KNOW THY ENEMY - OBAMA and ENERGY POLICIES

The Obama administration wasted billions of dollars on supposed "Green" or "Clean" energy stimulus programs.  States and utility companies took the bait.  The economy and consumers took the hit.  The nation suffers.   It is as if a suicide pact has been made, only you and I didn't agree to it.

 A case in point would be Maine.  From Watts Up With That

 On September 26, 2012, the Maine Heritage Policy Center and Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy Research released a study which found that Maine’s current Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) Law, which mandates the minimum and maximum amount of energy consumers must purchase from various sources, will raise the cost of electricity in Maine by 8% in 2017. This 8% increase amounts to approximately $145 million in statewide consumption costs, and would cost Maine approximately 995 jobs, $85 million in real disposable income, decrease investment in the state by $11 million, and increase the average household electricity bill by $80 per year.

North Carolina also has an insane law requiring a percentage of so-called  "renewable energy" usage in our State.  Multiply this across each State in America doing this and imagine the damage to our economy from Obama's energy policies.  From The Manhattan Institute"

"Motivated by a desire to reduce carbon emissions, and in the absence of federal action to do so, 29 states (and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) have required utility companies to deliver specified minimum amounts of electricity from "renewable" sources, including wind and solar power."

"There is growing evidence that the costs may be too high—that the price tag for purchasing renewable energy, and for building new transmission lines to deliver it, may not only outweigh any environmental benefits but may also be detrimental to the economy, costing jobs rather than adding them. "

How did this happen?  Obama handed out stimulus money.  New York Times 2009

“It’s an investment that will double the amount of renewable energy produced over the next three years,” said Mr. Obama, who also promised that the bill would help “transform the way we use energy.”

The text of the bill is posted by the House Appropriations Committee here. This detailed summary is particularly helpful.
The provisions include:
* A large sum for energy efficiency, including $5 billion for low-income weatherization programs; over $6 billion in grants for state and local governments; and several billion to modernize federal buildings, with a particular emphasis on energy efficiency.
* $11 billion for “smart grid” investments.
* $3.4 billion for carbon capture and sequestration demonstration projects (otherwise known as “clean coal”).
* $2 billion for research into batteries for electric cars.
* $500 million to help workers train for “green jobs.”
* A three-year extension of the “production tax credit” for wind energy (as well as a tax credit extension for biomass, geothermal, landfill gas and some hydropower projects).
* The option, available to many developers, of turning their tax credits into direct cash, with the government underwriting 30 percent of a project’s cost

 

The Democrat Governor Perdue (of "suspend the elections" fame) came up with an executive order for Offshore Wind Power.  Evidently, the "executive order" disease is not just in the White House.

"Gov. Bev Perdue (D-NC) signed an executive order to create the Offshore Wind Economic Development Task Force, in conjunction with her veto of Senate Bill 709, which would have pushed the development of offshore oil and gas, as well as onshore gas fracking."

In case you are clueless as to why this is going on and who is driving this unconscionable madness, a commenter on Watts Up With That helped me out with the list of quotes below.  Read them and KNOW YOUR ENEMY.

* “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” – Obama, POTUS

* “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe” – Steven Chu, Obama’s Energy secretary

* “A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States” – John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar

* “Isn’t the only hope for this planet the total collapse of industrial civilization? Is it not our responsibility to ensure that this collapse happens?” – Maurice Strong, UNEP Director

* “My goal is to destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness… returning throughout the world.” – David Foreman, Earth First co-founder

* “In my opinion, these CEOs of fossil energy companies should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.” James Hansen, NASA Goddard

* “We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.” Gene Hashmi, Greenpeace communications director 

* “We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster… to bomb us into the stone age, where we might live like Indians with our localism, our gardens, our homemade religion.” – Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalogue

* “In the history of mankind we witness Nature’s desperate struggle against an error of her own evolution…. If there were a button I could press, I would sacrifice myself without hesitating if it meant millions of people would die,” Finnish environmentalist Pentti Linkola

CARBON CASH FOR COW MANURE - CAP AND TRADE

I just watched a video from CFACT featuring Lord Christopher Monckton on the Global Warming - Climate Change fraud.  It's about 35 minutes and well worth your time if you wish to watch it.  That said, anyone with a brain who reads this blog knows the Anthropogenic Climate Catastrophe predictions driving our government policies is pure fraud.  Yet the insanity continues.

A week or so ago I saw stories about the EPA using drones to monitor farmlands and ranchlands.  (Note in that article the reference to "region 7. We are now regions?)  Needless to say, I absorbed the information thinking about how invasive and out of control our federal government has become.  I asked myself, "Now why would they be doing that?"  Hmmmm....

The answer came in another story that came soon after the first, titled "Manure Could Prove Farmer's Cash Cow."

"Under the Carbon Farming Initiative, the Government says dairy producers will be able to earn carbon credits if they capture and destroy methane and other greenhouse gasses emitted by manure." 

"Farmers who participate in the program will cover manure ponds, then have the choice of burning and destroying the captured gas, or using it to fuel internal combustion engines to produce electricity."
"Either way, they will earn carbon credits for preventing the gas from entering the atmosphere." 

"Pig farmers will also be able to earn credits by reducing emissions from manure."

 

 I instantly wondered what just happened to the organic fertilizer industry.  But that would be silly of me...now wouldn't it!  Better Vegetable Gardening with Cow Manure

How many ways can the government misuse power and tax money?  Don't answer that.  (I don't have enough time hear that answer right now.)  First come the incentives.  Then come the fines.  If they don't get their way by buying you off, they will punish you for not playing their game.  I can't help but also wonder who in the heck would go into business as a small farmer today.  It is the corporate farms who will be able to take advantage of this cash cow, more than the little guys.  I imagine it would take a lot of labor, equipment, time, and money to go around the ranch to collect all of that manure.  I'm not in the farming business, but I am guessing that would be done to collect manure for the organic fertilizer market?  Maybe there is a farmer in the house who can tell me about that.  But I digress... 

Congress defeated Cap and Trade.  Does that stop the federal government from implementing cap and trade?  NO.  Congress is nearly irrelevant at this point.  We tell them no.  They just keep spending our money on unconstitutional activities based on fraudulent, corrupt ideas.  All things are being done by fiat from the executive branch with carte blanche to the federal agencies.  The kicker for me is this is funded anyway by...... Congress!  Someone is funding this insanity with our money.  There is an agriculture committee and an environment committee and an energy committee, among the hundreds of committees.  Who got to whom?  Who is funding drones over farms and ranches?  We are.  Who is now going to pay for the destruction of manure?  Who is going to subsidize turning cow manure into green energy?  We are.  Who is footing the bill for Climate Change policies based on fraud?  We are.

This is exactly like Cash For Clunkers.  Our tax money is being spent to rid the planet of some artificial boogeyman that environmentalists hate.  Before it was destroying cars.  In this case it is cow manure.  I'm supposing at this point that the vegan diet does not support brain health.  That has to be the explanation for people implementing this type of nonsense.

Anyway...that's the news today.  The EPA will be monitoring farms and ranches, while at the same time paying farmers and ranchers to destroy manure.  I'm sure this eventually will require police action.

CONTRIVED GUILT OVER CO2 - THE HITS JUST KEEP COMING

A news release came across my desk this morning making my blood boil yet again.  It reads:

ALERT: It looks like the climate bill debate has already been decided by Washington and voters didn't even have a chance to say "NO!" A staggering $65 billion dollars has been transferred from the private sector to fund the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI.) RGGI is government created entity that is choking companies in the northeast with huge tax increases in the name of the environment. Our tax dollars are funding this secret climate initiative. Soon RGGI will expand to every state and stick you with astronomical energy prices.

If blood boiling is contributing to Anthropogenic Global Warming, I'm guilty as charged.  But AGW does not exist and CO2 is a necessary gas for life.  We are a carbon based planet.  It's a good thing.  Yet, once again we are looking at regulations on the false assertion that man-made  CO2 emissions are wrecking the planet. Years of indoctrinating the public into false guilt over a lie created to benefit more government agencies and bureaucrats is a scourge on America's economic health.    

Like most of you, I have never heard of RGGI.  So I went looking.  I don't know how "secret" it is, since it is right here on the web for all to see.  But, the salaries of the board of RGGI are not public information.  The operating expenses are not public information.  It is a major carbon trading organization set up to regulate energy sources and usage in the northeastern and middle Atlantic states.  The revelation for me is that it exists. Did you know this quasi government entity has been set up to regulate energy sources and usage?   

It is set up as a non-profit carbon (CO2) trading auction house.  A board of directors will be deciding how it is run and who gets what money.  Government grants are in play.  Compliance in the 10 Northeastern and middle Atlantic states is MANDATORY, since they are named as "signatories." Who signed them up?  The governors?  The legislatures?  The feds have just handed over 65 billion of our tax dollars to RGGI.  That's billion with a B.

Supposedly this RGGI implementation is a prelude to Cap and Trade legislation.  According to Ameri-pac, the source of the news release, "The only impact RGGI has made so far is they have raised energy prices and created a slush fund for each member state. What exactly that money is being used for is unclear. Each state is capped on their carbon emissions and taxed if they use them up. RGGI added a 0.9% increase in energy prices in New England."

I haven't yet figured out how a non-profit is able to set up MANDATORY regulations.  This non-profit organization has not been voted into existence by the public.  The RGGI site says, "The Signatory States are collectively developing a draft Model Rule to serve as the framework for the creation of necessary statutory and/or regulatory authority to establish the Program."  In other words, states signing onto this non-profit are in the process of creating legislation to comply with this carbon auction house.  

How long before North Carolina is drawn into another regional RGGI?  Did taxpayers in North Carolina vote to hand over their money to RGGI?  Did our representatives in D.C. vote to do this?  The wholesale joke here is supposedly this might allow some kind of avoidance of the Federal Cap and Trade legislation.  The thinking here is that instead of Federal Cap and Trade, the same will be accomplished in regions.  More likely,  RGGI is laying the groundwork for the Federal Cap and Trade legislation.  Either way, compliance is MANDATORY.

From the RGGI site comes this revelation:  "Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe expressed support yesterday for making electric utilities pay fees for releasing carbon dioxide, giving Senate Democrats a critical Republican supporter in their stalled pursuit of climate legislation. Snowe is highlighting the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a 10-state program capping emissions from 233 power plants from Maine to Maryland, as a "template" that could be adopted at the national level..."

So who do you think is going to ultimately pay those fees for releasing carbon dioxide?  The consumer is.  Not only will the consumer pay taxes to pay the Feds for offsetting grants, and pay for implementation of the mandatory regulations, but will be faced with higher utility bills.  And for what?  A problem that doesn't exist.  A lie.  

Liars who benefit from lies will do anything to justify their motives and support their lies with more lies.  Control freaks will do anything to get power and money.  Setting up endless government bureaucracies, non-profits using government money, hiring endless amounts of more government reliant employees, all of it based on lies and misplaced guilt over something that does not exist.  Nice work if you can get it, comes to mind.

The methods of the left have worked in the past, so they just keep it up.  Mass guilt created over elderly retirements became Social Security.  Mass guilt created over elderly medical needs became Medicare.  Mass guilt created over racial problems became Affirmative Action.  All of those guilt ridden programs were based on collective guilt, not individual responsibilities.  And all of this guilt adds up to a lot of money for socialist programs.  Well, they got away with it before, so they are going to get away with it again.  Mass guilt, in this case based on nonsense, is capitalized on by socialists.  Who says socialists aren't capitalists?  They sure know how to capitalize on lies and creating mass guilt.  It's their stock and trade. 

STOP THE EPA FROM RULING YOUR LIFE

This video (below) is from Americans for Prosperity. Join them. And sign all of their petitions.

TIP OF THE ICEBERG

The giant sucking sound Ross Perot used to describe as jobs going to Mexico has been replaced by the giant sucking sound of money going straight down the tubes to Global Warming / Climate Change insanity. If we can't stop the insidious greed of carbon traders who are pushing government policies toward the Ice Age, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

You only need to look at Spain to see what Cap and Trade does to an economy. From Dakota Voice.com"The release also says that 9 out of 10 “green jobs” created in Spain over the last decade are now gone. What’s more, Spain spent $753,778 to create each job, including subsidies of $1,319,783 per wind industry job."

Note that Spain is one of four countries in the European Union that is now nearly insolvent and is at the brink much as Greece is right now. The Cap and Trade model in the EU, which is rife with fraud, is what some of our government officials are pushing us toward, most of all the Community Organizer in Chief who has picked global socialists and a few outright communists for his top ranks.

I hear they are diverting the mission of NASA from space exploration to climate information mining. Hmmmmm....

And the government has recently announced a new climate agency headquartered not far from here in Ashville, NC. This agency is part of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Their mission is to warn us of global warming disasters that will take place centuries from now and make sure we think it will have been all of our fault.

Soooo....let's fraudulently scam the public and take masses of money from the taxpayers to pay for .....??? Job losses. Higher energy prices. Not harvesting fossil fuels. Shutting down farming in the San Joaquin to save a half inch fish. Turning over sovereignty of our National Parks to the UN under some Biosphere project. Building windmills that produce miniscule energy, cost more to build, blight the landscape, chop up raptors, and are inefficient sources, etc. Shut down a sugar plantation, costing us over a billion dollars in Florida, to save some very prolific alligators, so we can import more sugar rather than grow it here. Growing corn for ethanol that makes food prices higher which makes it harder for the poor to eat.

From the Pork Report:

"More than three-quarters of the $2 billion in federal stimulus funds intended to create green-energy jobs in the U.S. has gone to foreign-owned companies

Despite millions in federal tax credits, wind-equipment manufacturers cut thousands of jobs in the U.S. last year"

And this news flash:

WASHINGTON — "Despite the Obama administration’s efforts to create jobs making wind turbines in America, some companies say that sluggish demand for wind energy is holding them back.The U.S. installed more wind power last year — 9,900 megawatts, or enough to power 2.4 million homes — than in any other year.

The growth in wind farm installations in the U.S. was a product of federal stimulus spending. Nonetheless, wind equipment manufacturers cut as many as 2,000 jobs last year. According to the American Wind Energy Association , a trade group, the drop in U.S. jobs is due, in part, to the lack of a long-term national policy that would require a certain percentage of American electricity to come from renewable sources."

I have a suggestion. Let's take all of the billions of dollars out of the climate / "Green" insanity and pay off some debts to China. What do you say???

And I wish that Washington DC would stay snowed under and out of business for about 3 more years 'til we can take the ship of state back from the Captains of the Titanic.

CO2 IS YOUR FRIEND

Basic elementary knowledge.....seems to be missing from our country these days. Let's go back to grade school for just a few minutes, shall we?? Does anybody remember the lessons of how plants live on carbon dioxide? We exhale carbon dioxide and the plants lOVE it! The more carbon dioxide on the planet, the GREENER the planet is. This transfer is called PHOTOSYNTHESIS. IT's A GOOD THING!!!

Definition of PHOTOSYNTHESIS: The process in green plants and certain other organisms by which carbohydrates are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water using light as an energy source. Most forms of photosynthesis release oxygen as a byproduct.


Evidently Obama and three generations of Marxists in charge of our schools have convinced children to learn a lot about social engineering, sex ed, and lies regarding Global Warming....INSTEAD of learning about PHOTOSYNTHESIS. There is a reason Obama, and his buddies, Al Gore and Carol Browner, want stupidity to reign supreme. If people are too stupid to know the laws of PHOTOSYNTHESIS, then these guys can control every amount of human activity and make g'zillions of EXTORTION bucks in the process. Stupid people voted for EXTORTION. And now we will all be marks....ahem....I mean Marxists.

There is sooooo much wrong with "Climate Change" theories that you could never in a hundred years get through all of the lies being spread to an uneducated public. In the interest of helping the unlikely passerby to my blog who might want one solid reason to get off the bandwagon and stop drinking the Kool-ade, I am showing you a video to explain the actual amount of "man-made" carbon dioxide in the air. I found this video at Icecap.us Enjoy!! It is also on YouTube.



As you watch this pay attention also to the reference to methane. That is animal flatulence that our environmentalist wackos think is a good reason to tax farmers out of business. They don't want you to eat meat, folks.....PETA gets its reward here.