The Environmental Motor Company When is $25 billion in taxpayer cash insufficient to bail out Detroit's auto makers? Answer: When the money is a tool of Congressional industrial policy to turn GM, Ford and Chrysler into agents of the Sierra Club and other green lobbies. That's the little-understood subplot of the Washington melodrama over a taxpayer rescue for Detroit. In their public statements, proponents describe the bailout as an attempt to save jobs, American manufacturing and the middle-class way of life. But look closely and you can see that what's really going on is an attempt to use taxpayer money to remake Detroit in the image of the modern environmental movement. Given a choice between greens and blue-collar workers, Congress puts the greens first. This political contradiction has come into sharp relief since President Bush offered a significant compromise late last week on the use of taxpayer cash. Earlier this year, Congress had approved $25 billion in loans to the car companies for "green retooling," and the White House said Friday that Detroit could tap that money quickly for more general purposes with a couple of conditions. The companies merely have to present a business plan to the Energy Secretary showing how the cash would keep them "viable," which is to say competitive as profit-making concerns. This could be a proposal to renegotiate labor contracts, or perhaps a merger proposal, or other plan of action. But here's the real catch for Congress: Mr. Bush said Democrats would also have to remove the green strings that they themselves had attached to that $25 billion. Democratic leaders refused....