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Last November, I warned the President that he would come to regret green energy Stimulus spending, because venture socialism is inherently wasteful, and therefore prone to failed investments. I predicted that indications of failure would pop up every week in the run up to November 2012, like a slow drip media nightmare. And since I wrote that, I’ve been proven right (see: Amonix, Evergreen Solar, local reporting of “green jobs” training failures, Beacon Power, the ongoing Solyndra saga, underperforming electric vehicle sales, Ener1).

In only the last week:

• Fisker Automotive, a manufacturer of luxury eco-cars and Stimulus-beneficiary, announced that it was firing 26 workers because it ran out of government money. Fisker’s teetering has put its battery supplier, A123 Systems, on the brink. A123 Systems also received Stimulus handouts.

• The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is reviewing the Port of Los Angeles’s decision to use $489,000 in green energy stimulus funds to retrofit the Angelena II, a 70-ft. Port-owned yacht used for publicity tours.

• Arizona-based First Solar announced plans to idle half of its German factory and put about 1,200 employees there on a part-time work schedule. The reason? Declining subsidies in Europe. This demonstrates the riskiness of predicating your business plan on favorable political winds. Forbes’s Ucilia Wang reports that First Solar stock fell 70 % in 2011. According to the Arizona Republic, First Solar received Stimulus-funded loan guarantees for the Antelope Valley Solar Ranch and the Desert Sunlight projects in California.

In light of the fact that green energy Stimulus spending has been a magnet for bad press, I was shocked two weeks ago during the State of the Union address, when the President announced that he would “double down” on green jobs spending. That’s like doubling down on a six when the dealer is showing an ace. I thought perhaps the President was merely rallying the base with empty rhetoric, but with today’s release of the White House budget, it seems that he is putting our money where his mouth is. According to Politico’s Morning Energy, the Department of Energy—whence the worst, most wasteful stimulus spending—is getting a raise:

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House Ratchets Up Probe of White House Involvement in Solyndra Scandal

Fourteen Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, led by Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) sent a strongly-worded, five-page letter to the White House on 9th February setting a 21st February deadline for turning over documents related to the White House’s involvement in the Solyndra scandal.   The letter also demands that five officials be made available for interviews by 17th February.

The letter notes that the Committee requested the relevant documents five months ago and has made every effort to accommodate the White House’s concerns.  As to the reasons why the White House has refused to comply with the committee’s subpoena last fall, the letter notes that the White House has not claimed executive privilege for the withheld documents and demands that if executive privilege is going to be claimed the White House must let the committee know by 21st February.

The Department of Energy made the first renewable energy loan under the 2009 stimulus bill to solar panel maker Solyndra, which is based in Fremont, California.  The entire $527 million of taxpayer money was lost in August when Solyndra declared bankruptcy.  The largest private investor in Solyndra, George Kaiser, is a major Obama and Democratic Party donor and fundraiser and has been a frequent visitor to the White House during the Obama presidency.

Last week I attended a roundtable discussion hosted by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a German-based political foundation and think tank. The topic at hand was, “Sustainability in Energy Policy and Beyond: A Modern Conservative Approach in German Politics,” featuring Dr. Gunter Krings, a member of the German Christian Democratic Party.

I was warned beforehand by my colleague Myron Ebell that the event would most likely be “a lot of (E.U.) rubbish,” and it was, indeed, rubbish. Among the Dr. Krings’s most pressing concerns were the “social justice” aspect of sustainability and the imperative to plant as many trees as you take out and leave the world a better place for the children, etc. His presentation thus had the feel of a Sally Struthers television spot. He endorsed heartily the Precautionary Principle, which argues that even if the affects of global warming (or cooling, or whatever eco-disaster is being prophesied) are not entirely clear, it is better to err on the side of extreme caution and to return us all back to a simpler, more sustainable, caveman-esque lifestyle.

In a strange parallel, the same week that Dr. Krings explained his modern, conservative approach to environmental policy in Germany, Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, considered one of the fathers of Germany’s green movement,  published a book denouncing the climate change science “consensus” and the IPCC. The book, titled Cold Sun: Why the Climate Disaster Won’t Happen, points out the abundance of errors in IPCC reports which led Vahrenholt to his skepticism.

How does it happen that when looking for the voice of reason in German climate politics, one must turn away from the self-described conservative, and to a formerly radical, green, self-proclaimed Socialist?

Below is a letter I sent yesterday to ClimateWire, an energy policy trade publication that I usually enjoy, about this article. Normally, ClimateWire requires a subscription, but the article was picked up this morning by RealClearEnergy.

Here’s the back story: In late January, Ohio-based utility FirstEnergy Corp. announced that it was closing six coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The company blamed the closings on environmental regulations, in particular the Mercury and Air Toxics rule. The majority party in the House of Representatives has since used the plant closures as evidence of the economic harm inflicted by EPA’s regulatory war on conventional energy production. Talking points beget response talking points: such is the dialectic of political communication. Accordingly, the minority party claims that the plant closures caused by a number of factors, in addition to environmental regulations. To my eyes, yesterday’s ClimateWire story reported the House minority party’s talking points. Its thesis is that “energy experts” believe that a number of factors caused the closings; ergo, the House majority party is telling half-truths when it claims that FirstEnergy Corp.’s decision to shutter six power plants is evidence of EPA’s regulatory overreach. In the letter below, I question whether the article’s thesis is misguided.

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Iain Murray and I today published an article in the American Spectator, which disputes many of President Obama’s State of the Union energy policy claims. As we wrote, “While the president spent more time on the topic than any other policy area, he distorted the facts, misrepresented his plans, and ignored his record.” It’s time to set the record straight:

Obama announced that “tonight, I’m directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.” For those who favor energy production, this sounds great, but a close inspection reveals that this announcement was nothing new — the sale should have been scheduled last year, and the only reason the administration is planning it now is that it is required under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. In fact, he didn’t direct his administration to do anything new — he just recycled a plan actually released in November 2011 that actually kept closed key areas for future oil and gas exploration in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic coastline.

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As my colleague Myron Ebell reported earlier this week, Joe Romm pulled out of a scheduled debate on climate policy last Friday with the Heritage Foundation’s David Kreutzer.

Given the last-minute nature of Romm’s cancellation, the host of the debate initially used a bottle of Corona Light to symbolically take Romm’s place at the podium.  I thought the beer bottle was a poor substitute, and replaced it with a plate of ice cubes.  As the photo below shows, by the end of the event the ice cubes had undergone significant melting.  There was, however, no suggestion that anthropogenic warming was the cause.  On the other hand, I’m not sure there were any climate modelers in attendance.