On most Friday mornings I venture to a cafe in historic downtown Salida for coffee and conversation with fellow citizens. On occasion there is disparagement of our congressman, Doug Lamborn. Some say his last name is really pronounced “Lame brain.” One fellow says it should be “Lamb brain,” although others say, “That’s an insult to sheep.”
I have pointed out that just like me, he was a National Merit Finalist, and therefore he must be so brilliant that we should wear welder’s goggles if we ever actually saw him in this remote corner of his district. But no one else sees it that way, and I must point out that you can find some serious stupidity from Lamborn lately. Earlier this month, he was one of nine Republican House members to sign a letter to a subcommittee asking that all funding be cut for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, saying that “We should not follow the president’s poor planning in increasing the funding for these anti-energy boondoggles.”
Now there might be an argument that research into renewable energy is a boondoggle, but it’s hard to see how such research is “anti-energy.”
Further, the core of Lamborn’s district is Colorado Springs, home of major defense installations: Fort Carson, U.S. Air Force Academy, Peterson Air Force Base, North American Aerospace Defense Command Cheyenne Mountain Complex and Schriever Air Force Base.
As best I know, neither the U.S. Navy nor the Coast Guard has any facilities under Pikes Peak, but the point is that the military is a major factor there. In the quadrennial defense review released last year, the Pentagon promoted development of sustainable and renewable energy as an important national security goal — not just to power bases and tanks, but to keep us from having to send soldiers to oil-rich but hostile places like Iraq.
Renewable energy development thus comes closer to an actual defense need than a lot of other things that have been done in the name of national defense, like federal subsidies for school lunches.
Since the NREL accounts for about 2,300 direct jobs and perhaps 3,000 indirect jobs in Colorado, Lamborn came in for plenty of criticism, some of it from other Colorado Republicans. So last week, he retreated, saying that he didn’t know that the funding he opposed was destined for NREL and that of course he wants the NREL to stay open, even if it’s not in his district.
While this kerfuffle will likely inspire more commentary about our congressman’s mental process or lack thereof at the next local coffee gathering, it also raises a question about federal spending on research in general.
It’s been around for a long time. In 1843, Samuel Morse persuaded Congress to appropriate $30,000 so he could install the first inter- city telegraph line, connecting Washington, D.C. to Baltimore. After that successful demonstration, the private sector took it up.
The modern Internet, now largely in the private sector at least in this country, is also a result of federal spending. The personal computer (along with newer and smaller gadgets) was made possible by the miniaturization of electronics inspired by the space program. As for the network that connects the computers, it was pretty much invented by the federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Doubtless this was denounced as a money-wasting boondoggle at some point. And doubtless there have been tax-funded research projects that were a total waste. But it’s hard to tell at the time, and some federal research has certainly paid off. Even Doug Lamborn ought to be able to figure that out.
Freelance columnist Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post.
