Tech CEOs go to Washington D.C:

TechNet announced its green tech policy agenda during "TechNet Day,” the organization's sixth annual trip to the nation's capital for CEO meetings with leaders in Congress and the Administration.

 (The full report is available here: http://www.technet.org/resources/GreenTechReport.pdf)

Some of the proposals:

      o Double federal funding for basic energy research
       o Enhance the federal government's role as purchaser of new energy technologies
       • Fundamental reform of federal tax policy to spur the development and adoption of new energy technologies
       o Increase the level of incentives to spur new energy technologies
       o Restructure incentives to enable market signals that drive new technologies
       o Encourage technology neutrality enabling the marketplace to pick winners
       o Establish an effective tradable Renewable Energy Certificate marketplace
       o Enable utilities to recover investments in renewable generation and transmission
       

It is all good stuff. But waiting for the government to do these things is like waiting for the government to admit that global warming was a problem in the first place. It takes way too long and the action is needed now.

Silicon Valley should be able to figure out the business models for innovation in clean energy and related "green" markets without government help.

Subsidies and government programs remove the effect of market conditions that test business models.  And it can leave worthy green ventures at the mercy of future political decisions. That's a risk that investors don't need.

TechNet and other tech related lobby groups have been spectacularly unsuccessful in Washington, D.C. Their time might be better spent just getting on with it at their own companies and within their own industry.

(The full report is available here: http://www.technet.org/resources/GreenTechReport.pdf)