The environment thread

[southsider2k5]

Still waiting for the front page news stories about Obama's admin being in bed with green energy...

 

http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/13/dept-of-...-with-solyndra/

 

As the Solyndra saga continues to unfold, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is being sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request Tuesday from two organizations trying to uncover which political appointees had contact with the now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer.

 

Crossroads GPS and Wikicountability plan to send the FOIA request to the DOE seeking any and all communications, including emails, memos and meeting notes, between DOE staff and any “presidential appointment with Senate confirm.” (RELATED: Solyndra reps made multiple trips to White House)

 

The goal is to dig deeper into the relationship between the Obama Administration and Solyndra, which shuttered its doors August 31, even after receiving a $535 million loan guarantee as part of Obama’s stimulus package.

 

“With President Obama asking Americans to entrust him with even more stimulus spending, we need to find out who inside the administration knew what was going on at Solyndra and why taxpayers were left holding the bag,” Steven Law, president of Crossroads GPS, said in a statement.

 

After the August 31 announcement, new revelations about Solyndra’s business practices and close relationship with the Obama administration have thrust the loan guarantee program into the spotlight. Numerous Solyndra officals, The Daily Caller reported, made hefty financial contributions to the president’s campaign. They also visited the White House no less than 20 times before and after the deal was closed.

 

It is now known that there were warnings that Solyndra’s financial stability was in question. Two months before the president visited the firm and touted it as the future of a green-energy economy, an independent auditor found that the financial troubles were significant enough to raise “substantial doubt” about its sustainability.

 

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/13/dept-of-.../#ixzz1Xr6zE9nI

[StrangeSox]

The original NPR story I heard the day of Solyndra's closing included information about the $1B from a prominent Dem/Obama backer.

[BigSqwert]

'Diamond Planet' Astrophysicist: I'd Be Treated Differently If I Were a Climate Scientist

 

Matthew Bailes just made my day. Not just because he is one of the astrophysicists who discovered the 'diamond planet' that recently captured the world's imagination. For that, he is surely awesome -- a whole Planet! made of diamond! wow and how strange! -- but in describing the public response to his work, the awesomeness expands:

 

"Our host institutions were thrilled with the publicity and most of us enjoyed our 15 minutes of fame. The attention we received was 100% positive, but how different that could have been.

 

How so? Well, we could have been climate scientists."

 

Writing in the Conversation, Bailes expounds upon the differences between working in his field and climate science:

Imagine for a minute that, in

s

tead of di

s

covering a diamond planet, we'd made a brea

k

through in global temperature projection

s

. Let'

s

s

ay we

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tudied computer model

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of the influence of exce

s

s

ive greenhou

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e ga

s

e

s

, verified them through ob

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ervation

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, then had them peer-reviewed and publi

s

hed in

S

cience.

 

In

s

tead of

s

itting bac

k

and ba

s

k

ing in the glory, I

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u

s

pect we'd find a lot of commentator

s

, many with no

s

cientific qualification

s

, pouring

s

corn on our finding

s

. People on the fringe of

s

cience would be quoted a

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opponent

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of our wor

k

, arguing that it wa

s

nothing more than a theory yet to be conclu

s

ively proven.

 

There would be doubt ca

s

t on the interpretation of our data and conjecture about whether we were "buddie

s

" with the journal referee

s

.

 

If our opponent

s

dug really deep they might even find that I'd once written a paper on a

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imilar topic that had to be retracted. Before long our credibility and finding

s

would be under

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eriou

s

que

s

tion.

 

But luc

k

ily we're not climate

s

cienti

s

t

s

.

Read the whole thing. The piece illuminates the nature of the public's perception of climate science as powerfully as anything I have ever read. And it ends on an equally powerful note: "Sadly, the same media commentators who celebrate diamond planets without question are all too quick to dismiss the latest peer-reviewed evidence that suggests man-made activities are responsible for changes in concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere."

 

Three blogospheric cheers to you, Mr. Bailes, for using your 15 minutes of fame to make an extremely important point -- especially since it's a point that a good many of the people who oooh and ahh at the discoveries you make certainly won't want to hear. We need to respect all science, not just the branches that feed our intergalactic imaginations.

[southsider2k5]

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/A...e-Unraveled.htm

 

Scandal: The White House pressured federal officials to OK a loan to an insolvent but politically tied green energy company in advance of a vice-presidential photo-op.

 

Corruption is not an energy policy. Emails released to the Washington Post before Wednesday's hearings on the $535 million stimulus loan guarantee issued to now-bankrupt Solyndra Inc. reveal the extent of, and resistance to, White House pressure to get the loan approved so Vice President Joe Biden could announce it at a Sept. 4, 2009, groundbreaking event.

 

The White House has denied applying pressure or even monitoring the review process, saying the stimulus loan guarantee was a good "investment."

 

The emails show these statements to be false and that the White House knew Solyndra, whose major investor was Tulsa billionaire and Obama fundraiser George Kaiser, was at risk of going under.

 

The emails show White House officials repeatedly asking the Office of Management and Budget about progress on the loan review. One email from a budget official referred to "the time pressure we are under to sign off on Solyndra" and referred to "a situation of having to do rushed approvals."

 

"This deal is NOT ready for prime time," one budget analyst wrote in a March 10, 2009, email.

 

Another Aug. 31, 2009, message written by an OMB staffer and sent to Terrell McSweeny, Biden's domestic policy adviser, concluded, "We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews."

 

As the Government Accountability Office has stated, due diligence was not done.

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Fact is, Solyndra was not a good investment and the White House knew it. The loan guarantee was pushed as part of President Obama's green agenda and to reward a political benefactor.

 

In one email, an assistant to Rahm Emanuel, now mayor of Chicago but then White House chief of staff, wrote on Aug. 31, 2009, to OMB about the upcoming Biden announcement on Solyndra and asked if "there is anything we can help speed along on the OMB side."

 

An OMB staffer responded that he "would prefer that the announcement be postponed. ... This is the first loan guarantee, and we should have full review with all hands on deck to make sure we get it right." The White House, which logs show was visited frequently by Solyndra officials, was more interested in getting it done quickly.

 

Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., chairman of the panel's oversight and investigations subcommittee, said last week that an FBI raid of a Solyndra factory confirmed their belief that the White House's green energy centerpiece was a "bad bet" from the start.

[NorthSideSox72]

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/A...e-Unraveled.htm

Yeah, seems like they screwed up here multiple ways. One, to try to rush a very large investment before the research was done, purely so that they could make a staged announcement on time... Two, to violate basic rules of portfolio management in high risk areas - they put tons of money in one basket, instead of smaller amounts in many... and Three, they picked a company to do that with, which is connected too closely to the Administration. Just business stupid decision making.

 

[Balta1701]

The EPA will miss it's court-ordered September 30th deadline to promulgate rules for greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

[StrangeSox]

more regulatory uncertainty from obama

[NorthSideSox72]

more regulatory uncertainty from obama

Driving me insane. GOP people are saying businesses are waiting because of uncertainty... Obama is, you know, the CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THESE AGENCIES, that are supposed to be solidifying rules. This is fully in his court, financial, EPA, all of it and he has a golden opportunity to publically and internally make solidifying this stuff a priority. Not only will that help the economy grow again sooner, it gives him a big chip at the table to play back at the opposing party.

 

Why do they not see this?

 

[Balta1701]

Driving me insane. GOP people are saying businesses are waiting because of uncertainty... Obama is, you know, the CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THESE AGENCIES, that are supposed to be solidifying rules. This is fully in his court, financial, EPA, all of it and he has a golden opportunity to publically and internally make solidifying this stuff a priority. Not only will that help the economy grow again sooner, it gives him a big chip at the table to play back at the opposing party.

 

Why do they not see this?

Yeah...because if they put forwards these rules, the GOP's reaction will be to stop complaining about regulatory uncertainty.

[StrangeSox]

then we'll be certain these regulations are killing jobs, duh.

[NorthSideSox72]

Yeah...because if they put forwards these rules, the GOP's reaction will be to stop complaining about regulatory uncertainty.

Never said they'd stop... just saying at least Obama would have some kind of counter to that argument.

 

[Balta1701]

German industrial and engineering conglomerate Siemens is to withdraw entirely from the nuclear industry.

 

The move is a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March, chief executive Peter Loescher said.

 

He told Spiegel magazine it was the firm's answer to "the clear positioning of German society and politics for a pullout from nuclear energy".

 

"The chapter for us is closed," he said, announcing that the firm will no longer build nuclear power stations.

 

A long-planned joint venture with Russian nuclear firm Rosatom will also be cancelled, although Mr Loescher said he would still seek to work with their partner "in other fields".

 

Siemens was responsible for building all 17 of Germany's existing nuclear power plants.

Link

[Balta1701]

Senate panel votes to strip all funding for high speed rail out of the U.S. federal budget, citing the need to reduce spending.

[NorthSideSox72]

Senate panel votes to strip all funding for high speed rail out of the U.S. federal budget, citing the need to reduce spending.

I'm mildly pissed if that goes away. But I will be a lot more than mildly pissed if the same people who vote down money for programs like this, continue to support unneeded corporate welfare for oil and gas.

 

[StrangeSox]

We don't need government-subsidized alternative energy and transport. That's communism, we already have cars and roads and gasoline.

[NorthSideSox72]

We don't need government-subsidized alternative energy and transport. That's communism, we already have cars and roads and gasoline.

Well we don't NEED it, no. But there is simply no way around that in the long run, the nation will be more successful in concert with how quickly it can get off oil. I guess some Republicans want to go back to being cavemen, since we don't NEED most things we have nowadays.

 

It isn't that I don't get the desire to cut spending, as eventually that has to happen (though maybe right now isn't a great time). It is that there are some places where the money will do a hell of a lot more for our future than other areas.

 

[Balta1701]

Not sure if I should point out the sarcasm...

[NorthSideSox72]

Not sure if I should point out the sarcasm...

I was well aware he was being sarcastic. Thought that was clear.

 

[Balta1701]

I was well aware he was being sarcastic. Thought that was clear.

Yeah...but you seemed like you missed the "the government pays for roads" part in an odd way.

[StrangeSox]

yes the joke was that driving is heavily subsidized.

[mr_genius]

well which is it? build more 'shovel ready' roads with stimulus money or not? you guys are all over the place.

[NorthSideSox72]

well which is it? build more 'shovel ready' roads with stimulus money or not? you guys are all over the place.

I'd say we are pretty consistent. I have said all along, whatever money we are spending, the balance needs to tip away from roads and more to rail and energy infrastructure, IMO.

 

[Balta1701]

well which is it? build more 'shovel ready' roads with stimulus money or not? you guys are all over the place.

See, this is why I hate this game. Cutting spending on any of this stuff right now is stupid. But because the majority in the House insists government needs to be cut in half somehow, and the President and Senate have agreed that too much govermment spending is the problem...we're stuck having to cut something.

 

So, we're arguing over which cuts will do the least amount of damage, when we should be asking "Which things should we invest more in to get more growth".

[southsider2k5]

The Soylent Green execs taking the 5th in front of Congress.

[kapkomet]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/...E78L3NL20110922

 

Clearly, Obama hates you Balta.

 

And our government is just here to help, as always.