HEADLINES

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Consumers pay 38% extra for ‘renewable’ energy mandates

from USACTION NEWS


Consumers pay 38% extra for ‘renewable’ energy mandates: "

States with renewable energy mandates average 38% higher electricity rates for consumers with some like New York paying double. 29 states have renewable energy mandates and 7 others have renewable goals.


By Michael Whipple, Editor usACTIONnews.com


States with renewable energy mandates (REM) average 38% higher electricity rates for consumers with some like New York paying double according to a study by the Institute for Energy Research (IER). 29 states have renewable energy mandates and 7 others have renewable goals. See how your state ranks in electricity and REMs with the interactive map from IER.


Although REMs cannot be blamed for the total disparity in electric rates, the high cost of renewable energy being passed on to consumers is a significant factor.


A report by The Heritage Foundation finds REMs will cost over one million jobs and raise electricity rates by more than one third:



  • Raise electricity prices by 36 percent for households and 60 percent for industry;

  • Cut national income (GDP) by $5.2 trillion between 2012 and 2035;

  • Cut national income by $2,400 per year for a family of four;

  • Reduce employment by more than 1,000,000 jobs; and

  • Add more than $10,000 to a family of four’s share of the national debt by 2035.



Some states are even paying more for electricity they don’t receive to subsidize renewable energy projects in other states. Michigan will receive no benefits from a wind surtax but will have to pay as much as a billion dollars in increased rates. This is part of Obama’s different way to ’skin the cat’ and have agencies implement his energy policy without congressional approval. The day after the November election Obama realized his cap and trade scheme could not pass congress. “Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way,” Obama said “I’m going to be looking for other means to address this problem.”


An a previous article ‘Subsidy for wind energy will raise electricity prices on everyone‘ we explained how the Federal Energy Regulatory (FREC) will help him ’skin the cat’. It will force Michigan to pay for transmission lines needed for wind farms in Illinois:


From WSJ:


“In fact, this is the first step in a FERC scheme to socialize transmission costs nationwide. In June FERC drafted a rule to create a new national transmission pricing policy that would link wind and solar energy projects to the national electricity grid. (See our November 7 editorial, “The Great Transmission Heist.“)”


“Let’s be very clear on what’s happening here: Mr. Wellinghoff and FERC are trying to establish by regulatory fiat a national energy policy that Congress has refused to endorse. Last summer Congress rejected the Obama Administration’s renewable energy standard law because it would have inflated power costs. So the fiefdom at FERC is unilaterally moving ahead to require that industries and homeowners pay a surtax on their utility bills for a nonexistent renewable energy policy. This is similar to the EPA’s initiatives to regulate carbon even after Congress rejected cap and trade.”



“The wind industry has essentially conceded that without the ability to socialize the cost of multibillion dollar transmission lines, its projects can’t compete with coal, natural gas and nuclear power.


The FERC pricing scheme is politically insidious, and arguably unconstitutional, because it enables states with renewable standards to export the costs of those policies to other states without these laws. Why should a factory in Pontiac, Michigan subsidize the wind energy costs of a plant in Elgin, Illinois?”



REMs are proven job killers. The IER study describes examples from different ccountries that have fallen for the REM scheme:


But trying to create jobs through renewable subsidies has proved to be a failure. In Spain, for example, it is estimated that 2.2 jobs were lost as an opportunity cost of creating one expensive, subsidy- and set-aside-dependent job in the renewable sector. In Germany, per worker subsidies in the solar industry are as high as $240,000 per worker. The situation in Denmark is similar. Danes have to pay the highest electricity prices in the European Union, and they pay subsidies of nearly $400 million a year to wind producers (in a country with less than 2 percent of the population of the United States).


The Obama administration conspired with the Center for American Progress to discredit and cover up the job data from Spain. Not surprising since Spain’s economy was on the verge of collapse from over spending. Christopher Horner at Pajamas Media wrote about the efforts of the Obama administration and lobbyists to sell the idea of ‘green’ jobs:


After two studies refuted President Barack Obama’s assertions regarding the success of Spain’s and Denmark’s wind energy programs, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveals the Department of Energy turned to George Soros and to wind industry lobbyists to attack the studies.


Via the FOIA request, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has learned that the Department of Energy — specifically the office headed by Al Gore’s company’s former CEO, Cathy Zoi — turned to George Soros’ Center for American Progress and other wind industry lobbyists to help push Obama’s wind energy proposals.


Back in the U.S., the American Wind Energy Association — the lobby for “Big Wind” in Washington, D.C., which includes a few Spanish wind giants — also attacked the publication of the Spanish paper.


Soon, the Obama administration published a five-page talking points memo assailing the economic assessment — written by two young, non-economist, pro-wind activists from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Boulder, Colorado.


NREL is an extension of the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). EERE is run by Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi, who, until assuming this post, served as CEO to Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. Zoi is responsible for many millions of the “green jobs” stimulus dollars pushed for and designed by Van Jones (this according to Jones himself).


Scotland’s wind farms are unable to cope with the freezing weather conditions – grinding to a halt at a time when electricity demand is at a peak, forcing the country to rely on power generated by French nuclear plants.


Other attempts at ‘renewable’ energy have had costly results in jobs and dollars here in the US. Two different solar panel plants have closed in the last year despite hundreds of millions in subsidies.


The day after the 2010 election San Francisco Bay Area Solyndra, the great green hope, a government subsidized solar plant, shuttered its original manufacturing plant and scaled back plans for those thousand jobs that Obama had heralded just a few months prior. Solyndra had obtained a government guaranteed loan for almost half a billion dollars. After $58 million in subsidies Evergreen Solar Inc. eliminated 800 jobs in Massachusetts and shut its new factory just two years after it opened and will rely on its plant in China.


Some states have secretly passed on additional cap and trade costs to consumers making corporations like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase and others a handsome profit. In a previous story we posted from New Jersey WACTHDOG:


Secrecy and greed are polluting the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the nation’s first mandatory cap-and-trade system. Under the RGGI scheme, the smell of profiteering is powerful. New Jersey and nine other Northeast states have sold $662 million in carbon dioxide permits since 2008.


RGGI is the prototype for two other mandatory regional systems scheduled to start in 2012. The Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord will bring cap-and-trade to Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas. The Western Climate Initiative adds California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Mexico, Utah and Montana – plus British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. Manitoba is a member of both cooperatives.


Together, the three regional systems will encompass 23 states with roughly half of population in the U.S. – plus four Canadian provinces with more than three-quarters of that nation’s populace.


The bottom line: A cap-and-trade system that favors secrecy over public disclosure – and Wall Street over consumers – now has the inside track to become the de facto law of the land, even without an act of Congress.


What could possibly be the purpose of all this ‘alternative’ and ‘green’ energy manipulation? Brian Sussman at Human Events explained it well describing the motives behind cap and trade:


“Concurring green interests perceive cap-and-trade differently. Environmentalists envision it as a progressive engineering tool that will coerce both industry and individuals to emit less CO2. Wind and solar companies see it as an instrument to manipulate the market, which they hope will force their companies to grow. Socialists regard it as a way to redistribute wealth by offshoring America’s manufacturing sector to the Third World. The elite identify cap-and-trade as a means to acquire control of the population (because if they can govern the amount of energy the people use, they can better control those people).”


Even if you believe in man caused global warming (AGW) (40% of legitimate scientists do not) all of these mandates, higher rates and CO2 regulations won’t make a discernible difference in the earth’s temperature. EPA’s Own Estimates Say Greenhouse Gas Regs Could ‘Slow Construction Nationwide for Years’ — and Take a Century to Reduce Temperature 0.0015 Degrees.


As Shannon Love put it in ‘Why Alternative Power Is and Will Remain Useless’:


“Here’s a fact you won’t see mentioned in the public policy debate over “alternative” energy:


There exists no alternative energy source, no combination of alternative energy sources, and no system of combinations of alternative energy sources that can fully replace a single, coal fired electric plant built with 1930s era technology.


Nada.

Zero.

Zilch.


Yet many want to make this group of functionally useless technologies the primary energy sources for our entire civilization.”


The Obama administration certainly seems to be doing all it can to raise the costs of all types of energy. But we should not be surprised. After all, Obama warned us that under his plan electricity rates would ‘necessarily skyrocket’. The only thing ‘green’ about renewable energy is the money going down the drain. Renewable Energy Mandates are just another way to bilk the taxpayers out of trillions of dollars.


Michael Whipple, Editor usACTIONnews.com


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"

Obama Gives GE CEO a New Title On Same Day That Dept. of Interior Announces $1 Billion AZ Solar Project (Video)

from The Gateway Pundit


Obama Gives GE CEO a New Title On Same Day That Dept. of Interior Announces $1 Billion AZ Solar Project (Video): "

“We are all democrats now.”


Jeffrey Immelt

GE Chief Executive Officer

November 2009


No wonder Jeffrey Immelt loves the democrats and this far left adminstration.

Yesterday, Barack Obama announced that G.E. CEO Jeffrey Immelt will lead his new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

FOX News reported on this controversial move:


Whether it is pushing the president’s plan for global warming fees in order to create demand for his “Ecomagination” line of windmills, solar panels, etc., boosting the president’s national health-care law as part of an effort to sell more medical equipment, or enthusing over the Obama strategy of making loans available for industrial exporters, Immelt has been an Obama stalwart all along. Immelt has also consistently argued to shareholders that there is big money to be made in advancing the Democratic agenda.


While most corporate leaders have taken a wait and see approach to Obama’s occasional overtures to the private sector, G.E., along with Google, Goldman and few others, have backed him to the hilt.


Also yesterday, the Department of Interior announced that it would offer nearly $1 billion in loans for an Arizona power plant.

Guess who sells solar panels?… That’s right, General Electric.

This was another jackpot win for GE. What a day!



No wonder Immelt loves Obama.

"

Same Old, Same Old… Obama Will Call For More Spending in State of Union Address

from The Gateway Pundit


Same Old, Same Old… Obama Will Call For More Spending in State of Union Address: "

In November 2008 after the election Obama promised that he would cut wasteful spending.


Well, that never happened.


Instead, Barack Obama tripled the national deficit in one year. When Speaker Pelosi took over Congress the national deficit was $162 billion. When she exited this month as Speaker it was $1.29 Trillion dollars.

The national deficit topped a trillion dollars in Obama’s second year, too.



(The Captain’s Comments)


Spending was up 84% under Obama.


He’s not through yet.

Obama will announce in his State of the Union Address this week that he is going to increase spending.

The Wall Street Journal reported:


President Barack Obama will call for new government spending on infrastructure, education and research in his State of the Union address Tuesday, sharpening his response to Republicans in Congress who are demanding deep budget cuts, people familiar with the speech said.


Mr. Obama will argue that the U.S., even while trying to reduce its budget deficit, must make targeted investments to foster job growth and boost U.S. competitiveness in the world economy. The new spending could include initiatives aimed at building the renewable-energy sector—which received billions of dollars in stimulus funding—and rebuilding roads to improve transportation, people familiar with the matter said. Money to restructure the No Child Left Behind law’s testing mandates and institute more competitive grants also could be included.


While proposing new spending, Mr. Obama also will lay out significant budget cuts elsewhere, people familiar with the plans say, though they will likely fall short of what Republican lawmakers have requested.


Of course, Obama’s new green investments aren’t cheap either. The White House will give tax credits which will go to 183 projects in 43 states under the $787 billion economic recovery stimulus program approved last year by Congress. His ‘green jobs’ will cost $135,295 each.


That’s just one reason why community organizers don’t make good presidents.

"

Obama Offers Preview of SOTU Address: Jobs Will Be Number One Focus (Just Like Last Year)

from The Gateway Pundit


Obama Offers Preview of SOTU Address: Jobs Will Be Number One Focus (Just Like Last Year): "

Barack Obama released a video today to supporters giving them a glimpse of his State of the Union Address this coming week.

Obama says his “principle and number one focus” this next year will be on creating jobs.


Of course, we’ve heard this all before.

He said the same thing last year…



From his 2010 SOTU address:


I realize that for every success story, there are other stories, of men and women who wake up with the anguish of not knowing where their next paycheck will come from; who send out resumes week after week and hear nothing in response. That is why jobs must be our number one focus in 2010, and that is why I am calling for a new jobs bill tonight.


Of course, it wasn’t.

Rep. Joe WIlson may have said it best.

You lie.

"

New Record Low Temperatures In Northern Minnesota… -46°

from The Gateway Pundit



New Record Low Temperatures In Northern Minnesota… -46°: "

International Falls, Minnesota set a new record this week when the temperature dropped to -46°



Watts Up With That reported:


from NWS Duluth, MN, an old record beaten by five degrees:


RECORD EVENT REPORT

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DULUTH MN

518 PM CST FRI JAN 21 2011


…RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE SET AT INTERNATIONAL FALLS MN…


A RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE OF -46 DEGREES WAS SET AT INTERNATIONAL

FALLS MN TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF -41 SET IN 1954…


The lowest temperatures recorded in the NWS Duluth county warning area were -46 degrees at both International Falls, MN (ASOS) and Babbitt, MN (CO-OP).


Yahoo had more on the record Midwest cold.


There is a brutally frigid point on the thermometer — minus 40 degrees — where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet, and it was even colder than that in parts of the US Midwest as an Arctic blast struck over the weekend.


Americans were bundling up Saturday as the coldest weather of the season was forecast to sock cities from Chicago to New York and Boston, with temperatures that have already prompted weather service warnings.


The coldest weather in two years slammed Minnesota, where International Falls — which proudly proclaims itself the “Icebox of the Nation” — recorded a shocking 46 degrees below zero (-43 Celsius).


The Friday temperature tied the town’s coldest reading since it began keeping records in 1897.


There can be only one explanation…

It must be global warming.

"

House GOP to Tackle Health Care ‘Waivers’ and Obama’s Expanding EPA

from The Blaze - Stories


House GOP to Tackle Health Care ‘Waivers’ and Obama’s Expanding EPA: "

The chairmen of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee are teaming up to investigate Health and Human Services’ newly formed Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO). Reps. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., are respectively turning their attention toward tackling the bureaucracy of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law, just one day after the House of Representatives voted to repeal the law by a significant margin.


House Energy & Commerce Committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich.


While the repeal legislation is widely expected to stall in the Senate, Upton and Stearns’ actions signal that the Republican House majority will move forward in trying to dismantle the law one piece at a time.


On Thursday, Upton and Stearns sent a joint letter to CCIIO director Jay Angoff requesting further information about the office’s structure and authority. In addition, the Republican House members requested specific information on the office‘s recent decisions in granting waivers to several businesses and labor unions which temporarily exempt them from complying with the new federal law’s requirements.


At least 222 companies have qualified for the ObamaCare “waivers.” (Click here for the complete list)


“Most troubling is that your office is currently responsible for deciding who does not have to comply with the massive new regulations imposed by the PPACA [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act],” the letter stated. “Currently your office has approved waivers from the PPACA’s annual limits requirements for 222 applicants.”


“In a Nov. 30, 2010 meeting with Ranking Minority Member Michael Burgess, you stated that your office had also denied waiver requests. We would appreciate if your office would explain how a decision is made on whether compliance with the PPACA is necessary.”


According to the Daily Caller, the letter was also sent to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.


On a separate front, The Hill reports that Upton has also announced plans to carefully examine the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) climate change regulations this year.


In a document outlining his agenda for the year, the Energy and Commerce chair stresses that it is “critical” the Obama administration refrain from “imposing its new global warming regulatory regime, which will undermine economic growth and U.S. competitiveness for no significant benefit.”


“While the individual items included in the document are not surprising, the agenda, taken as a whole, illustrates the breadth of GOP opposition to the White House energy and environment agenda,” The Hill notes.


According to GOP’s “agenda,“ the EPA has been responsible for regulating ”too much too fast” without fully examining the widespread impacts on job and economic vitality. In response, the committee is looking to direct its attention toward breaking the EPA’s regulatory “chokehold” to help spur economic recovery.


“The stakes could not be higher,” the document says. “If the Obama administration succeeds in imposing unaffordable and unworkable permitting and other rules through EPA, it will severely impede the domestic manufacturing and industrial growth necessary for this nation to create jobs and emerge from a devastating recession.”


Reigning in the EPA may also help put a small dent in the nation’s rising debt. Columnist Art Horn noted Thursday that the federal government will spend about $4 billion on global warming research this year, “despite the fact that there has been no global warming since 1998, and despite all of the billions that have been spent so far yielding no conclusive evidence that using fossil fuels to make energy has any significant effect on Earth’s temperature… In 2011, your government will spend $10.6 million a day to study, combat, and educate about climate change,” he wrote.


With new polls suggesting an overwhelming majority of Americans are feeling the pressure of rising gas prices, the committee has also signaled its intent to tackle what it calls “artificial” burdens on U.S. domestic oil drilling.


“In the face of $4 gasoline, calls for increased supply will be stronger than ever,” the agenda states. “We will respond by promoting affordable, abundant and secure sources of energy by preventing the administration’s regulatory overreach and expanding access in an environmentally responsible way” — a response that will include reducing “regulatory red tape” at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"

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