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Where are the tree-hugging bike-riding tofu-eating vegans to tell us: we really are sorry about your jobs, but we had to shut you down eventually. For the good of the planet.

Let’s not forget: that GM plant makes sport utility vehicles. SUVs. Big, heavy machines that get lousy gas mileage and churn out far more greenhouse gases than their smaller cousins, particularly their smaller half-vegetarian cousins.

The plant is shutting down because demand for those vehicles is down. Less demand means fewer of them on the road, which means lower emissions, and less gasoline. From an Earth First viewpoint, an environmental viewpoint, a liberal Democrat viewpoint, this is a good thing.

Isn’t it?

Not according to Russ Feingold and Jim Doyle. That Janesville will no longer build those poisonous death machines is a tragedy, in their view, and rest assured, they’re demanding more money for worker retraining and damn those GM executives for not retooling the plant to make other, smaller, less costly models. Damn them for not acting faster to counteract rising gas prices.

Damn them, in other words, for not compensating for liberal political policies.

Why is the GM plant closing? One big reason: gas prices. Higher gas prices are cutting into disposable income, meaning fewer purchases of big, expensive trucks – particularly big, expensive trucks that use more gas and, thus, cut into disposable income.

We could, or course, drill more. Open up new sources of oil. Build new refineries. Ten years ago.

But remind me: on which side of that debate do Democrats fall?

Democrats are allies of radical environmentalism: of people and groups who oppose developing new sources of oil.

Democrats are also allies of government nannyism: piling requirements on industry – automakers included – that make products, like SUVs, more expensive. More taxes. More regulations. More mandates. Business is there to feed government, and by God we’re going to make them!

They want higher gas taxes. They want more expensive gasoline. They want SUVs off the road. Thus, they want the Janesville plant to stop making SUVs. Not in so many words, maybe. But that’s the logical end to the environmentalist – Democrat – agenda.

So. Why haven't we heard much about that? There are so many potential explanations, I’m not sure which I prefer.

Could be simply politicians being politicians, saying the right thing at the right time.

Or, could be, they never thought the whole "green" thing through. Not to its logical conclusion.

Or, could be, they don't really believe the environmentalist gospel. The doomsaying. The angst. Could be they find Al Gore as hilarious as we conservatives do, and their convenient political alliance with environmentalists is just that: a convenient political alliance.

Whichever. Highly-placed Democrats now want credit for caring. But in Janesville, it's too late.

Lance Burri is a contributor to the Badger Blog Alliance and occasionally blogs at his own site as well.

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