So, President Barack Obama is shopping for a rooftop solar power system. The project was announced nearly a year ago, but it doesn’t seem to have moved forward since then. If the White House is holding out for a better price, I know where there’s a clearance!
Had To Be Koch Money, for Christie’s Sake
Paul Chesser, AmSpecBlog, 8 September 2011
U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Free Market Recommendations for President Obama and the Congress
Robert Bradley, Jr., Master Resource, 8 September 2011
The Other Climate Theory
Anne Jolis, Wall Street Journal, 7 September 2011
Upton on Greengate
Henry Payne, The Michigan View, 7 September 2011
Will EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Stay or Go?
Robin Bravender, Politico, 6 September 2011
Last week, President Barack Obama’s green jobs agenda suffered a major setback when Solyndra, Inc, a heavily subsidized manufacturer of rooftop solar power components, declared bankruptcy. In a previous post, I explained how the company’s collapse was a long time coming. In this post, I will address the political and policy fallout.
In late 2009, Solyndra, a California-based manufacturer of solar power rooftop components, received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy (DOE). It was the first such loan guarantee offered by the DOE with stimulus money. Last week, in a major blow to President Barack Obama’s green jobs agenda, the solar company became the latest stimulus-beneficiary to fail. It announced that it was entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.
The announcement came as a surprise to many observers, such as Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills). Over the summer, Rep. Waxman, the architect of the stimulus program that benefited Solyndra, praised the company’s economic outlook. In an April letter, he boasted that “Solyndra has obtained additional equity investments from existing equity holders, an indication of investor confidence in the company’s prospects.”
California Governor Jerry Brown, too, must have been surprised by Solyndra’s sudden collapse. Two weeks ago, he invited Solyndra, Inc. to join him onstage to unveil a proposed package of tax subsidies for green energy companies. Solyndra’s presence was supposed to lend evidence to the “success” of past clean energy subsidies. Obviously, this is a poor omen for Governor Brown’s tax plan.
A new peer-reviewed study in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons by Dr. Indur Goklany calculates that global ethanol production resulted in 192,000 excess deaths in developing countries in 2010. By diverting ever-greater quantities of food into the fuel supply, ethanol—a motor fuel distilled from corn, wheat, soy and palm oils—is making food more expensive, which starves poor people.
Vermont Environmentalists: “Time Out” for Industrial Wind
Sherri Lange, Master Resource, 6 September 2011
Does This Fat Make Me Look Green?
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 6 September 2011
Enough with the Green Jobs
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, 5 September 2011
Where the Jobs Aren’t
David Brooks, New York Times, 5 September 2011
The Lies We Tell about Green Energy
Sherman Frederick, Las Vegas Journal Review, 5 September 2011
Remember how the stimulus was pitched? In order to defibrillate job creation, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was supposed to inject almost $1 trillion of taxpayer money into the economy, in a manner that was “timely, targeted, and temporary.”
About a tenth of ARRA funds were given to creating so-called “green jobs,” and a spate of recent news stories suggest that these “clean energy” stimulus dollars have been a massive failure. Instead of “timely, targeted, and temporary,” these environmentalist earmarks are better described as “late, loose, and lasting.” Consider:
The Real Science Trashers
Dennis Byrne, Chicago Tribune, 30 August 2011
Gore: Deniers Are This Generation’s Racists
Caroline May, Daily Caller, 28 August 2011
Wind Power Is Dying
Tait Trussell, FrontPageMag, 28 August 2011
Hiring, Federal Environmental Employee: Integrity Not Required
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 27 August 2011
Rick Perry’s $7 Billion Problem
Robert Bradley, Jr., Master Resource, 26 August 2011
The Keystone XL Pipeline extension, a proposed 1,700-mile pipeline that would link expanding Canadian tar sands oil production with America’s refining hub in the Midwest and along the Gulf, today cleared a major regulatory hurdle when the State Department concluded that the project would have a “limited environmental adverse impact.”
This is the second-to-last step of the permitting process; within the next 90 days, the State Department must determine whether the project is in the national interest. If the Keystone Pipeline passes this final hurdle, then it would receive a Presidential Permit, and construction could commence.
California
Last Friday, the New York Times reported that California has spent half of $186 million in stimulus money earmarked for energy efficiency, in order to create 538 full time jobs, at a cost of almost $173,000 per job. For more on the dubious economics behind the President’s push for green jobs, read this testimony by Ken Green of the American Enterprise Institute.
Massachusetts
In 2008, buoyed by $58 million in subsidies from the Massachusetts government, Evergreen Solar opened a solar power components manufacturing plant in Devens. A year later, the company moved operations to China. Last week, it announced it was bankrupt, with more than $450 million in debt. Massachusetts is owed more than $40 million, but it is unlikely to recoup any money.
Gulf Coast
At Master Resource, Kevin Mooney reported last Thursday that ten oil rigs have left the Gulf of Mexico since the Obama Administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in May 2010. There were 33 rigs in operation at the time of the BP disaster, which means that 30 % of rigs have departed. And they aren’t coming back. The rigs left the Gulf for locations in Egypt, Congo, French Guiana, Liberia, Nigeria and Brazil.
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
CEI.org