Saule Omarova continues to make the case against her nomination to be Comptroller of the Currency, as critics need only to quote her own words. The latest example is a video interview she gave in February in which the Cornell professor opined on “the case for a U.S. national investment authority.”

The conversation at one point turned to climate change and its impact on fossil-fuel producers, and Ms. Omarova was on the case. “A lot of the smaller players in that industry are going to, probably, go bankrupt in short order—at...

Saule Omarova in 2018.

Photo: Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

Saule Omarova continues to make the case against her nomination to be Comptroller of the Currency, as critics need only to quote her own words. The latest example is a video interview she gave in February in which the Cornell professor opined on “the case for a U.S. national investment authority.”

The conversation at one point turned to climate change and its impact on fossil-fuel producers, and Ms. Omarova was on the case. “A lot of the smaller players in that industry are going to, probably, go bankrupt in short order—at least, we want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change,” she said in the session that was part of the Jain Family Institute’s “Social Wealth Seminar” series.

She went on to say “that creates a lot of this sort of loss of jobs, a lot of displacement, and economic fallback that we cannot afford, really,” which is nice of her to concede. Bankruptcy isn’t painless, especially when the government drives you out of business.

But then she adds that the response would be to set up a National Capital Management Corporation that would “become a kind of equity investor at that point, taking over management of those companies and basically leading them through restructuring to a new technological basis and to a new technological business model.”

So first put private companies out of business “in short order,” then put government central planners to work to restructure them as the political class wants. Give Ms. Omarova credit for candor. Most progressives disguise their real intentions.

All of this matters because as Comptroller Ms. Omarova would have enormous authority to regulate banks. It’s clear from this interview that one of her policy ambitions is to deny capital to certain companies that she wants to go bankrupt. Senators will have to decide if they want the Comptroller to be a one-person systemic risk to the banking system.

Journal Editorial Report: The week's best and worst from Kim Strassel, Bill McGurn and Mene Ukueberuwa. Images: Acton Institute/AP/AFP via Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition