The law of unintended consequences: Low-income groups are challenging California’s cap-and-trade climate law.
Great moments in government “investment”. Key quote:
To turn wood chips into ethanol fuel, George W. Bush’s Department of Energy in February 2007 announced a $76 million grant to Range Fuels for a cutting-edge refinery. A few months later, the refinery opened in the piney woods of Treutlen County, Ga., as the taxpayers of Georgia piled on another $6 million. In 2008, the ethanol plant was the first beneficiary of the Biorefinery Assistance Program, pocketing a loan for $80 million guaranteed by the U.S. taxpayers.
Last month, the refinery closed down, having failed to squeeze even a drop of ethanol out of its pine chips.
That’s $164 million of tax dollars to a company that produced nothing.
Stand by for oinks! The House spending plan would cut billions from federal research agencies such as NIH, NSF, NOAA, NASA, and a host of Department of Energy programs. Specifics at the link.
Mo Brooks (R-Alabama), the new chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Commerce, gives his perspective on science and the budget. Two quotes of interest:
Q: Do you believe that federal research should be exempt from a rollback in federal spending to 2008 levels?
Brooks: I would love for that to happen. But we just don’t have the money. … We have no choice but to look at everything. If we don’t balance our budget over a short period of time, the federal government is going to collapse and there won’t be money for any of these things. So if we’re going to save money for research and advancement in science, we’re going to have to get our house in order now.Q: Do you think the government should increase funding on research once things turn around?
Brooks: Do you mean if the budgetary situation turns around? I don’t see that happening in the next 4 to 5 years. We’ve got a $1.5 trillion budget deficit, and Admiral Mullen, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has declared it the number one security threat to the country. And if our creditors would cut us off, there would be zero money for national defense or NSF or anything else.
Note how the interviewer, from Science, can’t seem to get his head around the idea of budget cuts.
Q: Is human activity causing global warming?
Brooks: That’s a difficult question to answer because I’ve talked to scientists on both sides of the fence, especially at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. Some say yes, and some say no. I’m also old enough to remember when the same left-wing part of our society was creating a global cooling scare in order to generate funds for their pet projects. So 30-some years ago, the big scare was global cooling, and once they drained the government, they shifted to global warming. So I’m approaching the issue with a healthy degree of skepticism. If the evidence is there to prove it, then so be it.
Obama’s “tough budget cuts” in pictures.
Repeal the damn bill! The House will vote next week to block all funds to Obamacare.
Obama calls for $53 billion in spending to build more high-speed railroads. Key quote:
An initial $8 billion in spending will be part of the budget plan Obama is set to release Monday. If Congress approves the plan, the money would go toward developing or improving trains that travel up to 250 miles per hour, and connecting existing rail lines to new projects. The White House wouldn’t say where the money for the rest of the program would come from, though it’s likely Obama would seek funding in future budgets or transportation bills.
I hope that the reason the White House couldn’t say where the money would come from is because it simply does not exist, and there is little chance that Congress will appropriate it.
Are the more than 700 waivers to Obamacare that the Obama administration has handed out unconstitutional? The final paragraph sums it up well:
Waivers can be used for good purposes. But since the time of Matthew Paris [around 1251], they have been recognized as a power above the law — a power used by government to co-opt powerful constituencies by freeing them from the law. Like old English kings, the current administration is claiming such a power to decide that some people do not have to follow the law. This is dangerous, above the law, and unauthorized by the Constitution.
The top five Obama regulations that American businesses hate most. Note that 3 of 5 concern the EPA.
Repeal the damn law! Twenty-one governors have sent a letter to the Obama Administration, describing how Obamacare is going to cripple their states.
A new poll says that almost 70% of all Americans are dissatisfied with the size and power of government.
It is polls like this that make me wonder why more politicians aren’t flocking to the tea party banner. Please note this poll as well.
The two Democratic senators from New Jersey have proposed a new NY-NJ rail tunnel plan in response to the one that Governor Chris Christie canceled.
These pigs just don’t get it: The government is broke, it has no money for this stuff.
The new colonial movement heats up: Ahmadinejad said today that by March 2012 Iran plans to launch a host of home-built satellites on its own home-built rocket.
The first post-2010-election House appropriations committee hearing on NASA’s budget will take place this week. Key quote:
“The goal of the hearings is to help identify top management challenges and find ways to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in these respective departments and agencies,” the chairman of the CJS subcommittee, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA)
The former NASA employee whose home was raided two days ago is being investigated for stealing and selling shuttle tiles on eBay.
While NASA retreats to building a capsule, two private companies push commercial spaceplane concepts.
This nicely illustrates the contrasting levels of innovation between NASA and the private sector.
Secrets of the Soviet N1 Moon rocket.
Fed chairman Bernanke issued a grim warning yesterday about the federal government’s overwhelming debt. Key quote:
The national debt is currently about 60 percent of the economy, or Gross Domestic Product, [Bernanke] said, adding that it is projected to reach 90 percent of GDP by 2020 and 150 percent of GDP by 2030. But Bernanke’s citation of $9.5 trillion in national debt didn’t include the $4.6 trillion owed by the government to trust funds for things such as Social Security and Medicare, which have paid out cash to the Treasury in exchange for promisory notes. The full national debt – when both forms of debt are included – is already just under 100 percent of GDP, which is currently around $14.6 trillion.
Should the U.S. agree to the European Union’s space code of conduct?
The pigs are winning! A GOP budget proposal offered today only proposes $32 billion in budget cuts for this year, rather than the $100 billion they promised during the campaign.
Just what the new space industry needs, more regulations! The EPA has decided it has the right to regulate perchlorate, a chemical used for rocket fuel as well as fireworks and other explosives.
Federal and NASA agents raid the home of two former United Space Alliance employees.
The right response: After a video sting posted on youtube showed a Planned Parenthood manager helping a supposed pimp operate his sex ring of underage girls, the organization has fired that manager. Key quote:
“We were profoundly shocked when we viewed the videotape,” Phyllis Kinsler, chief executive of the agency’s central New Jersey branch, said in a statement. Ms. Kinsler said the tape “depicted an employee of one of our health centers behaving in a repugnant manner that is inconsistent with our standards of care and is completely unacceptable.”
Update: Youtube is threatening to remove the video due to so-called “privacy violations.”
What crap. The only person whose privacy was invaded was the manager who was breaking the law. Such behavior does not deserve protection, and youtube should know better.
A Louisiana judge has held the Interior Department in contempt over its offshore oil drilling moratorium. Key quote:
After [the judge] overturned the government’s moratorium in June, the agency issued a second nearly identical suspension. “Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt of this court’s preliminary injunction order.”
The Obama administration might not realize it — as well as many politicians from both parties in DC — we are a nation of laws, not men. It thumb your nose at the law it will eventually come back to bite you. Especially if the citizenry becomes outraged at your arrogance.
The military space war between China and the U.S.
By a vote of 51-47, the Senate today rejected a full repeal of ObamaCare. A second vote, 81-17, did repeal the 1099 tax paperwork provision.
No surprises here. This just illustrates the need to throw more of these clowns out of office in 2012. For one thing, many of the 81 Senators who voted to repeal the 1099 tax provision had voted for it only 10 months ago. Have they finally learned to read?
Reality meets feel-good politics: A study has found that there is no consumer interest in buying the one million electric cars Obama wants on the road by 2015.
Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) was confronted in a supermarket on Saturday over his refusal to allow a vote on the repeal of Obamacare.
