President Obama’s Energy secretary nominee is cool with tripling the cost of energy...

Ernest Moniz 

Is he insane or just completely out of touch with the struggles of ordinary Americans? 


Via Beltway Confidential:

President Obama’s Energy secretary nominee regards a carbon tax as one of the simplest ways to move the energy industry towards clean technologies, though he notes that government would have to come up with a plan to mitigate the burden this tax places on poor people, who would pay the most.

“Ultimately, it has to be cheaper to capture and store it than to release it and pay a price,” MIT professor and Energy nominee Ernest Moniztold the Switch Energy Project in an interview last year. “If we start really squeezing down on carbon dioxide over the next few decades, well, that could double; it could eventually triple. I think inevitably if we squeeze down on carbon, we squeeze up on the cost, it brings along with it a push toward efficiency; it brings along with it a push towards clean technologies in a conventional pollution sense; it brings along with it a push towards security. Because after all, the security issues revolve around carbon bearing fuels.”

Keep on reading…

Romney: Obama 'All the above' energy policy means 'all the above ground'

Romney mocks Obama's 'all the above' energy policy that only includes the above ground– wind and solar.

New Romney Ad: “Obama’s Mud Can’t Cover Up His Failed Energy Policies” –(Video)

The price of gas has doubled since Obama took office. Obama can attack Mitt Romney all he wants, but when voters pull up to the pump, they will blame Barack Obama.

 Obama Energy Plan: Slinging Mud

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper: No Turning Back On Selling Oilsands Crude To Asia

President Obama is an energy policy idiot. No one who really cared about the U.S.'s energy supply would have rejected the Keystone XL pipeline.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Even if President Barack Obama approved the controversial Keystone XL pipeline tomorrow, at least some Canadian oil would still flow to Asia, according to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In a public one-on-one interview here with Jane Harman, head of the Wilson Centre think-tank, Harper said Obama’s rejection of the controversial pipeline — even temporarily — stressed Canada’s need to find other buyers for oilsands crude.

And that wouldn’t change even if the president’s mind did.

“Look, the very fact that a ‘no’ could even be said underscores to our country that we must diversify our energy export markets,” Harper told Harman in front of a live audience of businesspeople, scholars, diplomats, and journalists.

It has begun: Obama EPA moves to destroy the coal industry

President Obama promised to destroy the coal industry with new regulations and taxes. he has been incrementally advancing that plan by adding more stringent regulations.In a big step towards his goal of higher energy prices, Obama's EPA is moving to stop new coal powered plants. Pay attention voters in Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and other coal producing/using states.

The Washington Post reported:

The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the first limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants as early as Tuesday, according to several people briefed on the proposal. The move could end the construction of conventional coal-fired facilities in the United States.

The proposed rule — years in the making and approved by the White House after months of review — will require any new power plant to emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt of electricity produced. The average U.S. natural gas plant, which emits 800 to 850 pounds of CO₂ per megawatt, meets that standard; coal plants emit an average of 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt.

Industry officials and environmentalists said in interviews that the rule, which comes on the heels of tough new requirements that the Obama administration imposed on mercury emissions and cross-state pollution from utilities within the past year, dooms any proposal to build a coal-fired plant that does not have costly carbon controls.

“This standard effectively bans new coal plants,” said Joseph Stanko, who heads government relations at the law firm Hunton and Williams and represents several utility companies. “So I don’t see how that is an ‘all of the above’ energy policy.”

Shocking Admission: NY Times Gives Bush and Cheney credit for US energy production surge

 I never thought this admission would come from the New York Times.

Not only has the United States reduced oil imports from members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries by more than 20 percent in the last three years, it has become a net exporter of refined petroleum products like gasoline for the first time since the Truman presidency. The natural gasindustry, which less than a decade ago feared running out of domestic gas, is suddenly dealing with a glut so vast that import facilities are applying for licenses to export gas to Europe and Asia.

National oil production, which declined steadily to 4.95 million barrels a day in 2008 from 9.6 million in 1970, has risen over the last four years to nearly 5.7 million barrels a day. The Energy Department projects that daily output could reach nearly seven million barrels by 2020. Some experts think it could eventually hit 10 million barrels — which would put the United States in the same league as Saudi Arabia.[...]

The Bush administration worked from the start on finding ways to unlock the nation’s energy reserves and reverse decades of declining output, with Mr. Cheney leading a White House energy task force that met in secret with top oil executives. [...]

The Bush administration also opened large swaths of the Gulf of Mexico and the waters off Alaska to exploration, granting lease deals that required companies to pay only a tiny share of their profits to the government.

Chart of the Day: Oil and Gas Production Declined on Federal Controlled Land Last Year

President Obama and Democrats may be correct when they claim oil and gas production are up in the U.S.A. It is very hypocritical of them to imply they deserve any credit. The opposite is actually true. President Obama and his democratic administration have been thwarting new drilling permits. Oil and natural gas production actually declined on Federal Land in 2011. The increase was on private and State controlled land.

From IER via CFP:

Sources: Department of the Interior, Office of Natural Resources Revenue, and onrr.gov

Bachmann Takes “Radical Environmentalists” to the Woodshed

Rep. Michele Bachmann has a point. If you consider all sources, the U.S does have more energy reserves than Saudi Arabia. Some require technology improvements, but many have been locked away by overzealous environmental policies.

(The Blaze/AP) — Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann claimed Saturday that the United States has more fuel resources than any other country, but blamed what she termed “radical environmentalists” for bottling up American energy policy. . . .

“The United States is the number one country in the world for energy resources,” the Minnesota congresswoman told a central Florida town hall meeting, arguing that in shale deposits alone the U.S. easily outstrips the total oil supply of Saudi Arabia. “That doesn’t even include. . . all the oil in Alaska.”

But Bachmann said environmentalists were preventing resources from being exploited, leaving the U.S. dependent on energy imports....

“The radical environmentalists have demanded that we lock up all our energy resources,” she added. “President Bachmann will take that key out of the door. I will unlock it.”

Hard Hitting Video Highlighting "Cap & Trade" is Really a Tax (video)

Here is a great new video ad against Cap and trade from the National Republican Congressional Committee. This ad uses Obama's and Democrat's own words against this tax in disguise.

From TheNRCC:

A video highlighting the reality that the Democrats "Cap & Trade" legislation is nothing more than a tax and energy rate increase that will harm all Americans.

Pelosi's National Energy Tax (video)

Cap and Trade may double your electric bill

States with many coal fired electrical plants will face huge price increases under the Cap and Trade proposal. The cost of coal could double. Of course, this will be passed along to the consumer. Read more at(surprise) the New York Times.

That is why, even before Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, proposed legislation that would put a price on carbon-dioxide emissions, Senate and House Democrats from coal-using states began to push back.

...Estimates of the effects of the proposed federal climate legislation on electric rates vary. The central thrust of the Waxman-Markey bill is to make carbon-dioxide emissions expensive by capping them and creating allowances that utilities must acquire to function...

Jaime Haro, AmerenUE’s director of asset management and trading, said his company paid $30 to produce a megawatt of electricity. The coal burned emits roughly a ton of carbon dioxide. If federal legislation effectively prices emissions at $30 a ton — estimates have varied from $20 to $115 — “my costs could double,” Mr. Haro said.

Those costs probably would be passed on to customers.

Here is a video from FoxNews on Cap and Trade.(Video via YouTube)

Environmental nuts in California want to ban your big screen TV

Environmental nuts in California want to ban your big screen TV and they are in control of the California Energy Commission. The CEC plan proposes to ban about 200 television models. The plan was outline in a a dry-sounding reported entitled, “December 2008 Draft Efficiency Standards for Televisions”. I wonder if they will ban Obama's teleprompter on his next visit to California?

California To Ban TV: But Not For Good Reason (like there’s nothing decent to watch)
by Chuck DeVore

Why is it that many government agency names are oxymoronic? How much new water has the California Department of Water Resources delivered in the past couple of decades? How much energy has the federal Department of Energy or the California Energy Commission produced or encouraged?

It should come as no surprise that in 2009, an era when the L.A. Basin’s air quality bureaucracy, the SCAQMD, wants to ban dark cars because they need more air conditioning in the summer, that the California Energy Commissariate is drafting an order to outlaw TVs. (Perhaps if our TVs had one state-approved channel they would relent.)

Why is the California Energy Commission (CEC), a Gov. Jerry Brown creation, wanting to ban television sets? Well, it seems that a honking 48-inch plasma screen, that bright symbol of the bygone days of conspicuous consumption and purveyor of drooling vacuity, uses too much electricity, and electricity production makes too much greenhouse gas emissions (at least in America, where half of our electricity comes from coal - in France, a plasma screen would emit nary a CO2 molecule as the TVs there are nuclear powered). (excerpt) read more at bighollywood.breitbart.com

The stimulus bill will force the military to buy electric vehicles

According to U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, the stimulus bill will force the military to buy electric vehicles. You have to wonder if the democrat's cheese has completely slipped off their cracker. Are electric tanks and helicopters next? The military can not depend on electric vehicles in a time of war or emergency. That is highlighted now in the State of Kentucky where Governor Beshear has deployed the entire KY National Guard to help out in an ice storm. There is now no power in the areas they are being deployed. Electric vehicles would be useless. In an emergency, you want all your vehicles to function. I guess the Democrats have never head of an EMP pulse. If we ever had that occur, all the electric vehicles would be fried.

The Democrat bill takes money, actually it borrows money, and decides where it should go. It does virtually nothing to stimulate the economy while it wastes billions of taxpayer dollars. It's a hodge-podge of long-supported pet projects that the normal budget process would have thrown out. Using the troubled economy as their motive, Democrats have opened the floodgates for all sorts of outrageous wasteful spending. Here are just a few examples from the Senate's bill, which we will debate next week:

* $400 million for researching sexually transmitted diseases
* $200 million for bike and pedestrian trails and off-road vehicle routes
* $200 million to force the military to buy environmentally-friendly electric cars
* $34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters
* $75 million for a program to end smoking (excerpted) read more at
demint.senate.gov

Computer models forecasting global warming are not scientific

Since I am in the middle of an area ravaged by an ice storm, it seems appropriate to talk about the weaknesses of the global warming theory. The global warming predictions have been a failure. Temperatures have been falling globally since 2002. Now, the former chief of NASA says the computer models predicting radical climate change are not proven scientifically.

No Scientific Forecasts to Support Global Warming

January 29, 2009
Jennifermarohasy
YESTERDAY, a former chief at NASA, Dr John S. Theon, slammed the computer models used to determine future climate claiming they are not scientific in part because the modellers have "resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists". [1]

Today, a founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, and International Symposium on Forecasting, and the author of Long-range Forecasting (1978, 1985), the Principles of Forecasting Handbook, and over 70 papers on forecasting, Dr J. Scott Armstrong, tabled a statement declaring that the forecasting process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) lacks a scientific basis. [2]Excerpted from rightsidenews.com

For more global warming fun, Weather Channel Founder Blasts Gore.

The "Big Three" are sinking and Barack Obama fires a salvo of torpedoes

The "Big Three" are under bankruptcy watch and begging for more bailout money. President Barack Obama thinks this is a good time to appease his environmental base by weighing Detroit down with a new round of environmental regulations. This is horrible timing and it will severely damage the ability of the "Big Three" to return to profitability. The first increase in CAFE will take place by the 2011 model year. Detroit is now preparing to launch the 2010 model year in July. That is when they change their factories over and begin production of the next years model. They will have only a little over a year to prepare for this change. How will they do it? The easiest solution to raise the fleet millage averages would be if people bought more small and compact cars. That is unlikely unless gas returns to $4 per gallon. They will be forced to cut prices on compact cars to induce more of the public to buy them. The problem is they are already losing money on these cars and can not change that unless the UAW agrees to severe concessions. The UAW (see a UAW contract here) is resisting that solution. The other method is to increase the mileage on the same size car. That takes time and money. It takes expensive new technologies to improve engine mileage without sacrificing power. The "Big Three" are working on this, but no major breakthrough will occur in the next year. The other method is to make vehicles lighter. This requires higher tensile steels and stronger alloys. These materials cost more money and may require different manufacturing processes. All these things will make automobiles more expensive for consumers. Consumers are currently not buying cars and trucks. This isn't because they don't want them or need them. They simply can not afford them in today's economy. If they can not buy them now, they will not buy them when the price is increased by a few thousand per vehicle. The decision to let California decree the emission standards will have a similar effect of raising vehicle prices. Barack Obama may have good knowledge of politics, but he is ignorant of the realities of the automotive industry. The bailout of the "Big Three" will fail. We should stop calling it a bailout. Let's be honest. We will have to "subsidize" the "Big Three" for years under an Obama Administration.

Obama May Let States Set Emissions Standards

Monday, January 26, 2009

President Obama is continuing his reversal of Bush-era policies, issuing two memoranda on Monday that promote his clean-energy policy while having a far-reaching impact on the ailing U.S. auto industry.

The first memorandum will order the Transportation Department to work out rules for automakers to improve fuel economy. It will call for the department to notify automakers by March 2009 to increase their fuel efficiency for 2011 model year cars and trucks.

The second memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider California's request for a waiver from the Clean Air Act -- a move that would allow California, the nation's most populous state, to set tougher tailpipe emission standards than apply nationally. Excerpted from FoxNews.com

Why electric and hybrid cars won't save the Big Three

Congress wants to force Detroit to move heavily into electric and hybrid production.Should congress run the Big Three? They are doing such a good job running the country. I have nothing against being "green." However, having companies sell more of a product they are losing money on is not a recipe for success. Companies make money by selling a product the consumer wants at a profit. Congress has no clue what it takes to make a profit. If they run low on money, they can just raise taxes or authorize more borrowing.

Why electric and hybrid cars won’t save Detroit
The Buffalo News / The Washington Post ^ | November 30, 2008 | Steven Mufson

Posted on Monday, December 01, 2008 12:19:37 AM by 2ndDivisionVet

Many members of Congress believe they know what the car company of the future should look like. “A business model based on gas — a gas-guzzling past — is unacceptable,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said recently. “We need a business model based on cars of the future, and we already know what that future is: the plug-in hybrid electric car.”

But the car company Schumer and other lawmakers envision for the future could turn out to be a money-losing operation, not part of a “sustainable U. S. auto industry” that President-elect Barack Obama and most members of Congress say they want to create...

Link here.

Barack Obama promises to bankrupt the coal industry

Audio Unearthed ATTN: Coal states Virginia , Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky and more guess what Obama told San Francisco about you. San Francisco Gate Interview January 17 2008