President Obama and the rabid environmentalists

Note:  You might want to start at the Barack Obama Index Page, especially if you arrived here by using a search engine. President Barack H. Obama was elected with the help of a number of "special interest groups" such as the labor unions, the teachers' unions, Hollywood celebrities, homosexual activists, immigration activists, and environmentalists.  Their efforts were successful.  Now it's payback time, and President Obama is unleashing the environmental extremists and undertaking a "green" transformation of America. Environmentalists abhor capitalism, and apparently so does Barack Obama.  Environmentalists say they want to save the earth from the abuses inflicted by mankind, but the bottom line is this:  Environmentalists oppose every practical source of energy.  It is because of the environmentalists that 1.6-gallon toilets are mandatory, ordinary light bulbs have been outlawed, and plastic bags are frowned upon (or unavailable) at some grocery stores. No sane person wants to intentionally pollute the air, poison the lakes, or throw garbage in the rivers.  But environmental extremism is another matter altogether.  Radical environmentalism is more about expanding and strengthening the federal government than it is about protecting the air and water and plants and animals.  Air and water pollution in the U.S. has been drastically reduced since the 1960's.  For example, between 1980 and 2005, airborne lead was reduced by 96 percent.*  According to EPA figures, six common air pollutants have been reduced by 60% since 1970.*  The poorest countries in the world are the ones with the worst pollution.  For a country with such abundant energy, ours is very clean.  If we can keep the air as clean as it is today, our air pollution problems have been solved. In the past, environmentalists have issued a number of false alarms about everything from acid rain and chlorine and radon to stratospheric ozone depletion.  The greatest of these false alarms is the global warming hoax.  Environmentalists have been known to push a number of supposedly brilliant ideas that have turned out to be boondoggles.  Examples include solar power, electric cars, windmills, and more recently, "green" jobs. People who want to endure hardships to "save the earth" should be free to pursue their goals -- provided they do so with their own money. Our National No-Energy Policy:  Thomas Pyle, the president of the Institute for Energy Research, recently offered a chilling description of our national energy focus.  "When it comes to paving the way for the responsible development of homegrown, job-creating energy resources, no administration in history has done more to ensure producers do less." Obama's budget reveals true agenda on energy.  The budget shows that revenues collected from new offshore leasing will decline over the next five years — from $1.5 billion in 2009, to only $413 million in fiscal 2015.  If the president planned on expanding offshore drilling, revenues would be increasing, not decreasing. How to spell Obama energy policy: 'D-e-l-a-y'.  The need to develop America's bountiful fossil fuel resources will only intensify as our economy grows and those of emerging world economic powers like China and India similarly expand.  But President Obama is moving national energy policy in exactly the opposite direction.  Instead of aiding exploration and development of available fossil fuel resources, the administration appears to be doing everything possible to slow or even stop it. The Obama Moratorium:  No offshore drilling while he's in office.  The Obama administration's six-month delay in approving new offshore drilling leases in federal waters will become a new three-year ban, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quietly told reporters last Friday [3/5/2010].  Which means that no new oil and gas leases will be approved during President Obama's term even though two-thirds of the American public supports such activity, according to a December 2009 Rasmussen poll. Chortling At Chu.  Our secretary of energy pushes bio-refineries and windmills to oil executives at an energy conference as the administration announces a three-year offshore drilling ban.  This is a policy for economic suicide. Obama turns off homegrown energy.  The Interior Department has collected only one-tenth as much revenue from oil and gas lease sales in 2009 as it did in 2008.  Revenue from such lease sales produced a return for the taxpayer of $942 per acre in the last year of the Bush administration, compared with only $254 per acre in the first year of the Obama administration.  Presently, not quite 3 percent of the 2.46 million available [acres of public land] are leased and that percentage is headed down.  Under Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, fewer acres on- and off-shore were leased in 2009 than in any previous year. Government outlines Great Lakes fixup plan.  The Obama administration has developed a five-year blueprint for rescuing the Great Lakes, a sprawling ecosystem plagued by toxic contamination, shrinking wildlife habitat and invasive species. Drillgate:  Secretary Salazar's Cover-Up.  The administration asked for public comments on a plan to expand offshore drilling.  When they came in 2-to-1 in favor, the Interior Department sat on the news. More about offshore oil drilling. White House Easter Egg Roll to Be Environmentally Friendly.  A White House announcement Monday [3/8/2010] said the eggs at this year's April 5 roll will be made from paperboard that contains no wood fibers from endangered forests, is recyclable and features vegetable-oil based inks and a water-based coating. The Editor asks... If you were determined to buy "wood fibers from endangered forests", where would you order such a product? Our King of Big Government Suggests We Need Another New Agency.  What is the matter with that man in our White House?  Will he ever stop trying to spend every nickel and dime that Americans have, including our savings that we worked hard for to ease our retirement years?  He acts like a poor kid that suddenly comes into some money and it is burning a hole in his pocket to get spent. New federal office for global warming.  Amid the growing fight over the accuracy of climate data, President Obama is seeking to have the federal government put its imprimatur on the science by calling for the creation of a new federal office to study and report on global warming. NOAA's Ministry Of Propaganda.  Despite failures at Copenhagen, the fraud of the IPCC and the farce of Climate-gate, the administration wants an agency to monitor climate change.  Why must we fund one-stop shopping for climate charlatans? Obama's National Climate Disservice:  Under the pretext that "Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards," and that they "increasingly are asking the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for information about climate change in order to make the best choices for their families, communities and businesses," this week the Obama administration unveiled its National Climate Service (NCS).  Though we can't rely on a weather forecast that extend more than a few days, the National Climate Service is going to help us plan for micro-changes in climate decades and more into the future. The President's Tax Hike on Drilling.  One well-publicized element of President Obama's proposed budget is the elimination of "subsidies" for fossil fuels.  But, in large part, these are not subsidies at all. ... Obama, in proposing to eliminate expensing of these drilling costs, is not abolishing a tax subsidy, but is imposing a tax penalty.  And, given his often-articulated disdain for fossil fuels, he is probably quite aware of this fact. Time to re-examine that 'settled' science.  New scientific evidence and political realities demand rethinking California's plan to impose economy-stifling rules and congressional and Obama administration plans for even more potentially devastating interventions to curb manmade greenhouse gases.  Clearly, the science is not settled, as claimed, and the politics even less so. Obama's Progressive Goose and Our Conservative Gander:  The president has been trying to convert the country's energy sector to the "green" creed, which is sure to take the wrecking ball to the American way of life and dramatically reduce our standard of living.  Obama's energy policy goes to the heart of the entire progressive agenda.  After the downfall of communism, the left almost immediately embraced the next millenarian project — environmentalism — and concentrated its prodigious energies on a giant undertaking:  to stampede the world and put the progressives in power, wielding the global warming scare as its latest cataclysm. An Inconvenient Democracy.  President Obama isn't about to let a trifle like democratic consent impede his climate agenda.  With cap and trade blown apart in the Senate, the White House has chosen to impose taxes and regulation across the entire economy under clean-air laws that were written decades ago and were never meant to apply to carbon.  With this doomsday machine activated, Mr. Obama hopes to accomplish what persuasion and debate among his own party manifestly cannot. The Obama doctrine:  govern by decree.  As you exhale while reading this article, you are contributing to the coming world catastrophe caused by global warming.  So says the Environmental Protection Agency in its recent decree that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant, among those gases that "endanger" public health.  In response to this sense of crisis stirred by the likes of Al Gore, President Obama pushes for mandates that significantly reduce carbon usage, and which, by all accounts, will cripple the U.S. economy. No Substitute For Fossil Fuels.  Earlier this year, Congress approved a scheme to pour $80 billion — on top of the tens of billions already spent — into renewables.  A government report released last week indicates the money will be wasted.  Renewable energy is the shiny gem that everyone wants but no one can have. For Obama, Global Warming Trumps National Security.  On Christmas Day, a Nigerian-born terrorist named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound passenger airplane. ... [President Obama] blamed the CIA for the foul-up.  There is no doubt that the CIA should have done something more to prevent this attack.  But, then again, President Obama has been keeping them busy.  With global warming. Spying On Icebergs?  We can't stop terrorists from boarding planes with explosive undies, but the CIA has assets sufficient to monitor Arctic ice and look for signs of global warming?  Is al-Qaida recruiting polar bears? ... At the urging of Al Gore, the administration is signing on to a plan to task vital intelligence assets to protect not the people of the United States, but the environment. The High Costs of Copenhagen.  When President Obama goes to the Copenhagen climate change summit next week, he is expected to once again declare that the U.S. will reduce its carbon emissions 83% by 2050.  Even though no legally binding agreement is expected, what Mr. Obama says in Denmark will define the U.S. position in subsequent international negotiations.  He will not say how the cuts will be accomplished. The Surprise at Copenhagen.  Obama believes in AGW (anthropogenic or man-made global warming) theory.  He believes in "economic and social justice," and that logically leads to "climate justice."  He may believe that the U.S. owes a "climate debt" to the rest of the world.  What better way to lead the charge than to carry the ultimate banner of the radical left — wealth redistribution — under the auspices of the "crises of climate change." Economic suicide.  When Air Force One jets off to Copenhagen next week, clouds of greenhouse gases billowing in its wake, the president would be wise to recall why the US Senate voted 95-0 against the Kyoto Protocol in 1997:  It required huge economic sacrifice from America — and virtually none from other countries.  A Copenhagen pact may wind up with similar requirements — as India's environmental minister, Jairam Ramesh, made clear yesterday [12/3/2009]. Obama offers $33 billion per year in climate reparations.  As the UN Climate Control Conference comes to an end today, many issues remain to be negotiated, including the size of the emissions cuts and the future of the Kyoto treaty.  But one issue has already been settled:  the size of the reparations that the developed countries (United States, Europe, Japan, etc.) would pay to the developing countries (China, India, Africa, etc.) if the agreement is negotiated. Did someone mention Copenhagen? The real fat cat party.  The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, led by GE, includes many other Fortune 500 companies, including Goldman Sachs — the company that has profited mightily from Obama's brand of hope and change.  CAP is an aggressive supporter of the Democrats' climate change scheme.  Why?  Because GE and company stand to make billions from carbon pricing, thanks largely to investments in technologies that cannot survive in a free market without massive subsidies from Uncle Sam. Skeptics press Obama on climate summit.  Climate-change skeptics, fired up by the controversy over a series of British scientists' e-mails, are putting President Obama on notice:  Don't commit the United States to any long-term goals at next week's climate summit in Copenhagen.  One of the strongest such warnings has come from a member of the president's own party, Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia. Obama Ignores 'Climate-Gate' in Revising Copenhagen Plans.  The controversy swirling around the leaked e-mails of climate scientists apparently trying to downplay data and exclude dissenting opinions has led to calls for President Obama to skip this month's climate summit in Denmark until the e-mails can be investigated.  Instead, the White House announced Friday [12/4/2009] that Obama was doubling down on his commitment to the summit's goals and moving his visit later in the month, hoping it will secure a "meaningful" agreement. Obama and the CRUddites of Britain.  Back in Chicago, Obama was closely associated with the people who run the Chicago Climate Exchange, a stock market scheme that depends on artificial, government-created scarcities of carbon-based fuels.  Note that except for nuclear and geothermal, all our fuels are carbon-based.  It's the whole ball of wax. No sane person is expecting "novel sources of green energy" to actually add anything soon, or even ever.  So Obama is in this up to his crew cut. Did someone mention ClimateGate? Highest Cost Generating Plant Comes On Line in Florida to Obama Fanfare.  Florida Power & Light (FPL) has built a 25 megawatt photovoltaic power plant in Southern Florida that will supply power to 3000 homes and businesses — a small fraction of the company's over 4 million customers. ... FPL spent $152 million building the plant, which amounts to $6,080 per kilowatt — a figure substantiated by the Energy Information Administration, who ranks photovoltaic solar the highest cost technology of a potential slate of 20 possible future generating technologies. Obama's Tonya Harding energy policy:  Politicians would have us believe there's a Brave New World of renewable energy out there.  But like the book, the reality of our current energy policy is more of a dystopia.  Case in point:  With great fanfare last October, President Obama took a trip to Florida to celebrate raising the electricity bills of Sunshine State residents.  Well, not really.  But that is in effect what happened. Environmental Swine.  So the problem is complex.  But the solution begins with a call for the White House to take the lead on reversing federally mandated use of corn to produce ethanol fuel.  Imagine how many jobs we could save if we turned away from ethanol mandates and towards drilling in ANWR.  But don't hold your breath waiting for help from this White House.  Out in California, water has been diverted from the San Joaquin Valley in order to save the two-inch hypomesus transpacificus fish — also known as the delta smelt.  This has caused a severe drought in the area with some farming towns like Mendota seeing unemployment numbers of 40%. Too much, too soon, too far left.  Death by a thousand cuts. Or in the case of the efficiency of the U.S. economy, by at least four:  Energy policy, health care policy, trade union resurgence, and fiscal madness.  Start with energy.  Barack Obama says our entire energy sector needs a makeover.  Never mind that we are fortunate to live in a country in which inexpensive energy has produced the world's most productive agriculture, a population capable of navigating America's huge spaces in air-conditioned comfort, and permitted the substitution of energy-plus-brain-power for back-breaking labor.  Obama is going to fix it with wind that sometimes blows, solar power where the sun sometimes shines, and perhaps even nuclear power.  Cost is no object. Climate assumptions from another planet.  As the 821-page Kerry-Boxer climate bill gets fast-tracked in the Senate, as a companion to the 1427-page House bill, it is critical that we reexamine the assumptions behind cap-tax-and-trade legislation.  The Environmental Protection Agency, Energy Information Administration and other optimistic analysts claim America can limit and tax hydrocarbon use, and switch to "ecologically friendly" renewable energy, with minimal harm to families, businesses and jobs.  Their low-ball cost estimates are based on assumptions that can only have come from another planet. Climate Change Will Be Its Highest Priority, Says U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Over the next five years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) plans to make climate change its "highest priority."  According to its new "Action Plan" released last month, the branch of the U.S. Department of Interior charged with protecting fish, wildlife and plants will focus first and foremost on the global weather. Foolishly Choosing Bears Over Barrels.  [Al] Gore is just plain wrong.  Yet the myth he perpetuates has dealt a critical blow to our hopes for true energy independence.  Despite ever-increasing numbers and demonstrated adaptability, the famous Knut the polar bear and his kind are still said to be endangered.  That in turn has prompted the federal government to designate 200,541 square miles off the coast of Alaska as critical habitat for polar bears, effectively killing hopes to exploit the vast energy riches of the American Arctic.  The world polar bear population is at a modern high and growing. All Falling Down...  [Scroll down]  While Obama was right to stiffen efficiency standards and promote alternate energies, he is neglecting the only mechanisms that can tide us over for the next 20 years — more natural gas, domestic oil, shale, tar sands, clean coal, and nuclear energy.  We should be on a dash to build nuclear plants for the coming demand from plug in hybrids and spikes in electricity usage.  We should be leasing as much natural gas lands as possible, to gain the supplies to run energy plants and to power vehicles.  There is plenty of oil in the Dakotas, California, Texas and in the Gulf and we should be drilling there like mad.  Sorry, even Santa Barbara should either ban SUVs or have oil derricks on the horizon. The EPA is choking democracy.  One of the most important events of our lifetimes may have just transpired.  A federal agency has decided that it has the power to regulate everything, including the air you breathe. Green world government.  Environmental alarmism is being exploited to chip away at national sovereignty.  The latest threat to American liberties may be found in the innocuous sounding Copenhagen Climate Treaty, which will be discussed at the United Nations climate-change conference in mid-December. ... The treaty's text is not yet finalized but its principles are aimed at regulating all economic activity in the name of climate security, with a side effect that billions of dollars would be transferred from productive countries to the unproductive. A Secret White House Power Grab Is In Full Swing.  It's one thing for President Obama to surround himself with the advisers he'd like to have, but it's another to bestow on them sweeping powers to broker secret negotiations and push forward vast new regulations that could cost American families thousands of dollars. ... Driving the push for this massive power grab and circumvention of the elected branches is a key White House official who avoided Senate confirmation by being installed not as EPA director, but instead as White House Climate Czar:  Carol Browner. Energy Sec. Chu claims he knows 'what the future will be 100 years from now'.  President Obama's Energy Secretary Steven Chu is at it again.  Fresh off his declarations in May claiming computer model predictions as evidence of a certain climate catastrophe, he has now gotten more bold, confidently predicting a certain climate catastrophe by the year 2109.  (When he and everyone who hears his warning today will be unable to verify his predictions because they will be conveniently DEAD!) Bypassing all elected officials... E.P.A. Moves to Curtail Greenhouse Gas Emissions.  Unwilling to wait for Congress to act, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday [9/30/2009] that it was moving forward on new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of power plants and large industrial facilities. EPA Overreach.  President Obama has promised the world the United States will take definitive action on carbon emissions and he needs to have something to show for this promise at the looming global climate conference in Copenhagen.  One problem, the American people hate greenhouse gas regulations and they've been talking to their representatives in Congress — that's why cap-and-trade is stalled in the Senate.  That's where the Environmental Protection Agency comes in.  The Obama administration is so desperate to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that they are willing to illegally rewrite statutes without authorization from Congress. Energy Czar Raises Possibility Of EPA Implementing Cap-And-Trade.  There's more than one way to get cap-and-trade, President Obama's energy czar said today [10/2/2009].  Carol Browner, the former Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) administrator who now serves in the Obama administration's newly created role of energy czar, floated the possibility today of the EPA implementing cap-and-trade energy policies, during an interview at The Atlantic's First Draft of History symposium in Washington, DC. Will Obama bypass Congress on climate rules?  If Congress won't get the job done on climate change, President Obama has a way to do it himself.  But is he strong-arming the legislative branch?  It certainly looks that way as a series of new environmental regulations, released over the past two weeks by the EPA, are putting legislators on notice and executives on edge. Overheated White House Environmental Campaigns.  [President Obama] has said on global warming, "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.  Sea levels are rising.  Coastlines are shrinking.  We've seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."  Fortunately for the world, not a single one of those claims is accurate. After Global Warming:  [Scroll down]  The current administration is risking America's economic future on "green" energy in an effort to solve an unproven crisis.  The cap and trade legislation is moving ahead in spite of the fact that the United States is already one of the leading nations in curtailing CO2 output.  Other countries, which are rapidly expanding their manufacturing base, are doing exactly the opposite.  China, for example, now uses more coal for producing power than the US, Europe, and Japan combined.  President Obama, on the other hand, has openly called for the destruction of the coal industry in the United States. EPA Suppresses Internal Global Warming Study, CEI Says.  Scientific findings at odds with the Obama Administration's views on carbon dioxide and climate change are being suppressed as a result of political pressure, officials at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) charge.  "This suppression of valid science for political reasons is beyond belief," said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman.  "EPA's conduct is even more outlandish because it flies in the face of the president's widely-touted claim that 'the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.'" US nuclear recycling faces the axe.  Earlier this week, the administration of President Barack Obama quietly cancelled plans for a large-scale facility to recycle nuclear fuel.  The move may prove a fatal blow to the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) set up by previous president George W. Bush. Obama's Green Snake Oil:  As he did during his campaign, Obama presented his plan to ameliorate global warming as a way of stimulating the economy, with the first steps — money for weatherizing buildings, boosting alternative energy production and improving power transmission — incorporated into his American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.  Thus he continues to ignore the enormous cost of dramatically reducing carbon dioxide emissions, falsely portraying the economic burden as a boon. Millions in Stimulus Spending Being Doled Out for Questionable Jobs.  [Scroll down]  The Obama administration is spending $5 billion to weatherize homes.  But one Texas county spent $4 million to weatherize just 47 homes.  That's $78,000 per house.  Each retrofit is supposed to save homeowners $500 a year in energy costs.  That means taxpayers will recoup their investment in 156 years, long after the home is probably torn down. Obama blocks some of Bush's last-minute environmental decisions.  With a short memo on Inauguration Day, President Obama blocked plans to loosen some air quality standards and to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list.  But he did not stop several other controversial, late-term environmental regulations issued by the Bush administration — at least not yet. Barack Obama promises to lead world on climate change.  A week after taking office, the new Democratic president drew another sharp contrast with his predecessor George W Bush, who only thought that man had a limited effect on climate change.  In the course of a ten-minute announcement at the White House, Mr Obama became the first American president to put cleaner energy at the heart of his domestic agenda and to envision environmentalism as a creator of jobs on a large scale and as a boon to the nation's defence. The Editor says... But if Bush was right, then Obama is throwing money into a pit for no reason. Another Tale of Two Headlines!  Combating an illusory beast like Manmade Global Warming™ is a perfect task for this administration:  it produces the necessary Green Vibrations to soothe liberal anxieties and — the really important thing — it is incredibly expensive.  Indeed, Manmade Global Warming™ is the ultimate Democratic boondoggle, potentially even more costly than nationalized health care. Mileage Standards:  Not the Way to Energy Independence.  Fuel economy mandates to save gas?  That's like fighting obesity by requiring clothing manufacturers to make only slender sizes. Environmentalist dreams collide with economic reality.  During the campaign and the transition Joe Biden promised that there would be no more coal plants built in the United States; greener-than-green Henry Waxman wrested the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee from the sensible John Dingell; Carol Browner, "an acolyte of former Vice President Al Gore", according to the New York Times, was named White House coordinator of energy and climate policy (aka "czar"); ... There are others, all of this green persuasion, all able, all darlings of the environmental movement, all expected to favor sun and wind over nuclear and coal.  So far, so green. 'Santa' Klaus Takes on Global Warming.  [Scroll down]  Enter the Barack Obama administration.  Between new "Climate Czar" Carole Browner and Science Advisor John Holdren, the True Believers are now taking over Federal policy on energy and the weather.  (The weather?  Yes!  We are now blessed with an official bureaucracy tasked to change the weather.  It includes NASA Goddard Space Center's James Hanson, who believes that CEOs of energy companies "should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature" if they spread foul skepticism about global warming.) Obama's newest energy focus:  appliances.  Eager to show action on energy savings for consumers and reduced warming emissions for the planet, President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered quicker, and in some cases new, efforts to make many appliances much more energy efficient. The Editor says... This means higher prices, fewer choices, and less freedom for the consumer, all in the name of "saving the planet" from a problem it doesn't really have. Environmentalists Press Democrats With 'Non-Negotiable Demands'.  Environmentalists want Congress to cap greenhouse-gas emissions, a proposal meeting resistance from companies such as General Motors Corp. because of its cost.  They're pushing for laws to force public utilities to buy 15 percent of their power from renewable energy sources, an idea opposed by Southern Co. and American Electric Power Co.  And they want tougher energy- efficiency standards for cars, buildings and appliances. War On Fossil Fuels.  The new administration has wasted no time in reversing a decision by the Bush White House that let gas and oil companies explore for new resources.  Keep this in mind the next time pump prices take off. Obama's 'Extreme Team' On Energy.  One of them wanted to see Americans paying $8 a gallon for gasoline.  Another tried to block access to domestic oil reserves that could one day exceed those in Saudi Arabia.  Another thinks global warming is a dire crisis justifying a massive crackdown on energy — decades after saying the same thing about global cooling.  Yet another had a position in the one of the world's top socialist organizations.  Meet the Obama administration's energy team. President Obama Taps Anti-Hunting, Animal Rights Extremist for Regulatory Czar.  President Obama has appointed his old friend and colleague, University of Chicago Professor Cass Sunstein, to run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.  Sunstein is a rabid enemy of Americans' Second Amendment freedom, and harbors radical ideas about animal rights that only the most ardent PETA activist would love.  Now he will run the federal office that oversees all government regulations. This article reeks with pro-Obama bias: Why Obama's Energy Savings Estimate May Be Skewed.  When he ordered the Energy Department on Thursday to set new, mandatory efficiency standards for a variety of household appliances, President Obama projected how much electricity would be saved.  "We'll save through these simple steps over the next 30 years the amount of energy produced over a two-year period by all the coal-fired power plants in America," Mr. Obama said.  But two audits of a prominent 17-year-old program to conserve electricity used in consumer goods, a voluntary effort called Energy Star, have found that such estimates, however rosy, are not completely reliable. Two federal agencies settle global warming lawsuit.  The federal government on Friday settled a lawsuit that accused two U.S. agencies of financing energy projects overseas without considering their impacts on global warming. Obama package focuses mainly on alternative power sources.  "There's not a lot of oil and gas" money in the stimulus bill, said Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston.  Instead, President Barack Obama's package focuses most of its attention, and an expected $54 billion or more in energy spending, on renewable and alternative power sources, not on the fossil fuel production of Houston's major oil companies. Dr. Doom.  Thursday afternoon I received an e-mail from someone up on the Hill regarding the confirmation hearing for environmental activist and longtime (spectacularly failed) prognosticator of disaster, Dr. John Holdren. ... The email I received noted that Louisiana Senator David Vitter had a difficult time simply rolling over for the notion that this guy should stroll into regular access to the president without having to remind everyone, for the record, of just what a Moonbat he really is.  Per my correspondent:  "Vitter got Holdren to admit (three times) that he thinks 1 billion people will die from Global Warming by 2020." A global warming scam:  Years of improved engine efficiencies have reduced emissions per ton-mile, but now the only practical way to further reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to push motorists into ever smaller vehicles that use less fuel per mile, or expensive hybrids and other exotic vehicles powered by fuel cells, compressed air, or batteries. ... [This] will mean that about six years from now many Vermonters registering a new car will have to pay more — probably a lot more — for an exotic upscale hybrid, or cram themselves into a smaller and less crashworthy car, van or truck. War Over The Climate Heats Up Even As Climate Itself Cools Down.  Get ready for a three-ring circus.  In one corner you find those concerned with the recovery of the economy, in the second corner those concerned about threats to national security and in the third corner global warmers who agonize about catastrophic climate change. ... The global warmers will be led by energy-climate czarina Carol Browner, EPA chief during the Clinton years, and by science adviser John Holdren, who testified that a billion people might die by 2020 unless greenhouse-gas emissions are sharply reduced. Is the Obama Administration Marching to the Tune of the Animal-Agenda Army?  When the Humane Society of the United States endorsed then-nominee Barack Obama for president, those analysts who track the animal-liberation lobby were put on high alert.  Despite now-president Obama's claim that his policies will be driven by science, not politics, recent events have only reinforced the fear that sound wildlife management and progress in human health and medical research will be thrown under the bus as payback to his radical animal-rights supporters. EPA Expected to Regulate Carbon Dioxide for First Time.  The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, The New York Times reported on Wednesday [2/18/2009], citing senior Obama administration officials.  EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has asked her staff to review the latest scientific evidence and prepare documentation for a finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangers public health and welfare, the newspaper said.  There is wide expectation that Jackson will act by April 2, the second anniversary of a Supreme Court decision that found that EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse pollution under the U.S. Clean Air Act. Please note that Carbon Dioxide is Not a Pollutant. Truth and Reality Exiting Stage Left.  Ignoring the environment, especially climate change, is not only sensible at first glance, it is completely sensible because CO2 is not a problem.  Obama must know if he doesn't fix the economy anything else he does becomes madness.  So hopefully he will have sanity about climate change forced upon him. Politics in the Guise of Pure Science.  Why, since President Obama promised to "restore science to its rightful place" in Washington, do some things feel not quite right?  First there was Steven Chu, the physicist and new energy secretary, warning The Los Angeles Times that climate change could make water so scarce by century's end that "there's no more agriculture in California" and no way to keep the state's cities going, either.  Then there was the hearing in the Senate to confirm another physicist, John Holdren, to be the president's science adviser.  Dr. Holdren was asked about some of his gloomy neo-Malthusian warnings in the past, like his calculation in the 1980s that famines due to climate change could leave a billion people dead by 2020. The Doomsday Bias:  In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama took a dig at his backward predecessor by promising to "restore science to its rightful place" in America.  So why, days before he was sworn in, did Obama choose a failed prophet of the apocalypse to become his most influential scientist? ... [Dr. John P.] Holdren's particular brand of science is infected by what we can only call a doomsday bias.  Over the past 40 years, he has warned of population-growth induced "ecocide," "global cooling," global warming due to heat dissipation from power plants, nuclear Armageddon, and — this week — "climate disruption" caused by increased concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Obama's Biggest Radical.  When Barack Obama nominated John P. Holdren as his Science Adviser last December 20, the president-elect stated "promoting science isn't just about providing resources" but "ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology."  In nominating John Holdren, his words could scarcely have taken a more Orwellian ring.  Some critics have noted Holdren's penchant for making apocalyptic predictions that never come to pass, and categorizing all criticism of his alarmist views as not only wrong but dangerous. Obama lied; the economy died.  Our president shares a fascinating idea about energy with most of what used to be known as the "small is beautiful" crowd.  It is a curious phenomenon that one needs a very big government to enforce the beauty of small.  As Mr. Obama's energy secretary, Steven Chu, said last year:  The price of electricity in America is "anomalously low."  You see how much smarter that Nobel prize winner is than you.  You probably thought you were already spending enough on electricity and fuel. Update on the "Chu Effect".  One month ago, Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu warned of apocalyptic drought in California.  "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California."  And, he added, "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going" either."  USA today warned:  "Calif. facing worst drought in modern history"[.]  Almost immediately after Dr. Chu's pronouncement, the rain and snow started in earnest.  As of today, all California Snowtel stations report normal snow depth and water content, as do all stations in Colorado where California gets much of their water from. Cap-and-trade plan will sink Michigan.  President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's heartland — particularly Michigan.  It is a multibillion-dollar tax hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things, driving cars and burning coal.  The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon emissions.  The right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate revenue for more government spending programs. Dems' Climate Change Power Grab Hidden in Spending Bill.  Using a massive $410 billion spending bill as a cloak, Democrat leaders in Congress have been caught attempting to create almost limitless new federal powers to regulate climate change without any public notice, public comment, or public debate.  The provision slipped into this bill would allow the Department of Interior to regulate all greenhouse gas emissions across the entire country based on the listing of the polar bear as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Obama's energy policy will increase dependence on foreign oil.  Ethanol subsidies began in 1979.  Ethanol has had 30 years of taxpayer-assisted experience.  Ethanol is the only "feasible" alternative renewable biofuel in the competition.  All other biofuels lack the production potential that ethanol has.  According to the latest data from the Renewable Fuels Association, ethanol production is currently averaging 0.60 million barrels per day.  At the subsidy of 51¢ per gallon, this amount of ethanol production costs taxpayers over $4 Billion in 2008.  The ethanol future looks much worse.  The "Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007" required maximum ethanol production of 2.35 million barrels per day by 2022.  But, this amount of ethanol production will require the entire corn crop in the US, every kernel of corn. Obama climate plan could cost $2 trillion.  President Obama's climate plan could cost industry close to $2 trillion, nearly three times the White House's initial estimate of the so-called "cap-and-trade" legislation, according to Senate staffers who were briefed by the White House. Kerry, Boxer:  U.S. 'Needs' Cap-and-Trade on Carbon Emissions Even if Energy Costs Rise.  Democratic Sens. John Kerry and Barbara Boxer told CNSNews.com that the nation must adopt the Obama administration's cap-and-trade proposal to reduce carbon emissions, even if it results in massive increases in gasoline and electricity prices. Did someone mention cap and trade? Obama's science adviser starts job.  [Scroll down]  The Senate also confirmed former Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees ocean and atmospheric research and the National Weather Service.  Lubchenco, who specialized in overfishing and climate change at Oregon State University, is the first woman to head NOAA.  A member of the Pew Oceans Commission, Lubchenco has recommended steps to overcome crippling damage to the world's oceans from overfishing and pollution and had expressed optimism for change after George W. Bush's presidency. An obvious power grab: EPA:  Global Warming Threatens Public Health, Welfare.  The Environmental Protection Agency sent a proposal to the White House on Friday [3/20/2009] finding that global warming is endangering the public's health and welfare, according to several sources, a move that could have far-reaching implications for the nation's economy and environment. EPA moving toward carbon regulation.  Taking another step toward regulating emissions of greenhouse gases, the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency is declaring that global warming poses a threat to public health. Consensus or censorship?  The Environmental Protection Agency has submitted a "finding" to the White House Office of Management and Budget that will force the Obama administration to decide whether to limit greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.  If adopted, new laws and regulations will likely follow that have the potential to change our lifestyles and limit our freedoms.  None of these laws and regulations will be preceded by debate.  They will be imposed on us by fundamentalist politicians and scientists who have swallowed the Kool-Aid and declared global warming as fact — end of discussion. The article above was also posted under "Silencing the Skeptics in the Global Warming Debate." Government Should Compel Consumers to Use Alternative Energy, Congressman Says.  Government policy should be crafted to raise the price of carbon-emitting energy sources so consumers are compelled to choose alternative energy, House Democratic Conference Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday.  Larson agreed that such a policy would likely result in higher electricity prices for consumers but said this is needed to protect the environment from the possible "catastrophic results" of not implementing a pro-green energy policy. The Editor says... What exactly are the "catastrophic results" which we must pay to prevent?  Where is the proof that catastrophe will result, and that it can be prevented, and that the government has any goal other than expansion of government? The Greens Hate Energy, America, and You.  "There's nothing like a fresh start. On his first day in office, President Obama could make four decisions that would start 2009 with a 'clean slate' of energy policies," said Friends of the Earth[.  A]t the same time, the Sierra Club announced its own "Clean Slate Energy Agenda" that — surprise — was the same.  The focus of both is on energy use and accessibility.  Both want a lot LESS energy use.  Along with all other environmental organizations both use the bogeyman of "global warming" to demand huge reductions in "emissions." ... This is the objective of one of President Obama's earliest executive orders.  Driving up the cost of owning and operating a car directly strikes at the ability of Americans to be mobile and independent.  Justifying it as necessary to reduce global warming is just a big fat lie. A Cooling Trend Toward Global Warming.  Over the past several years, it appeared that our society was doomed to succumb to what Weather Channel founder John Coleman has described as "the greatest scam in history":  anthropogenic (human caused) global warming (AGW).  For two decades there has been an incessant drumbeat of propaganda attributing every weather-related event to an increase in carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels.  With the election of a president who is solidly in the global-warming-alarmist camp ... the passage of legislation causing some form of economy-crippling energy taxation seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Going to Cuba is okay but... US wants limits on Antarctic tourism.  The Obama administration is pushing to protect Antarctica's fragile environment by imposing mandatory limits on the size of cruise ships sailing there and the number of passengers they bring ashore. Climate bill could trigger lawsuit landslide.  Self-proclaimed victims of global warming or those who "expect to suffer" from it — from beachfront property owners to asthmatics — for the first time would be able to sue the federal government or private businesses over greenhouse gas emissions under a little-noticed provision slipped into the House climate bill.  Environmentalists say the measure was narrowly crafted to give citizens the unusual standing to sue the U.S. government as a way to force action on curbing emissions.  But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sees a new cottage industry for lawyers. Instead of drilling for oil, Obama tilts at windmills.  [Interior Secretary Ken] Salazar claims wind turbines off the Atlantic can produce enough electricity to replace the 1 million megawatts currently being generated by coal, natural gas, nuclear, biomass and other energy sources.  "Secretary Salazar is living in fantasy land," Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, told The Examiner.  The wind currently generates less than 1 percent of our electricity needs, he said, adding that "we would need to install 309,587 giant turbines — about 172 turbines per mile of coast — and hope the wind blows 24 hours a day, seven days a week," while paying twice as much for electricity as we do now.  This is the road to economic ruin. Messing with Mother Nature:  [Scroll down]  So, today I am reading my local paper and see an article where the President's science advisor, John Holdren, has an idea about getting the temperature back down.  He says we should shoot a bunch of dirt into the upper atmosphere.  I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea, I am not anti-science.  I like science.  But I like my science to have been field tested and verified by the scientific method. Deeper In Red From Going Green.  The administration tells the country it can revive the economy with a "green" stimulus.  But, like government-provided universal health care, where it's been tried in another nation, it hasn't worked. Obama administration declares greenhouse gases a threat to public health.  Environmentalists are celebrating the so-called "endangerment finding" as the biggest statement yet that the federal government, after years of downplaying the dangers of climate change under the Bush administration, is now preparing to act boldly to combat it.  This is a "landmark moment in environmental history," Frank O'Donnell, president of the environmental group Clean Air Watch, said in a press release anticipating the decision. Obama's Energy Policy Driven by Ideology, not Reason.  What Obama lacks in leadership, substance and management skills, he more than makes up for with rhetoric and ideological zeal.  Time and again Obama shows he will use his power to drive the left-wing agenda without regard to economic consequences or loss of liberty.  Moreover, with the liberal holy grail of penalizing fossil fuel use in his grasp, it's doubtful Obama will shy away. Obama Says High-Speed Rail Will Foster Energy Independence.  President Barack Obama called Thursday for the country to move swiftly to a system of high-speed rail travel, saying it will relieve congestion, help clean the air and save on energy. Energy Secretary Offers Dire Global Warming Prediction.  Caribbean nations face "very, very scary" rises in sea level and intensifying hurricanes, and Florida, Louisiana and even northern California could be overrun with rising water levels due to global warming triggered by carbon-based greenhouse gases, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Saturday [4/18/2009].  Chu's comments followed meetings with environmental ministers attending the fifth Summit of the Americas.  He did not shy away from the most perilous predictions about the potential effects of global warming. Obama flunks Global Warming 101 on Fargo.  President Obama used recent flooding in Fargo, North Dakota to push his misguided belief in global warming.  His comment, "If you look at the flooding that's going on right now in North Dakota and you say to yourself, 'If you see an increase of two degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there?'" is speculative and completely wrong. Global Warming Overreach.  Cap and trade was already going to be a brawl, but the two [Waxman and Pelosi] upped the ante by including tougher targets and restrictions.  If that weren't enough, they rolled in every other item on the green wish list:  a renewable electricity standard; a low-carbon fuel standard; a broader renewable fuels policy; new efficiency standards.  Any one of these is a monumental fight on its own.  Put together they risk an intra-party committee mutiny. On Earth Day, Obama pushes ambitious climate agenda.  President Bill Clinton marked Earth Day in 1994 by promising to "green" the White House from its landscaping to its copy machines.  But President Barack Obama and his supporters pledged themselves to a far more ambitious goal on Tuesday — combating climate change all over the world. Energy Sec. now admits he was 'Silly' to call for $8 per gallon gas in U.S..  REP. STEARNS:  No.  But somehow, your statement, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the ($8 a gallon) levels in Europe," doesn't that sound a little bit silly in retrospect for you to say that?  SEC. STEVEN CHU:  Yes. 'Green' Obama wants us to pay.  For all Barack Obama's talk about rejecting new trade barriers, there is an increasing awareness around the world that the United States is planning to introduce climate-change legislation that amounts to little more than green protectionism. It's Not Easy Being Green.  In Barack Obama's America, there are no costs and benefits.  There are only "false choices" that must be avoided lest we fall into the dangerous trap of old thinking.  We can increase deficit spending and improve budgetary discipline, expand health care funding and reduce costs, and pay for social programs unimagined by LBJ with the tax rates of Bill Clinton. ... Unfortunately, the laws of economics cannot simply be repealed and benefits still do come at a cost. The Great Government CO2 Power Grab.  The inevitable has happened.  The Obama government has declared CO2 — a nutrient required by plants to live, and a gas exhaled with your every breath — a pollutant.  Let there be rejoicing in the ranks of activists.  Do what we say!  Now, when I say that what occurred was "inevitable" it means that there was nothing anybody could have done to stop the government from doing what it lusted to do.  No facts would have stopped them, no arguments, no evidence, no sober quantifications of uncertainty.  This was going to happen as soon as Obama was elected.  Control is what was wanted and control is what was had. Obama wants to make America more like Europe.  Top of the president's change list is the way we consume energy.  He believes our use of carbon-based fuels is causing the globe to heat up, with all the dire consequences conjured up by Al Gore as he sits in the library of his home, probably the largest single consumer of energy of any private residence in America.  By one means or another, the president will make the use of oil, natural gas and especially coal so expensive that consumers will be forced to use less energy, and rely more for the energy we do use on costly wind and solar power, paid for with tax-funded subsidies or higher utility bills. Obama sounds death knell for nuclear power.  Under the guise of cutting wasteful spending, President Obama is terminating support for the Yucca Mountain spent nuclear fuel repository in Nevada.  While not unexpected, this development means that there will be no place to store nuclear waste, probably for decades, other than at temporary storage locations at each of the nation's nuclear power plants. Obama nukes nuclear storage.  For more than two decades, the Congress, the president and the sprawling federal bureaucracy have worked to find a safe place to store the waste of nuclear reactors.  Yucca Mountain, a remote formation in the deserts of Nevada, was the chosen site.  Now President Obama, bowing to the demands of a fraction of anti-nuclear activists, has thrown 22 years of hard work up in the air. Penny-Wise And Megawatt Foolish.  Among the Lilliputian cuts in the budget is the termination of the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.  Thus, a "shovel ready" renewable resource that emits no greenhouse gases is shoved aside. Keep Yucca Mountain project alive.  While President Barack Obama's newly proposed budget would finally allow Nevada to rid itself of a nuclear waste dump planned to be buried in tunnels deep under Yucca Mountain, it would leave Illinois with the shaft.  Obama's decision to zero out the Nevada nuclear waste repository is a betrayal of his Illinois constituents, forcing nuclear power plants here to continue to "temporarily" store more than 7,000 tons of dangerous, radioactive waste — more than any other state — in cooling ponds near rivers and Lake Michigan. Yucca Mountain Decision Ignores Science.  Seldom in history has such a small piece of real estate been subjected to such thorough and comprehensive [study].  And yet the selection of this site has been mired in political controversy from the very beginning.  What has been ignored in the controversy are the extensive scientific analyses conducted in support of a proposed repository, along with both national and international peer reviews.  The site has been studied exhaustively for 30 years now, and as much as $10 billion has been expended in scientific research. Barack's Bi-Polar Nuclear Policy:  President Barack Obama recently took drastic steps forward to carry through on his campaign promise to close the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility before it ever opens for business.  His Department of Energy (DOE) successfully petitioned judges hearing license requests for the dump site to cancel the hearings.  The final step in Obama's effort to kill the project for good will be to completely withdraw the DOE application for Yucca Mountain. Malice in Obamaland.  The [nuclear energy] industry has been hampered by reams of regulatory red tape demanded by environmentalists in the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island incident, which effectively ended new plant construction. ... Mr. Obama's budget proposal also zeroed out funding for Nevada's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, leaving America with no long-term solution for storing spent nuclear fuel.  Without a storage solution, there is no way forward for nuclear power.  Weighing these two contradictory moves, the president appears to be urging the industry onward along the familiar path to nowhere. More about Yucca Mountain. Global Warming Scam To Cost Americans Trillions.  This proposed global warming tax-and-spend scam would be one of the biggest financial assaults ever perpetrated against a free people.  Forgetting for a moment that the whole anthropogenic global warming myth is the biggest fraud ever sold to a free people, the plans the Obama Administration has to lighten the pockets of the American people is truly staggering. Obama budget rescinds oil, gas industry tax breaks.  The oil and gas industry is taking a hard hit in President Barack Obama's proposed budget.  According to details released Thursday about the 2010 budget, the plan would rescind tax breaks at a cost to the industry of $52.4 billion over the next 10 years. Obama and the Alternative Energy Fiasco:  It's only a matter of time before President Barack Obama's vast popularity runs aground on his energy policies.  In the name of saving the planet from global warming, he has delayed new oil drilling, an action that will have major political repercussions once the world economy recovers.  Instead of using some the stimulus billions to produce more gas and oil, Obama's wild-eyed supporters dream of "renewable" energy derived from corn, wind, sunshine, and even grass.  With the appointment of extremists like climate czar Carol Browner and science adviser John Holdren, Obama has placed his administration's environmental policy in the hands of radicals. Cracks in the Facade:  Obama is ignoring the potential of coal, nuclear, gas, and oil, intent on cap-and-trade, and pie-in-the-sky present-day Gore-ish wind and solar.  The result will be that our energy bills will skyrocket.  Our vulnerability will increase.  Our overt enemies will gain leverage, and covert ones will keep using coal and nuclear for economic advantage.  This is a disastrous energy policy and apparently has been outsourced to the Al Gore cadres.  We have a rendezvous with real trouble when the global economy rebounds and demands more oil and gas. The Green Wind Of Destruction.  To say we're skeptical of the administration's claim that green jobs will bolster economic recovery is putting it mildly.  It's much easier to believe that needless environmental rules will cause widespread job losses. Environmentalists happy with Obama; industry less so.  In the nearly four months since taking office, the Obama administration has moved quickly, relentlessly and without apology to roll back the natural resource and public lands policies of its predecessor.  Though they have yet to lay out their own vision in detail, Salazar and other administration officials have left no doubt that they consider the Bush approach misguided and unfairly weighted toward timber, mining, oil and other interests. Obama administration trying to make unequal things equal.  Human production of CO2 causing global warming or climate change is the biggest deception in history.  Previously this statement met with incredulity.  How could the entire world or a majority of scientists be fooled?  Now after the almost complete collapse of the global financial system people understand.  The Obama government is fooled because it doesn't want to understand and it suits their political agenda.  They ignore facts and abandon logic to produce policies guaranteed to continue US economic decline. Yucca Mountain, Though on Hold, Would Be Very Safe.  President Barack Obama has proposed a budget that would eliminate funding for the nearly completed Yucca Mountain storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.  Proponents vow not to abandon the plan, and they have strong scientific reasons to support it.  Yucca Mountain was selected as the nation's first repository for high-level nuclear waste because of its many natural barriers preventing the escape of radioactive particles.  These include the mountain's surface soils, its overall physical shape, the thick rock layers above and below the levels used for storage, and the very impermeable materials located below the area's deep water table. Obama Budget Abandons Yucca Mountain.  In a significant energy policy redirection, the Obama administration appears poised to pull the plug on funds for permanent nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.  President Barack Obama's recently unveiled budget eliminates funding for the Yucca Mountain geologic repository, in spite of years of planning and almost $8 billion invested in the project. Obama's European Energy Vacation.  Obama is absolutely right that we can learn a lot from the European approach to energy.  But he is dead wrong on what those lessons are. We should study what the Europeans are doing with regard to energy and the environment, and then generally do the opposite. Save the Planet — Paint the Roof.  The other day, the current Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu was speaking at the "St James's Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium" in London which, if it is not the most pretentiously named meeting on the planet, it must be among the top five, told his laureateal colleagues that we should paint much of the world white to reflect heat back up into space and, thus, cure global warming.  I am not making this up. Greens Want Black and White.  Energy Secretary Steven Chu appeared at noted climatologist Prince Charles' symposium in London today [5/26/2009], and expressed the Obama administration's support for painting roofs white and cars black in order to reflect energy and fight global warming. ... This is the kind of dictatorial looniness that might awaken the general public to the fact that greens are stark-raving mad.  In fact, the public is already awake in California. You Will Wear White and You Will Like It.  If we would just inflate our tires and get regular tune-ups, drilling for oil would be unnecessary.  Now one of the many czars of the Oz-bama Regime has blithely suggested we should all be ordered to paint the roofs of our houses white — that doing so would equal taking every car on the planet off the roads for eleven years.  I wonder if whatever he's smoking is negatively affecting climate change.  But why stop there?  If white roofs are such an energy conservation miracle, surely making all cars white would help a lot too, and since we are soon to have only Oz-bama Motors achieving the impossible 35-miles-per-gallon average, it'll be easy to issue the little eggs with wheels in one color. Levelized Cost of New Electricity Generating Technologies.  Analysis shows wind and solar power are ridiculously expensive, compared to natural gas, coal and nuclear power. No Energy from this Executive.  "As I've often said, in the short term, as we transition to renewable energy," President Obama stated in April, "we can and should increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas. ... We still need more oil, we still need more gas.  If we've got some here in the United States that we can use, we should find it and do so in an environmentally sustainable way."  Does anyone believe Obama was serious about this? Given his practice of misdirection — saying one thing, doing another — no one should have.  Now, nearly five months into the Obama presidency, it's clear he didn't mean a word of it.  His administration is impeding, not promoting, increased production of oil and gas, as it is of coal and nuclear power. America's Nuclear Power Lag:  While President Barack Obama welcomed the "peaceful development" of nuclear power plants in Iran and other countries which do not see themselves as friends of the United States, he and his liberal Democratic colleagues seem intent on killing off the remnants of the nuclear power industry in the United States.  Although candidate Obama said he would consider nuclear power use if a reasonable solution can be found to storing nuclear waste, President Obama has taken absolutely no action in developing civilian nuclear power.  The comprehensive energy program of the Democratic Congress, the Waxman-Markey bill does not even mention nuclear power. FutureGen 'Clean Coal' Project Scaled Back by Obama.  The scope of the stalled FutureGen "clean coal" project in central Illinois is being scaled back by the Obama administration in an effort to revive the plans for a coal-fired power plant that spews fewer gases into the air.  The U.S. Energy Department said today [6/12/2009] it will support a modified version of the proposal, seeking to build a plant in Mattoon, Illinois, that can capture and bury 60 percent of its carbon emissions.  The Bush administration had crafted the original idea for a plant that could trap almost 100 percent of emissions, and then canceled it after costs exceeded estimates. What Europeanization Will Really Mean:  Since Mr. Obama and his friends would like us to be more like Europeans, my wife and I recently went on a great explore to find out what life is really like in Europe and what changes we should expect.  Get out your bike because you will soon be riding it everywhere.  That means you too, Grandma — no exceptions.  The best way to cut down on that nasty CO2 is to chuck your cars and get on a two-wheeler.  Of course, after a couple years with the government running two of our three major car companies, a bicycle may become an attractive alternative. White House Sounds Alarm On Climate Change.  Harmful effects from global warming are already here and worsening, warns the first climate report from Barack Obama's presidency in the strongest language on climate change ever to come out of the White House. Watermelon Environmentalism, Green on the Outside, Red on the Inside.  President Obama, who wants to emphasize science, has chosen Carol Browner for his "Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change," a new post being dubbed the "Climate Czar."  Browner's recent career will be of interest to Americans struggling with a weak economy and cold weather.  Carol Browner is not a climate scientist but an attorney and bureaucrat who ran the EPA during both terms of the Clinton Administration, so she does not exactly represent "change."  She also put in a stint with the Socialist International, "the worldwide organization of social democratic, socialist and labour parties. Obama Budget Abandons Yucca Mountain.  In a significant energy policy redirection, the Obama administration appears poised to pull the plug on funds for permanent nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.  President Barack Obama's recently unveiled budget eliminates funding for the Yucca Mountain geologic repository, in spite of years of planning and almost $8 billion invested in the project.  Yucca Mountain may be in limbo, but it is not the only option available for dealing with spent nuclear fuel. Strong words on climate change.  Global warming has already caused more heavy downpours, the rise of temperatures and sea levels, rapidly retreating glaciers, and altered river flows, according to the document released yesterday by the White House science adviser and other top officials. Government Study Warns of Climate Change Effects.  The impact of a changing climate is already being felt across the United States, like shifting migration patterns of butterflies in the West and heavier downpours in the Midwest and East, according to a government study to be released on Tuesday [6/16/2009].  Even if the nation takes significant steps to slow emissions of heat-trapping gases, the impact of global warming is expected to become more severe in coming years, the report says, affecting farms and forests, coastlines and floodplains, water and energy supplies, transportation and human health. Here's the rebuttal: U.S. Climate Report Assailed.  The new federal report on climate change gets a withering critique from Roger Pielke Jr., who says that it misrepresents his own research and that it wrongly concludes that climate change is already responsible for an increase in damages from natural disasters. Time to Laugh at Obama and Company.  How many Americans does it take to screw in a light bulb?  According to President-elect Barack Obama, 2.5 million.  Obama has a new plan, he says, to save or create at least 2.5 million jobs.  "We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs," Obama said.  "That won't just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year.  It will put people back to work."  This is inherently hilarious.  The president-elect of the United States actually believes that screwing in energy-efficient light bulbs will save or create millions of jobs. Did someone mention fluorescent bulbs? Obama's Mine Shaft:  Barack Obama's plan to bankrupt anyone building a new coal plant prioritizes global warming myths over U.S. energy independence.  It also wields government power punitively and will hurt the economy. Obama's anti-oil team.  The president-elect is poised to hand environmental policy to people who want to punish petroleum. NASA's Hansen to Obama:  Use Global Warming to Redistribute Wealth.  Climate realists around the world have contended for years that the real goal of alarmists such as Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his followers is to use the fear of man-made global warming to redistribute wealth. NASA's James Hansen to the Rescue!  NASA's James Hansen has written a personal letter to President-elect Obama outlining his plans for saving the planet from global warming.  Hansen has been wrong so many times about the "inevitability" of global warming that most of us have lost count.  But it is hard to be wrong — when it feels so right. NASA tells Barack Obama Australia is destroying earth with coal emissions.  Australia's use of coal and carbon emissions policies are guaranteeing the "destruction of much of the life on the planet", a leading NASA scientist has written in a letter to Barack Obama.  The head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Professor James Hansen, has written an open letter to Barack Obama calling for a moratorium on coal-fired power stations and the use of next-generation nuclear power. Bailing Out Wind.  Obama announces his energy team without mentioning a green source of renewable energy that could create jobs, reduce carbon emissions and reinvigorate a vital manufacturing sector — nuclear power. Energy squad to wean US off oil addiction.  Barack Obama intends to round out his environmental and natural resources team with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and three former Environmental Protection Agency officials from the Clinton administration.  The president-elect's energy policy team will be responsible for implementing a far-reaching plan to wean the US off Middle Eastern oil and bolster the economy by increasing energy efficiency and building renewable energy plants. The Editor says... If you like paying $8 a gallon for gasoline, you should be in hog heaven by the time Obama implements his harebrained schemes.  He will appease the environmentalists, but no one else. Environmentalists draft bold roadmap for Obama.  The [environmental] groups call for cutting funding for nuclear energy, reinstating a moratorium on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and reconsidering recent oil and gas leases in some parts of Alaska.  The bold outline from groups working to protect oceans, increase park space and reduce pollution shows that the environmental community is going on the offensive, after eight years of playing defense. Obama Pledges to 'Skyrocket' Electricity Prices.  President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to force electricity prices to "skyrocket" and to "bankrupt" any new coal-fired power plants in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that surfaced November 2.  With the planned imposition of strict limits on carbon dioxide emissions, electricity providers would have to purchase prohibitively expensive alternative power from sources such as wind and solar.  Obama pledged he would not allow electricity providers to use less-expensive nuclear power or clean coal technology any time in the near future. The Warm Turns.  In a speech at Harvard last November, Harvard physicist John Holden, President-elect Obama's choice to be his science adviser as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, presented a "top 10" list of warming solutions.  Topping the list was "limiting population," as if man was a plague upon the earth.  This is a major tenet of green dogma that bemoans the fact that the pestilence called mankind comes with cars, factories and overconsumption of fossil fuels and other resources. 'Santa' Klaus Takes on Global Warming.  [Scroll down]  Enter the Barack Obama administration.  Between new "Climate Czar" Carole Browner and Science Advisor John Holdren, the True Believers are now taking over Federal policy on energy and the weather.  (The weather?  Yes!  We are now blessed with an official bureaucracy tasked to change the weather.  It includes NASA Goddard Space Center's James Hanson, who believes that CEOs of energy companies "should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature" if they spread foul skepticism about global warming.) Advocates for Action on Global Warming Chosen as Obama's Top Science Advisers.  President-elect Barack Obama has selected two of the nation's most prominent scientific advocates for a vigorous response to climate change to serve in his administration's top ranks, according to sources, sending the strongest signal yet that he will reverse Bush administration policies on energy and global warming. NOAA's Ark.  President-elect Obama chooses as his science adviser and head of our weather research agency two global warming activists who believe your SUV is driving us over a climate cliff. ... He nominated Harvard physicist John Holden to be his science adviser as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, and marine biologist Jane Lubchenco to head to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  Both are global warming true believers. Climate czar left no electronic trail.  Don't bother looking for any electronic records of Carol Browner's first stint as a federal government executive.  The soon-to-be Obama administration climate czar intentionally didn't keep many.  In sworn testimony obtained by The Washington Times, Ms. Browner disclosed that she refused to use e-mail when she served as President Clinton's Environmental Protection Agency chief in the 1990s for fear of leaving a digital trail. Hot air from Obama:  In one of his first public policy statements as America's president-elect, Barack Obama focused on climate change, and clearly stated both his priorities and the facts on which these priorities rest.  Unfortunately, both are weak, or even wrong. ... Obama went on to say why he wants to prioritise global warming policies:  "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.  Sea levels are rising.  Coastlines are shrinking.  We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season." ... These statements are — however eloquent — seriously wrong or misleading.  Sea levels are rising, but they have been rising at least since the early 1800s. Less Power To Him.  Barack Obama's apparent choice for Energy secretary is physicist Steven Chu. ... He has criticized "free market forces" for not cutting carbon dioxide emissions and supports "a combination of fiscal policies and downright regulations" for controlling CO2.  He claims coal — which today fuels hundreds of power plants — is an "obstacle to progress," and has said "coal is my worst nightmare."  And he shows an alarmist's fear of global warming.  Chu is also a zealous advocate of alternative energy, using his position as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California to push policymakers to remake the facility into a center for researching biofuels and solar energy.  An opponent of coal who happens to be a global warming reactionary is not suitable to be in charge of the nation's energy policy. Global Warming's Poor, Huddled Masses.  Barack Obama doesn't have a mandate for his global warming policies.  He doesn't even have a mandate from his most fervent supporters. ... Obama's America wouldn't just welcome your tired, your poor, your huddled masses:  It would create them.  It's highly doubtful Americans are willing to make this sacrifice. Obama's Carbon Busters.  After the selection of a largely centrist economic team, liberals have been asking when President-elect Obama would give them a seat at the table.  Well, now we know, and Americans should strap themselves in.  Mr. Obama is stocking his energy shop with the greenest of greens who want to move fast on a very aggressive climate agenda.  Here come the carbon busters. Obama's Energy Policy:  Al Gore's Pipe Dream.  Obama also pledges to put a million "plug-in hybrid cars" on the road by 2015 — by offering a $7,000 tax credit to anyone who buys one.  Of course, Obama's energy proposals haven't won him friends in the coal industry, which he has essentially vowed to shut down. Obama climate pledge "very positive" — UN official.  Barack Obama's pledge to work to reduce emissions sharply by 2020 is a "huge signal" of encouragement to countries negotiating a new climate pact, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said on Wednesday [11/19/2008].  The U.S. president-elect said on Tuesday the United States would engage vigorously in climate change talks when he is president, and he pledged to work to reduce emissions sharply by 2020, despite the financial crisis. The New Landlord.  Get ready for national park access by mass transit in order to minimize automobile usage.  Yosemite, Zion, and Grand Canyon have already instituted shuttle bus services, with Yosemite boasting nine routes.  Nothing scares the Chambers of Commerce of "Gateway communities" around Yellowstone more than the idea of having to tell tourists they can't drive on the Park's extensive highway system.  But the green dream calls for car-free national parks.  [No snowmobiles, RVs, or motorcycles.] Climate first for Obama transition team.  After eight years out in the cold, Democrats in Washington DC are rushing to warm themselves by the White House fireplace.  And although research advocates may have to wait to see major science-policy positions in the new administration filled, a sense of the next president's priorities and style of governance is starting to emerge. What can we expect from the Obama Administration?  [#5] [Expect an] end to almost all new drilling, new nuclear power stations, and a vast slowdown if not a stop on coal-fired power stations.  Expect California-style blackouts within two or three years, rolling across the nation, to be used as the excuse for rationing of energy, including fuel and electricity. Obama's First 100 Days.  World peace will probably be first on the agenda.  Obama, as president, will give all those dictators a good talking to. ... Once Obama has shown these bad boys the error of their ways, he'll be ready to tackle his next big job  — saving the earth from melting.  Of course, this will require a temporary halt to capitalism but hey, ya gotta break a few eggs, right?  The bright side is, Obama will actually be able to deliver on a campaign promise — the promise to bankrupt the coal industry. Green herring.  Mr. Obama wants to "implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050."  That is even more ambitious than the goal of a cap-and-trade bill that the Department of Energy estimates would cost between $444 billion and $1.3 trillion in reduced economic growth over two decades. ... Like a carbon tax, which achieves the same result more explicitly, a cap-and-trade system works only if it makes energy use (and the emissions associated with it) more expensive. Second thoughts on warming:  President-elect Barack Obama wants to phase out coal-based electricity generation, switch to renewable energy and follow Europe's lead on climate change.  That could prove difficult.  Coal generates half of all U.S. electricity.  Wind provides less than 2 percent of all electricity and cannot be relied on when it's needed.  Europe's lead can't even be defined, much less followed. Obama's Grand Experiment: Global Warming Cap-and-Trade Policy.  The prospect that President-elect Barack Obama may keep the Bush tax cuts until 2011 has some clinging to hope he will postpone his liberal ideas for the economy's sake.  There's little chance of that when it comes to global warming, however, an issue on which Obama puts his ideology first and the nation's economic growth second. An Explosion of Green Lies.  As the Obama administration makes ready to assume power, the Greens are going crazy with campaigns denouncing coal as "dirty" and demanding an end to the use of all plastic bottles, claiming that a life-threatening component exists.  If this is so, don't you think we would know about it by now?  Plastic, of course, is made from oil and that too has been stigmatized for decades by the Greens. Obama is the star pupil in the School of Climate Change.  Bernard Baruch said, "Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing."  Barack Obama promised a great deal.  He was rarely specific, but his generalities were interpreted to mean he would deal with each voter's specific concerns.  His promise of change was nothing new, but people believed it was different than any thing seen before in Washington.  He is not President yet, but already he has demonstrated an inability to satisfy the expectations raised by his eloquence and vagueness. President-elect Barack Obama proposes economic suicide for US.  [Obama] talks blithely of allowing only "clean" coal-fired power plants, using "carbon capture" — burying the CO2 in holes in the ground — which would double the price of electricity, but the technology for which hasn't even yet been developed.  He then babbles on about "generating five million new green jobs".  This will presumably consist of hiring millions of Americans to generate power by running around on treadmills, to replace all those "dirty" coal-fired power stations which currently supply the US with half its electricity.  If this sounds like an elaborate economic suicide note, for what is still the earth's richest nation, it is still not enough for many environmentalists. Obama to Declare Carbon Dioxide Dangerous Pollutant.  Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse gas emissions.  The Democratic senator from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview. Hey kids! Let's create an International Court for the Environment!  Obama's election is really bringing them out of the woodwork, isn't it?  Every liberal kook in the world now feels enabled to advance any cockamamie idea they can come up with.  Try this one; a court to try nation's and companies that contribute too much to global warming. Obama Out-Gores Gore at Climate Summit'.  The President-elect appeared to the green faithful on Tuesday [11/18/2008] in the form of a mammoth video image, and opened his pre-recorded pledge to "take the lead" in addressing global warming with these eerily familiar words:  "Few challenges facing America — and the world — are more urgent than combating climate change.  The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.  Sea levels are rising.  Coastlines are shrinking.  We've seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season." [The article goes on to pick Obama's argument apart, point by point, and show how each claim is false.] Obama Embraces 'Green Path' in Economic Stimulus Plan.  President-elect Barack Obama is considering a stimulus package that will include a heavy dose of spending on environmentally friendly projects aimed at creating "green-collar jobs" and saving energy. Economists raise doubts about alternative-energy spending.  Prompted by public concern over the economy and energy costs, President-elect Barack Obama and Democrats in control of Congress are touting a two-for-one solution:  spending billions of dollars on alternative-energy programs to create jobs and help lift the nation out of recession. The Editor says... Note to Mr. Obama:  The economy doesn't work that way.  Government is parasitic — it does not create jobs or anything else.  It does not have money of its own to spend on half-baked ideas like yours.  The old Democrat tax-and-spend cycle never has lifted the nation out of anything. Radical environmentalism is not just a hobby for tree-hugging Earth-worshiping hippies, as you can learn from this page. Do you like paying $5.00 a gallon for gasoline?  The Democrat-controlled Congress has been obstructing the flow of oil for years. Waxman to Push Global Warming Bill.  Comprehensive global warming legislation will be sent to the House floor by Memorial Day, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) announced Thursday [1/15/2009].  "Our committee will be acting quickly and decisively to reduce global warming and end our dependence on foreign oil," Waxman said. The Editor says... First of all, neither Mr. Waxman nor anyone else can affect global temperatures, since he would be competing with sunspots, volcanoes and other natural forces that are far more powerful than he.  Secondly, the only way to "end our dependence on foreign oil" would be to eliminate the internal combustion engine and build dozens of new nuclear power plants.  The Democrat Party is practically owned by environmental lobbyists who consistently oppose nuclear power, so that's out.  And considering how Mr. Waxman and the other Democrats have been so protective of the auto industry lately — or at least the UAW — I'd say the internal combustion engine is safe for now.  Therefore Mr. Waxman appears to be wasting his breath on shallow and meaningless rhetoric. Shovel-Ready Nukes.  Amazingly, with all the talk of shoveling money into infrastructure projects, no mention has been made of our energy needs, the jobs that can be created by expanding our energy infrastructure and the jobs that can be created with the additional energy provided.  To be sure, vast sums are planned for alternative energy sources such as wind farms and solar plants, but like the current stimulus packages they will take too long to affect the economy in any significant way.  Nuclear energy is a different matter. Back to the Barack Obama index page More about Liberals in general Back to the Home page Nothing on this page shall be construed as an attempt to influence any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office or any political party.

Document location http://akdart.com/obama16.html Updated March 14, 2010. Page design by Andrew K. Dart  ©2010