F U man CHU! ! ! !

[Soul Crusher]

Obama Energy Chief Bombshell Admission ... (Obama wants higher gas and oil prices)
fox news ^ | 2/28/2012 | Alex Guillen, Politico


The Energy Department isn’t working to lower gasoline prices directly, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.

Instead, DOE is working to promote alternatives such as biofuels and electric vehicles, Chu told House appropriators during a hearing on DOE’s budget.

But Americans need relief now, Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.) said — not high gasoline prices that could eventually push them to alternatives.

“I can’t look at motivations. I have to look at results. And under this administration the price of gasoline has doubled,” Nunnelee told Chu.

“The people of north Mississippi can’t be here, so I have to be here and be their voice for them,” Nunnelee added. “I have to tell you that $8 a gallon gasoline makes them afraid. It’s a cruel tax on the people of north Mississippi as they try to go back and forth to work. It’s a cloud hanging over economic development and job creation.”


(Excerpt) Read more at nation.foxnews.com ...

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WH denies knowledge of Chu statement on gas prices
washingtonexaminer.com ^ | 2/29/12 | Charlie Spiering
Posted on February 29, 2012 8:42:04 PM EST by ColdOne

In a hearing yesterday, Chu admitted in a House Appropriations hearing that Obama's goal was not to bring down the price of gas, but rather decrease the nation's dependence on oil with alternative fuels.

His comment raised questions among Republicans, who are adamant about doing something to tackle high gas prices.

"I am not aware of that statement or the characterization that you have given it," Carney replied.

(Excerpt) Read more at campaign2012.washingtone xaminer.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Hybrid maker Bright Automotive goes bust (Another "Green" Company gone)
cnn ^ | 3/1/2012 | James O'Toole
Posted on March 1, 2012 6:56:15 AM EST by tobyhill

Hybrid vehicle maker Bright Automotive has announced plans to close, blasting the Department of Energy for failing to finalize a loan that the firm says would have kept it afloat.

In a letter dated Tuesday to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Bright CEO Reuben Munger and COO Mike Donoughe said they were withdrawing their application for a $314 million loan and winding down their operations. The executives claimed they had been strung along for the past few years as the government insisted on increasingly stringent loan requirements.

"The actions -- or better said 'lack of action' -- by your team means hundreds of great manufacturing and technical jobs ... and thousands of indirect jobs in Indiana and Michigan will not see the light of day," the letter said.

(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Mad About High Gas Prices? Then Chu On This
 
Posted 02/29/2012 06:45 PM ET


Gasoline: As pump prices hit $4 a gallon, Energy Secretary Steven Chu admits the administration has no interest in bringing them down. Is it any wonder Democrats are growing increasingly agitated with this White House?

At a hearing this week, Rep. Alan Nunnelee, R-Miss., specifically asked Chu if "the overall goal" of the administration is to "get our price down." Chu's answer was no.

In fact, he said that "somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," which are in the neighborhood of $8 a gallon.

No, wait. That's what Chu said about gasoline prices back in 2008, shortly before he took the Energy Department's helm. What he really said was "the price of gasoline over the long haul should be expected to go up."

Oops! That's what Chu said last year when asked about gasoline prices. Here's his answer: He "would have preferred a gradual increase" in prices.

Darn! That was Barack Obama talking about energy costs during his presidential run.

Chu's actual answer fits right in with this mold. No, he said, the overall goal of the Obama administration is not to get prices down; the overall goal is "to decrease our dependency on oil."

This has been a mantra of Obama's for years: There's nothing anyone can do about gasoline prices, so the only option is to find "alternative" fuel sources.

Subscribe to the IBD Editorials Podcast It's total bunk. Recoverable oil has never been more plentiful, as the industry finds new sources and develops new drilling technologies. The oil boom in North Dakota is proof enough of that.

In fact, according to the Institute for Energy Research, there's enough oil within our borders to supply our fuel needs for 250 years.

The problem is the country has put itself in an energy straight-jacket, in deference to environmental groups who challenge any and every effort to tap new oil supplies.

This situation predates Obama, but the fact is he's done nothing to reverse it and much to make it worse. Indeed, he gives every indication of relishing high gasoline prices, since they help power his environmentalist agenda.

But now even some Democrats — sensing a political disaster in the making — are starting to put pressure on the president to confront pump prices head-on. That's unlikely to happen, at least not as long as Obama keeps taking advice from Secretary Chu.

[Soul Crusher]

Surprise! Another DOE Solar 'Bet' Produces Green Job Losses
National Legal & Policy Center ^ | March 1, 2012 | Paul Chesser





Yet another solar company that received loan guarantees from the Department of Energy has dismissed factory workers, lopping off 70 percent of its U.S. employees. Loveland, Colo.-based Abound Solar announced Tuesday it would lay off 280 workers at its production plant near Longmont, leaving 120 still employed. The start-up (2009) company attributed the cutbacks to the need for upgrades at the plant to manufacture more efficient solar panels, with plans to restore production levels and rehire most employees within six to nine months.

“Hopefully at the end of that time period we will bring people back,” said Steve Abely, Abound’s Chief Financial Officer, to the Boulder Daily Camera.

DOE’s $400-million loan guarantee to Abound closed in December 2010, after President Obama delivered a weekly message a few months earlier hyping his jobs plan in a “clean energy economy,” in which he cited his plans for Abound:

Obama video 5 minutes



Energy Secretary Steven Chu was equally boastful about the Abound loan.

“Pioneering projects like this are what will help the U.S. recapture the lead when it comes to supporting innovation in the global clean energy economy,” he said. “Not only is this investment creating thousands of jobs, but it is also increasing our renewable energy manufacturing capacity and putting us on the path for our future prosperity.”

News Web site The Complete Colorado revealed “fingerprints” of a “pay-to-play agenda” when Abound received its conditional approval in September 2010. Wealthy philanthropist Pat Stryker, whose Bohemian Companies has significant investment in Abound, donated $475,599 to federal Democrat candidates and causes over the 2008 to 2012 election cycles, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Included in that amount is $11,900 in maximum contributions to President Obama’s two campaigns for the White House. Stryker also was an $87,500 bundler for the president’s Inaugural Committee, the People’s Press Collective discovered, anddonated $50,000 herself. The Sunlight Foundation reported that she gave $35,800 to the 2012 Obama Victory Fund. In October 2009 Stryker also visited a former assistant to the deputy chief of staff at the White House, Kristin Sheehy, who also hosted several visits from SEIU president Andy Stern. The purpose of Stryker’s visits is undisclosed.

Stryker is known to have contributed millions of dollars to Democrat candidates for state and federal office in her lifetime. Among those are gifts to former U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey, whose district includes the Abound facility – $9,400 made up of max contributions for her 2008 and 2010 successful runs for office. Abound helped pay for ads in 2009 that thanked Markey for voting for the cap-and-trade bill that passed the House that year, which would have benefited renewable energy companies. And according to the Fort Collins Coloradoan, Markey also pushed for approval of the loan guarantee for Abound.

“Without the loan guarantees, they would not be able to really move forward on this project,” Markey told the newspaper. “It’s seed money that’s going to be fully paid back by Abound.”

Green energy Web site Gigaom.com reported Tuesday that Abound has drawn down only $70 million of its DOE loan, and noted that a manufacturer shouldn’t have to shut down to the degree Abound is to upgrade its equipment. “Abound conceded this point somewhat when it noted in its press release that the ‘current market conditions are challenging for all U.S. solar manufacturers,’” the Web site reported.

There may be other complications for Abound to survive, much less pay back taxpayers the money they are owed. The commissioners of Weld County, where Abound’s facility is located, suspended nearly $100,000 in property tax incentives for the company. According to the Independence Institute, “when it came up for renewal in December for the 2012 budget, commissioners decided to save the taxpayers that money instead.” One commissioner wasn’t convinced that Abound was creating jobs for county residents, but another commissioner defended Abound as the “anti-Solyndra,” despite its lack of profitability after four years in business.

Abound has also lost top executives in recent months to seemingly lesser renewable energy companies, and is on its third CEO. But its recent woes didn’t stop the company from making a sudden foray into K Street influence peddling, spending $70,000 in the 4th quarter last year to lobby the House, Senate and Department of Energy solely about the Loan Guarantee program. Was it an emergency effort to preserve its access to the unused portion of its award?

So far Abound has escaped the fate that has befallen Fisker Automotive, which had its $529 million DOE loan halted at a $193 million drawdown after failing to reach milestones in delivering its Karma model. Thatelectric vehicle company, backed bywealthy venture capitalists ( including Al Gore) that contributed big dollars to President Obama and Democrats, was also granted favor when DOE awarded loans in 2009 and 2010. AndSmith Electric Vehicles, which manufactures delivery trucks, was given $32 million in grants to help it buy out its failing parent company in the United Kingdom. Even Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has said, in essence, that the only reason he’s in the electric vehicle business is for the government subsidies. Nissan received $1.45 billion in loans from DOE to retrofit a plant in Tennessee to build the electric Leaf.

Between the loan programs and stimulus grants, DOE is compiling a lousy track record of placing “bets” on “clean” energy for President Obama. Battery maker Ener1 has filed bankruptcy, and another, A123 Systems, canned 125 factory workers in November but recently gave its top executives big raises and improved parachutes should the company change hands. Beacon Power, recipient of $39.1 million in DOE loans , also went bankrupt. And then there are the solar companies: bankrupt Solyndra, of course, which cost taxpayers at least $535 million and cost 1,100 people their jobs, andFirst Solar, which recently let go 100 employees despite billions of dollars in grants and loan guarantees from the U.S. government.

But it’s just another day at the office for DOE and the affluent who skim billions of dollars from taxpayers for alternative energy schemes that can’t survive without government mandates and subsidies. As David Wells, a partner in green technology investment firm Kleiner Perkins, said recently, “It’s the nature of these high-risk, high-reward things that most of them will fail. But one or two will succeed.”

Comforting, isn’t it?

[Soul Crusher]

[ Invalid YouTube link ]

Chu: I give myself an A-minus on managing taxpayer investments


posted at 1:55 pm on March 1, 2012 by Ed MorrisseyConsider this your spit-take moment of the day.  After overruling Department of Energy auditors and losing $535 million on Solyndra, as well as a number of other green-tech flops, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu gives himself a pretty good grade as a steward of public funds.  In fact, after Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) asks him to assign himself a grade, Chu goes one better than Barack Obama’s one-year self-assessment of a “good, solid B-plus”:

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA): “Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary I believe that the federal government should not be picking winners and losers in the market place. Seems to me the DOE has repeatedly proven that this Administration is clueless when it comes to making good business investments and that it also tends to side with political crony companies. Unfortunately the Department’s political favors come with more than a billion dollar price tag that will have to be paid for by American taxpayers. Time and time again we’ve seen companies like Abound, Solar, Beacon Power, A123 batteries and, of course, Solyndra, receive millions and billions of dollars just to drop jobs. In addition to those 465,000 or 465 million that went to Tesla Motors to make a luxury electric car with a sticker price of $100,000. Worst kind of corporate welfare. In the President’s energy budget, the few people who would be able to afford those cars would receive a $10,000 tax subsidy. How can President Obama justify asking for more than a half a billion dollars in additional funding for his preferred green programs? Secretary Chu you tell me why you think your department deserves more taxpayer money to blow through given your abysmal track record. What grade would you say you deserve for your management of the DOE resources over the last three years?”

Department Of Energy Secretary Steven Chu: “Well I would give myself a pretty good grade because if you look at what we’ve done, and what we’ve supported, and the breakthroughs that have occurred during this tenure, I think it speaks very well. As I said before, that battery research has been going extremely well, way ahead of what we thought was the schedule. We’re very focused on a lot of the good technologies on solar technologies, and as another example, the bioenergy, the bioenergy centers that which were started under the previous administration have done extremely well and we’re continuing funding those. A lot of the inventions and technologies are now being licensed by companies and they’re entering into pilot production. So there are many successes in the technologies that the Department of Energy has supported and the private sector, American industry, are picking up these technologies.”

Broun: “So what grade would you give yourself?”

Chu: “Oh -”

Broun: “A to F, what grade would you give yourself?”

Chu: “There’s always room for improvement, maybe an A-.”

Well, thank goodness that “there’s always room for improvement.”  Here are a few of Chu’s greatest hits, er, areas of potential improvement:

•Solyndra – $535 million lost

•Ener1 – $118.5 million lost

•Beacon Power – $43 million lost

•National Renewable Energy Laboratory – $200 million resulted in net loss of 100 jobs
In fact, CBS reported that twelve firms have gotten approvals from Chu for an aggregate of $6.5 billion and are on the ropes now:

CBS News counted 12 clean energy companies that are having trouble after collectively being approved for more than $6.5 billion in federal assistance. Five have filed for bankruptcy: The junk bond-rated Beacon, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy and Solyndra.
There is a lot of room for improvement, unless the goal is to destroy capital by seizing it from taxpayers and sinking it into one bad investment after another.  If that was the goal, then Chu deserves an A-plus.

[Soul Crusher]

Abound Solar, Recipient Of $400 Million Federal Loan Guarantee, Halts Production
Forbes ^ | March 1, 2012 | by Todd Woody



The solar shakeout continues as Abound Solar, a Colorado startup that aimed to take on industry leader First Solar with a $400 million federal loan guarantee to build photovoltaic panel factories, halts production and lays off 180 workers.

In addition to the $400 million loan guarantee, Abound, which was founded in 2007, has raised $260 million in venture funding from investors that include Invus Group, Bohemian Companies, DCM, GLG Partners, Technology Partners, BP Alternative Energy and West Hill Investors.

Whether Abound can compete in an increasingly tough solar market remains in question.


(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Abound Solar Got $400M Fed Loan Despite Low Rating
ABC ^ | March 2, 2012 | Matthew Mosk
Posted on March 3, 2012 10:43:21 AM EST by digger48

A month before Abound Solar announced it would be laying off nearly half its workforce, Congressional Republicans alerted the U.S. Department of Energy that they had questions about the decision to loan the Colorado firm $400 million.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu to explain how the solar panel manufacturer had qualified for the loan after the ratings firm Fitch had determined the company would make a "highly speculative" investment.

"Fitch describes Abound as lagging in technology relative to its competitors, failing to achieve stated efficiency targets, and expecting that Abound will suffer from increasing commoditization and pricing pressures," wrote Rep. Darrell Issa, R.-California, the committee chairman. "DOE's willingness to fund Abound, despite these concerns, calls into question the merits of this loan guarantee."

(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...

TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Science; Click to Add Topic
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1 posted on March 3, 2012 10:43:26 AM EST by digger48
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To: digger48
More pay for play ...

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/09/more-pay-for-play-obama-doe-awarded-400-million-loan-guarantee-to-top-bundlers-solar-investment-project/

Top Obama bundler Pat Stryker owns Bohemian Companies, a major Abound Solar Manufacturing investor. Obama gifted the solar company with a $400 million loan guarantee after the election.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/15/abound-solar-raises-110-million/

Abound Solar’s existing investors Invus Group, Bohemian Companies, DCM and Technology Partners participated in the new, $110 million equity round, joined by new investors BP Alternative Energy Ventures and West Hill Companies.

wiki:

Patricia A. Stryker[2] (born 1956) is the granddaughter of Homer Stryker, surgeon and founder of Stryker Corporation, a medical technology company.

The low-profile heiress has been more active in civic life in recent years, with an interest in liberal causes. She donated $3 million to defeat a 2002 ballot initiative regarding bilingual education in Colorado. In 2004, she gave $20 million to Colorado State University, mostly to benefit its football team.

Stryker bought Sonoma’s Sommer Vineyards in 1999, which she rebuilt, replanted, and rechristened as Stryker Sonoma[3]. It covers 32 acres (129,000 m²) in Alexander Valley, California, producer of classic vinifera varieties Bordeaux and Zinfandel.

In 2006, Stryker gave $500,000 to the Coalition for Progress, a political action committee that donated heavily to support Democratic party candidates in Michigan elections.[4]

In 2008, Stryker gave $87,500 to the Presidential Inaugural Committee for President-Elect Barack Obama.[5]

Stryker donated $3 million to defeat a 2002 ballot initiative regarding bilingual education in Colorado.

Following fraud allegations in November 2007 involving Stryker Corp. overbilling for Medicare in South Dakota, Republicans called on Democratic organizations to return donations they had received from Stryker and her brother, Jon Stryker.[6]

Gang of Four

Stryker, Jared Polis, Tim Gill, and Rutt Bridges are known in Colorado political circles as the “Gang of Four”. Significant political contributions from the four to favored Democratic candidates has played a role in electing a Democratic majority in Colorado’s house and senate.[7]

[edit] Democracy Alliance

According to New York Times reporter Matt Bai, Stryker attended the April 2005 meeting of the Democracy Alliance near Scottsdale, Arizona.

http://www.bohemianfoundation.org/

Bohemian Foundation was founded in 2001 by Pat Stryker to continue her family tradition of making the world a better place.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obama-bundler-finances-solar-company-doe-loan/230636

The Sunlight Foundation notes that Bohemian Companies, which was founded by billionaire and Obama bundler Pat Stryker, participated with other companies in the “second institutional equity round of financing” in 2008 for Abound Solar, which recieved $104 million total through that round of financing.

Stryker gave $50,000 to Obama’s inauguration, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and raised a further $87,000 for the inauguration. Stryker has since donated $35,800 to the 2012 Obama Victory Fund, Sunlight reports.

One year after Bohemian invested in Abound, and a year before the DOE granted a loan guarantee, Stryker visited the White House. “The White House did not confirm that the visitor was the Pat Stryker in question and did not provide details about the meeting,” Sunlight says

http://www.muckety.com/Pat-Stryker/24910.muckety

Pat Stryker campaign contributions:

Listed below are federal donations of $3,000+ reported to the FEC.

Obama Victory Fund 2012 - $35,800 on 5/5/2011

Colorado Democratic Party - $10,000 on 3/7/2011

America’s Families First Action Fund - $145,000 on 10/28/2010

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee - $5,000 on 10/20/2010

Colorado Victory 2010 - $7,500 on 10/19/2010

Women Vote! - $75,000 on 10/1/2010

Colorado Democratic Party - $10,000 on 3/15/2010

Democratic National Committee - $10,000 on 5/29/2009

Colorado Democratic Party - $10,000 on 4/30/2009

Franken Recount Fund - $12,300 on 12/1/2008

Campaign Money Watch - $185,000 on 10/2/2008

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee - $10,000 on 3/31/2007

Colorado Democratic Party - $7,500 on 5/8/2007

Colorado Democratic Party - $7,500 on 5/1/2008

Democratic White House Victory Fund - $5,000 on 6/12/2008

Democratic National Committee - $28,500 on 5/18/2007

Contributions to political organizations reporting to IRS:

America Votes 2006 - $4,000 on 11/2/2010

Democratic Governors Association - $25,000 on 7/13/2010

Democratic Governors Association - $25,000 on 8/24/2009

Democratic Governors Association - $25,000 on 8/19/2008

Democratic Governors Association - $25,000 on 9/11/2007

Citizens for Colorado - $6,000 on 1/17/2007

Citizens for Colorado - $18,000 on 11/3/2006

Citizens for Colorado - $15,000 on 10/30/2006

Coloradans for Life - $5,000 on 10/27/2006

Clear Peak Colorado - $23,000 on 7/21/2006

Coalition for a Better Colorado - $4,630 on 12/7/2005

Coalition for a Better Colorado - $8,954 on 7/18/2005

Citizens for a Safe Denver, Inc. - $10,000 on 4/4/2005

Coalition for a Better Colorado - $28,287 on 12/16/2004

Alliance for Colorado’s Families - $20,000 on 10/28/2004

Coalition for a Better Colorado - $5,000 on 10/19/2004

Alliance for a Better Colorado - $25,000 on 8/27/2004

Coalition for a Better Colorado - $30,000 on 6/29/2004

Secretary of State Project - $25,000 on 12/31/2009

New Democrat Network - Non-Federal - $5,000 on 8/20/2004

Joint Victory Campaign 2004 - $25,000 on 6/29/2004

(no link)

Liberal group pours millions to sway voters in Colorado - Donors push Obama , ‘progressive’ causes

Washington Times, The (DC) - Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Author: Matthew Cella, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A secretive coalition of wealthy liberal political donors in Colorado has channeled millions of dollars this year to “progressive” causes and seeks to help turn over the highly contested swing state to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama , records show.

The Colorado Democracy Alliance (CoDA) has been credited with helping Democrats reclaim the governor’s office in 2006 after an eight-year Republican run, bolster their majorities in the state legislature and capture a previously Republican-held U.S. House seat in a state where Democratic registration ranks third behind that of Republicans and the unaffiliated.

(snip)

Key CoDA benefactors include billionaire PatStryker , heiress to a $6 billion international medical equipment supply company; and millionaire businessmen Tim Gill, a computer software entrepreneur and gay rights activist who created the Quark software program, and Rutt Bridges, a geophysicist and software entrepreneur. They have been listed as members of CoDA’s board of directors and are major contributors.

“It was really done well,” said Jon Caldara, head of the conservative Colorado-based Independence Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy research organization. “It’s a blueprint of how a handful of rich guys and unions have given their money to organizations that have particular jobs instead of giving it to candidates

(snip)

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_10623568

Colorado Democratic scheme called ingenious

The group bolsters progressive candidates almost totally out of the public eye

Posted: 10/03/2008

Colorado’s wealthiest and most influential progressives have devised a successful campaign-funding scheme described as ingenious even by conservative opponents who have seen it secure Democratic statehouse majorities in two consecutive elections.

The umbrella over a cadre of 30-plus loosely affiliated organizations is called the Colorado Democracy Alliance, and at its helm are some of the best-known donors in state and national politics, including millionaire activists Tim Gill and Pat Stryker.

(snip)

[Soul Crusher]

Ripping the lid off of Colorado’s Solyndra
   
By Michelle Malkin  •  March 6, 2012 10:01 AM

State-level conservative blogs and think tanks are doing the work the rest of the “mainstream media” won’t do on government big green boondoggles.

Last week, Doug mentioned the Abound Solar debacle here in my home state of Colorado.
It’s thanks to the intrepid investigative work of Colorado’s Todd Shepherd and Amy Oliver at Complete Colorado and the Independence Institute and Michael Sandoval at People’s Press Collective that this latest Department of Energy loan scandal has been exposed. Paul Chesser at the NLPC summarized:

Yet another solar company that received loan guarantees from the Department of Energy has dismissed factory workers, lopping off 70 percent of its U.S. employees. Loveland, Colo.-based Abound Solar announced Tuesday it would lay off 280 workers at its production plant near Longmont, leaving 120 still employed. The start-up (2009) company attributed the cutbacks to the need for upgrades at the plant to manufacture more efficient solar panels, with plans to restore production levels and rehire most employees within six to nine months.
“Hopefully at the end of that time period we will bring people back,” said Steve Abely, Abound’s Chief Financial Officer, to the Boulder Daily Camera.
DOE’s $400-million loan guarantee to Abound closed in December 2010, after President Obama delivered a weekly message a few months earlier hyping his jobs plan in a “clean energy economy,” in which he cited his plans for Abound[.]
Energy Secretary Steven Chu was equally boastful about the Abound loan.
“Pioneering projects like this are what will help the U.S. recapture the lead when it comes to supporting innovation in the global clean energy economy,” he said. “Not only is this investment creating thousands of jobs, but it is also increasing our renewable energy manufacturing capacity and putting us on the path for our future prosperity.”
News Web site The Complete Colorado revealed “fingerprints” of a “pay-to-play agenda” when Abound received its conditional approval in September 2010. Wealthy philanthropist Pat Stryker, whose Bohemian Companies has significant investment in Abound, donated $475,599 to federal Democrat candidates and causes over the 2008 to 2012 election cycles, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Included in that amount is $11,900 in maximum contributions to President Obama’s two campaigns for the White House. Stryker also was an $87,500 bundler for the president’s Inaugural Committee, the People’s Press Collective discovered, and donated $50,000 herself. The Sunlight Foundation reported that she gave $35,800 to the 2012 Obama Victory Fund. In October 2009 Stryker also visited a former assistant to the deputy chief of staff at the White House, Kristin Sheehy, who also hosted several visits from SEIU president Andy Stern. The purpose of Stryker’s visits is undisclosed.
Stryker is known to have contributed millions of dollars to Democrat candidates for state and federal office in her lifetime. Among those are gifts to former U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey, whose district includes the Abound facility – $9,400 made up of max contributions for her 2008 and 2010 successful runs for office. Abound helped pay for ads in 2009 that thanked Markey for voting for the cap-and-trade bill that passed the House that year, which would have benefited renewable energy companies. And according to the Fort Collins Coloradoan, Markey also pushed for approval of the loan guarantee for Abound.
“Without the loan guarantees, they would not be able to really move forward on this project,” Markey told the newspaper. “It’s seed money that’s going to be fully paid back by Abound.”
In a fresh exclusive, Complete Colorado has obtained new documents showing “that Abound Solar created an unexpected, and previously unreported 10 day production shutdown over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, and then went on to tell employees, Don’t let the rumor mill create false purposes for this shutdown.’ The shutdown was announced to employees just after Thanksgiving by company president Craig Witsoe.”

How many more?

We need a green energy loan moratorium. NOW.
***

Guess who’s reading Complete Colorado? Lots of busy bees at the White House. Hello!
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[Soul Crusher]

“They” Did It (Again)!

There are no “oil men” in the White House. So the Obamites cannot, as in the past, blame Halliburton, BP, or Exxon for rigging gas prices out of the Oval Office. Which leads to the question: why then are prices now climbing when the Bush-oil company connection is no longer the narrative? The new answer? “Wall Street” (e.g., the fat-cat bankers, corporate jet owners, those who don’t know when not to profit, etc.) raised prices.

But if true, who let them get away with that? The Chinese, who are scrounging every barrel they can on the world market? The Indians, who follow suit? Maybe it’s the Obama administration Treasury that has borrowed $5 trillion in three years, not only eroding the buying power of the world-traded dollar but also sending a message to oil producers that even more debt is coming and their petrodollars will only be worth less and less?

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Or perhaps it is growing world tension, as in Iran, that caused the panic? But then who snubbed the Green revolution in Iran in the spring of 2009, sought “outreach” and “reset” with the theocracy, and leveled five serial demands to stop Iranian enrichment (or else!) to the point that Iran no doubt understood 2009-2012 was a once-in-a-lifetime exempt window of opportunity to get the bomb and to control the Gulf?

To paraphrase William Tecumseh Sherman, Obama might as well rail at the wind. The administration’s current panic mode arises because we are nearing $5 a gallon. (I just filled up two miles away in West Selma, with a supposed 21% unemployment rate and a per capita income of about $14,000, and the price today was $4.27.) It is only early March. Obama may blame Wall Street, but he is savvy enough to do the following calculus: by August, people will want to drive more than they do in March; the Chinese will suddenly not wish to buy less oil this summer; he has no federal leases that he approved in January 2009 that will be coming on line after three-and-a-half years; Volts will not be going into hyper-production mode; and prices will only go up just as the campaign and the weather heat up. There is about an hour’s worth of Obama administration past quotes on gas prices that should make some interesting campaign ads.

High Gas Prices Are Good Bad

So what exactly is the administration’s reaction to skyrocketing gas prices? That should be an absurd question — except that we know administration officials are either on record as indifferent to the high cost of gasoline, or in fact hoping for higher prices.

Consider also the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline; the restrictions of new federal oil leases in the West, Alaska, offshore, and in the Gulf; Obama’s prior promises that energy prices would skyrocket because of his efforts to enact cap and trade; his boast to help Brazil out by importing its new offshore oil finds; his worries only over the abrupt rate of gas increases in 2011 rather than his desire for gradual, steadier escalation; Energy Secretary Chu’s various statements that high prices were not such a concern and indeed that he wished to see gas reach European levels (e.g., $8-10 a gallon); Interior Secretary Salazar’s insistence that even $10 gas would not open up new federal oil lands; and on and on.

I think that such words and deeds translate into some technocratic “never waste a crisis” dream in which we adapt to mass transit, begin to pile into Smart cars and subsidized government Volts, arrange our power use around the cycles of the Sun and wind, and in general consume far less as dictated by those in the technocratic overseer class, the waiting-Escalades-on-the-tarmac bunch who by needs must consume far, far more to save us from ourselves. The financiers of Solyndra and other failed subsidized firms are somehow exempt from the sorts of invective leveled at those who produce oil, as if we like those who lose our money and end up producing nothing but despise those who make a profit, pay taxes, and get us to work in the morning.

“Skyrocketing” for Thee, “Orchid-Growing” Temperatures for Me

I say technocratic because only those who work for government or live in larger cities or do not depend on driving vans, pick-up trucks, tractors, or semis could think it was wise for an oil- and natural gas-rich nation not to exploit fully its own natural resources. (Can any of you readers recall a civilization that in the past voluntarily chose not to exploit a valuable natural resource when it could be done safely, without damage, and to great profit?)

Whatever the level that the price of gas reaches, Barack Obama and Steven Chu and the technocracy won’t feel it all that much. Do you remember Obama’s first day in office when he abruptly ordered the temperature in the White House dialed up? (Had that “oil man” Bush been too energy-conscious?) David Axelrod himself complained that one could grow orchids at Obama’s new presidentially mandated heat: “skyrocketing” prices for us, but orchid growing for the president?

Think of some of the ramifications of this faculty lounge policy (I use that term empirically rather than as invective, given I taught among faculty for 21 years). Americans must borrow even more billions to import ever-higher priced oil that enriches many of our enemies, all of which will be pumped abroad under far more lax environmental conditions than had we developed our own resources here at home. (What happened to “Planet Earth”?)

Increased gas costs will also simply transfer lots of dollars that might have been spent in America to foreign governments, and will curb consumer consumption of other goods in an economic downturn. Is the driving force then some philosophical desire to restrict crass American materialism in order to return to a preferable pre-carbon dioxide Golden Age past? And if so, are the president’s sudden complaints about high gas prices and considerations to draw again from the strategic petroleum reserve entirely cynical, in the sense that once reelected, he and Secretary Chu will accelerate their restrictionist policies in hopes of keeping gas prices even higher? (We are already halfway on the road to “European levels.”) Or of making subsidized Solyndra- and Volt-like projects at last viable?

Why would the president consider tapping the strategic oil reserve, but not start a breakneck effort at developing new sources? Is previously pumped oil less polluting; does it increase supply and lower prices in a way that freshly pumped oil does not? Does his mockery of “drill, drill, drill” suggest that “not drill, not drill, and not drill” is a wiser alternative? Does Obama realize that even an extra 3 to 4 million barrels a day produced here would earn the U.S. billions in extra revenue and help to stabilize world prices by taking a commensurate amount of American demand off the world market?

The Strange Case of Dr. Chu

Give credit to Steven Chu. He’s not backing down and most recently reiterated to Congress that high prices are not much of a concern of this administration. (But Mr. Chu: if they go up any more, you will soon be out of a job, yes?) In contrast, and faced with reelection, the president now brags that we are using less fuel and pumping more of it than when he took office. Again, examine that surreal logic: because unemployment is high and GDP growth low, there is less demand for gas, and that is suddenly a good thing? (Note how — for the first time? — Obama does not blame Bush for lowering gas demand as he had serially for causing the economic doldrums: “Bush wrecked the economy but I was smart enough to make it far worse to lower gas demand.”)

Then the president boasted further that domestic production is at an all-time high. Consider that weird reasoning as well: although he curtailed production on federal lands where there are now record levels of known oil and gas reserves, private industry has developed horizontal drilling and fracking — despite, rather than because of, the president — on mostly private land in the Dakotas and elsewhere. Is the reasoning, then, something like: “Congratulations to the oil industry for ignoring me”?

In sum, from January 2009 to January 2011 — in the pre-Climategate days before Al Gore was a “sex poodle” and when the Himalayan glaciers were to be swamps and polar bears extinct — new gas and oil production was considered “bad,” given that Obama was pushing wind, solar, and “alternative” energies. In those giddy cap-and-trade days, he could afford to pontificate because he was not up for reelection and world demand was sluggish, dropping oil prices at the wellhead. When the world economy began rebounding, demand picked up, prices spiked, and now Obama is in campaign mode: suddenly high gas prices are bad and he claims not that he wants his House-approved cap-and-trade bill pushed through his Democratically controlled Senate, but rather that all along he has encouraged private enterprise to drill while successfully persuading us to cut back our consumption (as if we did so because of the impressive oratory of Barack Obama rather than because he had managed to ensure millions of Americans now had no jobs to drive to work to).

The Omnipotent Mr. Obama

Why is it that Obama takes credit for the rebound of the stock market after the historic drops in September 2008, but sees the price of gas as extraneous in a way speculation on Wall Street is not? To say that gas prices have doubled under his watch is considered by sophisticates simplistic and reductionist, given all the factors beyond his control that contribute to such increases; to say that Wall Street has improved under his watch is to appreciate the brilliantly subtle and clever manner in which an omnipotent Obama has restored financial confidence and restored some of our lost 401(k) plans.

Obama keeps claiming that the oil companies are gouging us. Some of them may well be doing that; after all, they can profit well enough at the old $40-$50 a barrel levels on about 45% of our supply produced domestically, and “need” not receive $110 for their Texas or Dakota oil at the world price. But such thinking assumes that we all should sell our product at less than we might to help fellow Americans. The farmer who produces almonds need not sell his crop at $1 a pound off the tree because he does not “need” such profits, even though he realizes that world demand has forced the price up (from the old $.75 a pound) that he could receive by exporting his almonds. In other words, everything produced in the United States that has the potential to be exported has a “world” price in this globally interconnected world, and the fact that oil does too does not make its producers inherently evil. We might as well try to convince this new generation of gold miners to sell their product to fellow Americans at $500 an ounce to help lower the deficit rather than to “gouge” us at demanding a “world” price of $1500 an ounce that is well beyond what they “need” to profit from mining.

So here we are: as gas keeps spiraling the secretary of energy simply cannot any longer remark on the resulting deleterious effects since he is on record that they are not deleterious. And the president has urged us to consider, in lieu of Neanderthal drilling, our sizable algae reserves (does algae grow in the U.S. more abundantly than elsewhere?) in a manner that he once urged us to inflate our tires and “tune up” our electronic ignition cars.

So no worry: we have two Nobel laureates in Dr. Chu and Barack Obama to see us through.

(Thumbnail on PJM homepage by Shutterstock.com.)

[Soul Crusher]

Pain-at-the-pump policies
Last Updated: 12:40 AM, March 8, 2012

Posted: March 08, 2012



Share on emailShare on facebook More Sharing ServicesMore  Print Confused over the Obama administration’s gasoline-price policies?

Not to worry. So is the administration.

President Obama on Tuesday flatly dismissed the notion he’s content to see gas prices rise. “Just from a political perspective, do you think the president of the United States going into re-election wants gas prices to go up higher?” he asked.

“Is there anybody here who thinks that makes a lot of sense? I want gas prices lower because they hurt families.”

Really? Because just yesterday, the president declared, “Oil is the fuel of the past,” and America must “invest in the technology that will help us use less oil in our cars and our trucks.”

Clearly, Obama is marching in lock-step with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who told a House committee last week that the administration has no policy on higher gas prices — except to let them rise.

Asked point-blank by Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.) if the “overall goal is to get our [gasoline] price down,” Chu responded: “No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil.”

It’s simple market economics: Higher prices means lower consumption — and, hence, reduced dependency.

And that’s been Chu’s view since before he was nominated: He told The Wall Street Journal in 2008, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

For sure, oil is a globally traded commodity that’s subject to extraordinarily complex price pressures. And it is particularly sensitive to the ebb and flow of Middle East political developments.

Still, for the last three years, the administration has been relentlessly hostile to increased domestic oil exploration and distribution — killing the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, granting fewer approvals of oil leases and permits on federal lands and stifling Gulf of Mexico drilling activity.

Meanwhile, the administration this week rolled out another old chestnut — a “gas price task force” focused on speculation in the oil and gas markets, but specifically not focused on exploration or new drilling.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the task force was introduced last spring as prices spiked — but has reportedly met only four or five times since then.

Certainly Obama’s election-year rhetoric on the cost of gasoline is understandable. Poll after poll shows Americans focused like lasers on pump prices; he has to at least pretend to be doing something about them.

But if the president’s to be taken at all seriously, he’s got to get Chu on board and to clear the way for more drilling — even if it’s for a “fuel of the past.”

The alternative: $5-a-gallon gasoline.



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/pain_at_the_pump_policies_nnCDGRK3fjsktOesK70VqL#ixzz1oXYRe4pR

[Soul Crusher]

[ Invalid YouTube link ]

[24KT]

Understand this: The administration has no interest in bringing down oil prices, because quite frankly... they cannot!
The high price we see for oil has nothing to do with Middle Eastern regimes, and has everything to do with the value of the US Dollar.

Oil prices are going up, because the value of the USD (the fiat paper currency) is going down due to the rapid increase in the money supply.
Therefore, with a devalued & debased currency spiralling downward in value, ...it takes more & more paper to acquire the same things.

The promotion of electric cars is going to benefit a certain individual who for years has made fortunes on what is now a dying stock market of paper derivatives. This individual shall go unamed, however, those with 'a clear vision into the future' (gotta put in some subtext for yas to keep it interesting) has chosen to hedge his paper derivative losses by investing quite heavily into lithium batteries... the very kind that could power an electric automobile. They have to keep the illusion going a little longer, ...kick the can down the road a little further. The question is, how much more road do they have left?

The bottom line is: The world is moving away from counterfeit fiat paper derivatives as money. deal with it.
The sooner you accept the truth, the sooner you're able to prepare for what is coming, ...and it's coming FAST!

Future wealth will be determined by resources. A resource based economy, with prices measured against GOLD MONEY & OIL MONEY.
Focus on facts, not rhetoric designed to get you angry or fearful. Don't let your lizard brain kick in, ...cause then they'll have you just where they want you. Angry, reactive, not thinking straight, and easily manipulated and led to slaughter like a bunch of sheep. Get the facts.


Everybody in life encounters a few stones every now and then.

You can stub your toes on them, stumble over them, bitch, moan, cry & whine about them, throw them, climb over them, or build with them.

It's up to you. What do you choose to do with the stones you receive today?

[Soul Crusher]

Government-subsidized green light bulb carries costly price tag
wapo ^ | March 8, 2012 | Peter Whoriskey



The U.S. government last year announced a $10 million award, dubbed the “L Prize,” for any manufacturer that could create a “green” but affordable light bulb.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said ...

Now the winning bulb is on the market.

The price is $50.


(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

[George Whorewell]

You can't make this stuff up

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/09/energy-sec-chu-doesnt-own-car-but-his-wife-drives-bmw-gas-guzzler/

[Shockwave]

You can't make this stuff up

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/09/energy-sec-chu-doesnt-own-car-but-his-wife-drives-bmw-gas-guzzler/

Lol, another case of "Im going to tell you how you have to live your life, however Im going to live my life the way you wish you could live yours."

[Soul Crusher]

Chu Walks Back 2008 Remark Advocating Higher Gas Prices
Related Videos | expand   Playing chu walks back 2008 remark advocating higher gas prices


Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) asked U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu about his 2008 remark encouraging the U.S. to follow Europe's lead in their extraordinarily high price of gasoline at a hearing on the Energy Department's loan guarantee program.

"Let me first respond to your first statement, Senator," Chu said. "Since I walked in the door as Secretary of Energy, I have been doing everything in my powers to do what we can to reduce -- as we see these gas prices spike -- to reduce these prices. And the administration, the president, and I personally, yes we do acknowledge and feel the pain of not only American consumers, but American businesses when they see these prices increase."

"Are you saying that you no longer share the view that we need to figure out how to boost gasoline prices in America?" Lee asked

"I no longer share that view," Chu said. "When I became Secretary of Energy, I represented the U.S. government and I think that right now, in this economic very slow but -- you know, return that we need to have these prices … will effect the comeback of our economy and we're very worried about that. So of course we don’t want the price of gasoline to go up, we want it to go down.”

[Soul Crusher]

GAO shows grade inflation at the Department of Energy (85% failure rate)
HoTair ^ | 03/15/2012

Posted on Thursday, March 15, 2012



Remember this moment from two weeks ago? Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) challenged Energy Secretary Steven Chu to assign himself a grade specifically on his stewardship of Department of Energy resources in relation to the 2009 stimulus funds granted for the Loan Guarantee Program. After Broun recites a litany of failures in the LGP, Chu insists that he's done very well -- and gives himself an A-minus:


As it turns out, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has another grade entirely for the LGP, the DoE, and ultimately Energy Secretary Steven Chu. In the report released this week, the GAO's spot check of applications and loans granted and committed under the LGP -- $30 billion in all — shows systemic mismanagement, uncompleted reviews, missing documentation, and a process failure rate of 85% or more, emphases mine:

The Department of Energy (DOE) has made $15 billion in loan guarantees and conditionally committed to an additional $15 billion, but the program does not have the consolidated data on application status needed to facilitate efficient management and program oversight. For the 460 applications to the Loan Guarantee Program (LGP), DOE has made loan guarantees for 7 percent and committed to an additional 2 percent. The time the LGP took to review loan applications decreased over the course of the program, according to GAO’s analysis of LGP data. However, when GAO requested data from the LGP on the status of these applications, the LGP did not have consolidated data readily available and had to assemble these data over several months from various sources. Without consolidated data on applicants, LGP managers do not have readily accessible information that would facilitate more efficient program management, and LGP staff may not be able to identify weaknesses, if any, in the program’s application review process and approval procedures. Furthermore, because it took months to assemble the data required for GAO’s review, it is also clear that the data were not readily available to conduct timely oversight of the program. LGP officials have acknowledged the need for a consolidated system and said that the program has begun developing a comprehensive business management system that could also be used to track the status of LGP applications. However, the LGP has not committed to a timetable to fully implement this system.

The LGP adhered to most of its established process for reviewing applications, but its actual process differed from its established process at least once on 11 of the 13 applications GAO reviewed. Private lenders who finance energy projects that GAO interviewed found that the LGP’s established review process was generally as stringent as or more stringent than their own. However, GAO found that the reviews that the LGP conducted sometimes differed from its established process in that, for example, actual reviews skipped applicable review steps. In other cases, GAO could not determine whether the LGP had performed some established review steps because of poor documentation. Omitting or poorly documenting reviews reduces the LGP’s assurance that it has treated applicants consistently and equitably and, in some cases, may affect the LGP’s ability to fully assess and mitigate project risks. Furthermore, the absence of adequate documentation may make it difficult for DOE to defend its decisions on loan guarantees as sound and fair if it is questioned about the justification for and equity of those decisions. One cause of the differences between established and actual processes was that, according to LGP staff, they were following procedures that had been revised but were not yet updated in the credit policies and procedures manual, which governs much of the LGP’s established review process. In particular, the version of the manual in use at the time of GAO’s review was dated March 5, 2009, even though the manual states it was meant to be updated at least annually, and more frequently as needed. The updated manual dated October 6, 2011, addresses many of the differences GAO identified. Officials also demonstrated that LGP had taken steps to address the documentation issues by beginning to implement its new document management system. However, by the close of GAO’s review, LGP could not provide sufficient documentation to resolve the issues identified in the review.

On 11 of 13 loan applications investigated by the GAO, they found that the DoE hadn’t done the required work for reviewing and approving applications. That’s an 85% failure rate. And more than three years into this program, even with the deficiencies identified, the DoE still hasn’t fixed their problems. That kind of failure is more associated with an F-minus, not an A-minus.

Furthermore, as I note in my column for The Fiscal Times, this comes from the same administration that loves to harp on “irresponsible lenders” who fail to adhere to lending and documentation standards when playing with their own money:

President Obama himself told a Nevada town hall in February 2010 that “tax dollars shouldn’t be used to reward the very irresponsible lenders and borrowers who helped bring about the housing crisis.” At least that was Obama’s position until this month, when he announced a plan that would expand HAMP to include the real-estate speculators that helped inflate the housing bubble.

Almost exactly a year prior to the Nevada town hall, Obama gave a speech in Mesa, Arizona in which he castigated “dishonest lenders who acted irresponsibly, distorting the facts and dismissing the fine print at the expense of buyers who didn’t know better.”

Just one month ago, Obama spoke about the legal settlement with the banks that finally allowed long-pent-up foreclosures to move forward. In his speech, Obama twice mentions irresponsible actions by lenders that hurt others who acted more responsibly. He specifically noted the robo-signing and other violations that drove the process off the rails and cost many people their homes:“In many cases, they didn’t even verify that these foreclosures were actually legitimate. Some of the people they hired to process foreclosures used fake signatures on fake documents to speed up the foreclosure process. Some of them didn’t read what they were signing at all.”

Except for the fake signatures, that sounds like a pretty fair description of what the GAO found in its audit of the Department of Energy and the Loan Guarantee Program. With $30 billion in taxpayer money at risk, the DOE under Steven Chu didn’t bother to conduct the reviews it claimed it would on applications for loan guarantees, didn’t keep records of what reviews they did accomplish, and signed off on loans with incomplete documentation and inadequate oversight of the risk. The result — perhaps $6.5 billion immediately at risk, according to CBS, and possibly most of the $30 billion.

Be sure to read it all. This GAO report should have heads rolling at the Department of Energy, especially that of Professor Chu, who demonstrated the most extreme case of grade inflation yet seen.

Update: The Anchoress asks, “ remember when he wanted us all to paint our rooftops white, to save the planet?”



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Soul Crusher]

Time To Chu-se
Last Updated: 7:33 AM, March 18, 2012


Need a sure sign that rising gas prices are worrying the Obama White House?

Note last week’s public humiliation of Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Asked at a Senate hearing about his infamous 2008 statement that “somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe” — to force Americans off fossil fuels and into alternative energy — Chu meekly said: “I no longer share that view.”

He added: “Of course we don’t want the price of gasoline to go up, we want it to go down.”

But just one week before, in a House hearing, when asked if the “overall goal is to get our [gasoline] price down,” Chu responded: “No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil.”

What changed in a week? Gas prices heading north in the direction of $5 a gallon — and President Obama’s poll numbers heading precipitously south of 50%.

Now, it’s probably not entirely fair for voters to draw such comparisons; a lot of factors determine the price of a gallon of gasoline.

But fair doesn’t always count for a lot in politics.

And instead of blatant political posturing, it would be nice if the administration embraced policies that might help dampen long-term gas-price fluctuation — and leave America less vulnerable to the vagaries of Middle East turmoil.

But no sign of that happening.

Quite the contrary.

Earlier this month, the US Senate voted on legislation directing the administration to fast-track the Keystone XL pipeline Canada-to-Texas project.

The measure failed for one simple reason: President Obama twisted the arms of Democrats to convince them not to back it.

Previously, Obama blocked pipeline development in a sop to the environmental radicals who make up the Democratic base.

A Democratic-majority Senate passing legislation clearly repudiating this decision would have been a major election-year embarrassment.

Can’t have that, now, can we?

So the president throws in with the environmental extremists — at the expense of increased domestic-oil distribution.

And his energy secretary is forced to humiliate himself after naively revealing the administration’s true motives



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/time_to_chu_se_1SuATDjstTNvS9KDxiKhlK#ixzz1pZBZu247

[Soul Crusher]

March 20, 2012

Chu Gives Himself An "A" For Handling Higher Gas Prices

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/03/20/chu_gives_himself_an_a_for_handling_higher_gas_prices.html


Energy Sec. Chu during a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee gives himself an "A" grade on handling higher gas prices.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Cali.): "In controlling the cost of gasoline at the pump do you give yourself an 'A minus?'"

Secretary Chu: "Well, the tools we have at our disposal are limited, but I would say I would give myself a little higher in that since I became Secretary of Energy, I've been doing everything I can to get long-term solutions."

[Soul Crusher]

[Soul Crusher]

More Obama-backed Firms Fail But Enrich Their CEOs

__The USBC Wire-


http://www.usbcnews.com/more-obama-backed-firms-fail-but-enrich-their-ceos.html


Headlines were created by Solyndra, the green energy company touted by both President Obama and Vice-President Biden which declared bankruptcy within months of their photo-op visits to the business. However, that failure, which netted 17 executives payments from $74,000 to $120,000 just months before it collapsed, is only the tip of the iceberg.

Ener1, a subsidiary of EnerDel, a solar company which received a $118.5 million Energy Department grant in 2009, went bankrupt in January 2012. A little over a year before, the CEO and two executives received bonuses totaling $750,000. In March of 2011, Beacon Power, an energy storage company and recipient of $43 million in taxpayer funds, paid over $250,000 in bonuses to three executives. A year and a half later, Beacon filed for bankruptcy also. SpectraWatt, a New York manufacturer of solar cells, was awarded a $500,000 grant from the US Energy Department. In March of last year, the company laid off its workforce and ceased operations. Yet that same month, five executives were awarded bonuses totaling $750,000. Five months later, SpectraWatt filed for bankruptcy.

Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonprofit watchdog organization, has cataloged nearly 20 energy companies that received taxpayer funded loans or grants and then developed financial troubles ranging from layoffs to bankruptcies. More troubling however are campaign donation links between the Obama administration and the companies it gave loans to. The images created by CEOs benefits packages while companies go under  details have but a dent in the efforts of the administration to paint itself as transparent and corruption free.

[Soul Crusher]

Obama's Great Alaska ShutoutInterior bans drilling on 11.5 million acres of 'petroleum reserve.'
 WSJ ^ | October 14, 2012 | Staff

Posted on Monday, October 15, 2012 1:18:57 PM by Snuph

President Obama is campaigning as a champion of the oil and gas boom he's had nothing to do with, and even as his regulators try to stifle it. The latest example is the Interior Department's little-noticed August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

The area is called the National Petroleum Reserve because in 1976 Congress designated it as a strategic oil and natural gas stockpile to meet the "energy needs of the nation." Alaska favors exploration in nearly the entire reserve. The feds had been reviewing four potential development plans, and the state of Alaska had strongly objected to the most restrictive of the four. Sure enough, that was the plan Interior chose.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says his plan "will help the industry bring energy safely to market from this remote location, while also protecting wildlife and subsistence rights of Alaska Natives." He added that the proposal will expand "safe and responsible oil and gas development, and builds on our efforts to help companies develop the infrastructure that's needed to bring supplies online."

The problem is almost no one in the energy industry and few in Alaska agree with him. In an August 22 letter to Mr. Salazar, the entire Alaska delegation in Congress—Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski and Representative Don Young—call it "the largest wholesale land withdrawal and blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades." This decision, they add, "will cause serious harm to the economy and energy security of the United States, as well as to the state of Alaska." Mr. Begich is a Democrat.


(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...