colossal waste of time:

My eyes have glazed over. I’m hungry, dumber than I was this morning and very angry with myself.

Don’t be coy, you know what I’m copping to having done: I spent almost the entire workday watching yet another Congressional hearing on the Solyndra “scandal.”

This is at least the third such hearing, all in a flailing effort by GOP reps to prove that Solyndra wasn’t simply an honest loan gone bad, but rather an example of corruption and self-dealing in the Obama White House. For all the talk about this deal, there still has not yet been any actual evidence — including cherry-picked emails released by the Republican-led committee — that Solyndra received its $535 million government loan because of crony capitalism. And that remains the case, after five hours of testimony from U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu.

The Solyndra witch hunt has been fueled especially by Politico, whose large team of energy reporters have fixated on the story. Two-thirds of Politico energy stories since Sept. 12 have been on Solyndra. Senior energy and environment reporter Darren Samuelsohn has dominated the coverage, with 90 percent of his prolific output dedicated to fluffing up the Solyndra “scandal.”

Not long after the bankruptcy of Solyndra, Florida Republican Congressman Cliff Stearns said he didn’t believe the U.S. could compete with China in renewables. “Green energy isn’t going to be the solution” to economic growth, he explained.

Stearns, who oddly thinks that subsidies should go to mature companies rather than emerging industries, is one of the Congressional leaders investigating the Solyndra bankruptcy. Like many of his colleagues, he has used the opportunity to pan incentives for clean energy across the board, rather than ask how they can be more effective.

But those incentives to clean energy, which are dwarfed by historic government support of fossil fuels, are providing real, tangible benefits. When asked by Think Progress to comment on Stearns’ assertion that America can’t compete in clean energy, Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King responded by pointing to the 39 wind turbines just outside his property.

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JR:  In Stephen Lacey’s original post, we noted that Stearns’ notion of subsidizing successful companies is how the 1% operate.  The rich get richer. And that’s one reason inequality is growing in this country.  Roberts takes the analysis one-step further to discuss the self-justifying rationalizations of the 1%.

by David Roberts, in a Grist cross-post

Yesterday I sketched the sort of personality type most likely to identify as conservative: those who prefer stability to change, order to complexity, familiarity to novelty, and conformity to creativity. This sort of personality type is drawn to clear lines separating in-groups from out-groups, highly aware of social hierarchies, suspicious of change, and strongly inclined toward system justification, i.e., seeing the prevailing socioeconomic regime as worthy and desirable

I often think that the actions and rhetoric of today’s conservative politicians are easier to make sense of at this level, the level of temperament and worldview, than at the level of stated principles and policy proposals. Seeing through this lens can help make sense of a lot of stuff that otherwise looks hypocritical or absurd. In particular, it can help make sense of the political fight over climate change and clean energy.

The other day, Stephen Lacey flagged some comments from Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) that I found extremely revealing:

So what I’m trying to do is say, the government should not be picking winners and losers, let the private sector determine the winners and losers, and then … when somebody is successful, then you give them the subsidies and the tax credit.

This makes absolutely no sense relative to the small-government, fiscal conservative principles Stearns purports to hold. Nor does it make sense as energy policy. But it does make sense at a deeper level.

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So far this week, four of the world’s top five oil companies have announced more than $24 billion in third quarter profits. And by the logic of Florida Congressman Cliff Stearns, that should mean those oil companies deserve more subsidies, not less.

Speaking at a town hall meeting last weekend in his home state of Florida, Stearns displayed a very sketchy grasp on how subsidies should work, explaining to Climate Progress that incentives should be given to mature companies, not early-stage companies.

“When somebody is successful, then you give them the subsidies and the tax credit,” explained Stearns, talking to Climate Progress.  In short, the rich get richer.  This is how the 1% operate. No wonder income inequality is growing in this country.

Stearns has backed that up with hearty government rewards to the most profitable, successful companies on the planet — voting multiple times to continue billions in tax breaks to oil companies while voting against shifting those incentives to the nascent clean energy industry.

As Chairman of one of the House subcommittees investigating the Solyndra loan, Stearns has railed against government loan guarantees, saying they “pick winners and losers.” But when talking to Climate Progress about the topic of loan guarantees, Stearns completely misunderstood how the policy works, saying it’s “where the government gives you money outright.”

In fact, a loan guarantee is exactly the opposite. It is simply an agreement with private lenders that the government will back a loan in case of default. The government is not actually giving any money outright — it only provides federal funds through a loan guarantee in a worst-case scenario. In order to qualify for the program, recipients must prove that they’ve raised adequate private capital. And in the case of power-plant developments, companies must have a long-term agreement to sell the energy.

To round out his mind-bending logic on subsidies, Stearns calls for more federal support of nuclear, an industry he admits has gotten “a huge amount of subsidies.” However, no nuclear power plants have been built in the U.S. in more than 30 years — and none would likely get built in this country without government-backed insurance and loan guarantees.

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Last week, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) said “We can’t compete with China to make solar panels and wind turbines.”  As Climate Progress noted, this defeatism is  un-American in every respect.

This morning, President Obama responded bluntly:

I heard there was a Republican member of Congress who is engaging in oversight on this. And despite the fact that all of them in the past have been supportive of this loan guarantee program, he concluded, “You know what? We can’t compete against China when it comes to solar energy.”

Well, you know what?

I don’t buy that. I’m not going to surrender to other countries the technological leads that can end up determining whether or not we are building a strong middle class in this country.  So we’re going to have to keep on pushing hard to make sure the manufacturing is located here, new businesses are located here and new technologies are developed here. And there are going to be times when it doesn’t work out, but I’m not going to cave to the competition when they are heavily subsidizing all these industries.

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This morning, President Barack Obama bashed the Republican argument that the United States can no longer compete in global manufacturing. Earlier this week, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) said that the bankruptcy of Solyndra means that the United States should surrender the clean-energy race to China. “We can’t compete with China to make solar panels and wind turbines,” Stearns told NPR, because one advanced-technology solar company that had received private and public financing had closed shop.

“I’m not going to surrender to other countries,” Obama shot back in today’s press conference, after noting that Stearns, like dozens of other Republicans, are on record supporting the clean-energy loan guarantee program they now attack:

I heard there was a Republican member of Congress who is engaging in oversight on this. And despite the fact that all of them in the past have been supportive of this loan guarantee program, he concluded, “You know what? We can’t compete against China when it comes to solar energy.”

Well, you know what?

I don’t buy that. I’m not going to surrender to other countries the technological leads that can end up determining whether we’re building that in this country. So we’re going to have to keep on pushing hard to make sure the manufacturing is located here, new businesses are located here and new technologies are developed here. And there are going to be times when it doesn’t work out, but I’m not going to cave to the competition when they are heavily subsidizing all these industries.

Watch it:

In fact, the clean energy sector in the United States is one of the few bright spots for the middle class in today’s economy. The U.S. solar industry was a net global exporter by $1.9 billion in 2010. U.S. wind power capacity represents more than 20 percent of the world’s installed wind power. The clean energy sector grew by 8.3 percent between 2003 and 2010, nearly twice as fast as the overall economy, with good-paying jobs for blue- and white-collar workers.

However, Republicans like Stearns are actively trying to cripple the future of clean energy manufacturing, by killing off any rules or programs that reward clean work instead of fossil-fuel pollution.

Our guest blogger is Kate Gordon, Vice President of Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress.

The statement by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) that we can’t compete with China on clean energy manufacturing is not only untrue, it’s frankly un-American. Lest we forget, the U.S. is a major manufacturer, with 12 percent of our GDP coming from the manufacturing sector. To put that in perspective, when we recently lost less than 4 percent of GDP after the housing bubble burst, we called it a “Great Recession.” Twelve percent is a lot. And in the clean economy, including renewable energy, efficiency, clean transit, and transportation, more than a quarter of all jobs are in manufacturing.

So maybe Mr. Stearns didn’t get the memo, but we’re already competing with China on clean energy manufacturing in general, and in solar and wind manufacturing in particular. We actually export solar panel components to China, which – along with Germany – is actually the leading destination for most of those exports. And in the wind sector, there are over 400 manufacturing firms across America making the component parts of our domestic wind turbines, and we not only make about 50 percent of all the wind components we use here in the U.S., but we also export parts to Canada, Mexico, Chile, and other countries.

Sure, China may sometimes out-compete us when it comes to mass manufacturing of mature technologies, using lower labor costs and strong subsidies. But where America excels has always been in more advanced manufacturing of new and emerging technologies, where our high-skill workers, proximity to inventors and engineers, and strong university and lab support make us a leader.

The big question facing the U.S. is not whether we’re capable of competing with China to manufacture the clean energy future. The question is whether political leaders like Mr. Stearns will develop the courage and vision to embrace that future. Right now there are millions of Americans with jobs in clean energy innovation, manufacturing, installation, operations, and maintenance. But if Congress can’t get it together to pass the policies and programs we need to ensure a stable market for clean energy technologies, our existing clean energy companies may just start looking elsewhere for a better deal. And then China really will win.