The color of money, in this case. From the July 15, 2009 Washington Times:
Of course, being the first bank in that sector wouldn't give it an unfair advantage or new banks set up to take advantage of the Perlmutter provision, wouldn't it?Rep. Ed Perlmutter of Colorado inserted a provision into the recently passed House climate change bill that would drum up business for "green" banks, such as the one he has invested in and his family and a political donor helped found in San Francisco.
The bill calls on bank regulators to promote green banking and says federal dollars should be used to support energy-efficient home improvements at government-funded housing projects.
Mr. Perlmutter, a two-term Democrat, has two investments in the 3-year-old New Resource Bank, which calls itself the nation's first green bank. Among other environmentally conscious banking products, the bank offers home equity loans for consumers to make their homes more energy efficient, in addition to construction loans for green builders.
A Perlmutter spokeswoman stressed that the bill provisions benefit any bank that offers qualifying products.
When the Framers wrote our Constitution, one of the rather impressive innovations was to pay members of Congress a salary--something that Parliament did not have for several decades. This meant that you didn't need to be a wealthy man to be part of the political process. In practice, most members of Congress today have to be rich to get elected. But you would think, being wealthy, they wouldn't feel the need to engage in this sort of questionable behavior.
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