Having blocked a natural gas pipeline, because GHGs are bad, New York governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered the National Grid utility to end its moratorium on hooking up new customers in Brooklyn even though there’s no gas it can sell them, because angry voters are bad. Jazz Shaw wonders on the Hot Air blog “Does this guy understand what he’s asking for here?” Which calls to mind the Yes Minister exchange where Hacker, convinced the public service is hiding something, demands “What is it that I don't know?” and Sir Humphrey replies “Minister, I don't know what you don't know. It could be almost anything.”

Governor Cuomo has the nerve to accuse the utility of “acting in bad faith” because it refused to run gas lines to people’s houses through which it could not subsequently send the gas it would thereby have promised. Can he really not understand that it is the politician giving people an empty pipe in return for their vote who is acting in bad faith? Does he not realize that one day these voters will notice that turning on the gas tap does not bring gas? Does he think he can pin it on the company?

Also, as Shaw asks, “Does he think that National Grid was simply tired of making money? Obviously they want to sign up new customers so they can begin billing them. But there isn’t enough natural gas in the existing pipeline to keep adding more service points.” What “bad faith” does he believe was involved in refusing to make a promise they could not keep?

Finally, does the governor not understand that if you get rid of existing sources of energy and can’t find dependable new ones, there won’t be enough energy? One shudders to think it might be that bad, and that primal. But then, as Jim Hacker observed in one of his more lucid moments, “A career in politics is no preparation for government.”