I saw another headline this morning for a failing Green Energy company backed by federal loan guarantees. Like the now famous (and defunct) Solyndra solar panel manufacturer that soaked the Department of Energy for $500 million, Abound Solar only actually got $70 million of the $400 million in their guarantee before they went TU.
My question is this, “Are there any Green Energy manufacturing jobs that pencil out?” The President seems to be batting a thousand with his Green Energy failures and that can’t be good for the industry. I have to believe that there are businesses actually developing products that make sense while also meeting Green Energy standards but I’m having difficulty finding them.
In order to quiet his critics on this Green Energy problem, the President and his Department of Energy maven, Steven Chu should release a list of the successful businesses they’ve funded so the naysayers will go away.
I didn’t turn over too many rocks in my search, but Googling “Green Energy Success Stories” didn’t turn up any. It seems that all the news is bad.
Alternative energy sources that qualify under the Green Energy guidelines are generally thought of as solar, wind and maybe geothermal with a little dabbling in tidal energy potential and ocean wave energy.
There is no doubt that the sun shines a lot and the wind blows a lot but when you compare the cost of extracting that energy on a BTU basis there is no way they can compete with conventional sources of energy.
When President Obama was a candidate in 2008 he told us about his plan and how it would affect us all. He said “by necessity, energy costs will have to rise.” I doubt you would have expected gasoline prices to double or triple in four years or to see the market price for electricity increase to twelve or fifteen cents per KWH when we’ve customarily paid six cents.
Most of us would be happy if a source of energy were available that heated our homes, operated our businesses and fueled our cars cheaply while meeting ever increasingly stringent government regulations but with the technology available today, that is just not possible.
As consumers, we need to decide what our priority is; affordable energy supplied by American coal, American hydro-electric, American nuclear and American oil or expensive “alternative” energy driven up by mindless government regulation.
This consumer is in favor of a “best management practices” approach. If we agree we want to pursue all options but in order to keep prices lower to minimize financial impacts to families we favor coal, oil, nuclear and hydro as the preferred sources and apply cost/benefit analysis to regulations to see if the benefits justify the cost increase then we can move ahead sensibly.
The government regulators today give no consideration to fiscal impacts when they propose new regulation.
When I was an elected official many years ago, I proposed to my city council that along with all the normal mumbo jumbo fed to us in agenda bills there be a modest fiscal impact analysis so as we contemplated the merits of a piece of legislation we could also understand if it created a financial burden upon one party or another. Staff was not in favor and ended up defeating my proposal because it created too much of a burden on what was said to be an already over-worked staff.
Regardless of what we are told, every piece of legislation passed by every government body carries with it a financial burden. In the case of my proposal, the burden would be borne by city staff to the benefit of the public. Shot down! In cases where the burden is shifted to non-voters or numerically small impact group members, all the better since they can’t kick me out of office. In cases where the burden ends up being just another layer of government regulation creating taxes or fees paid by everyday citizens, the message sold is that it’s for the “greater good.” It had to be done!
Elected officials like to pass legislation but they don’t like to take responsibility for the financial impacts to their constituents. If there is a compelling reason to pass a new law, at least determine who will be expected to pay for it and whether it’s fair for them to be hung with the bill.
The alternative energy supporters would have us believe that if we don’t do something radical right now the world will come to an end. Level headed thinkers agree that we should be making efforts to minimize environmental impacts of existing energy sources but not at the expense of the industry. When the government prevents the private sector from mining coal at all, the country suffers a catastrophic increase in the cost of energy and the loss of jobs. When the government prevents the drilling for oil or building of refineries the country suffers a catastrophic increase in the cost of energy and the loss of jobs.
If the government gave you the choice between the electric power rates of 5 cents per kilowatt hour or 12 cents per kilowatt hour which one would you choose?
Or if the choice was gasoline for $2.00 per gallon or $5.00 per gallon which one would you choose?
Those are choices that have already been made for you by your elected officials and a lot more unelected bureaucrats/regulators. They have chosen the more expensive options because someone decided it was okay for all of us to get hammered to benefit narrowly defined interest groups.
If you were given the choice of saving the spotted owl or having less expensive building materials which one would you prefer?
Alternatives always come at a cost and the government needs to take into consideration the hidden taxes they levy when they drive up the cost of commodities by implementing marginally effective government regulations.
The President and the Green Movement are so desperate for their agenda they are taxing our whole country to death to achieve it.
The reason the Green Energy companies fail is because they don’t produce a competitive product. The demand for their product is driven by government mandate and not the fact that it makes sense to the average consumer.
Develop a fuel cell that can replace the gasoline engine in my car for the same selling price and competitive fuel rates and I’m there. Until then, throwing government money at a loser of an idea is a loser of an idea.
Bad Government Happens when Good Men do Nothing!
by Steve DanaWhat we saw over the week-end was a demonstration that John Boehner is no different than Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. They apparently think it’s okay to create significant legislation without input from their members in secret. It makes it hard to have confidence in Boehner as Speaker of the House of Representatives to do the right thing. He’s no better than Harry or Nancy.
The fact that Boehner and Reid may have conspired to create bad legislations is secondary to the real problem; elected officials failed to follow their own rules required to pass legislation.
The Congress in both houses has a committee structure that is designed to promote public review and member debate on the merits of proposed legislation. One of the desirable aspects of our government is the requirement that the actions be deliberative. Nobody likes to have to pass it before we learn what’s in it.
And yet, the “elite” leadership in the House (from both parties) did conspire with Senate Majority Leader Reid to craft legislation authorizing government spending of more than a Trillion Dollars without the opportunity for members of either party to even know what they were being asked to vote on.
In his wisdom, Speaker Boehner recognized that his caucus was not united in support of his plan so he enlisted the special interests of the Democrat opposition to cobble together enough votes to pass a bad bill to the Senate where outgoing Senate Majority Leader Reid faced a similar struggle assembling enough votes from both sides of the aisle to slip it past the Senate and the rest of us. With the help of “incentives” they were successful.
I think what I object to at the base level is the use of omnibus legislation period. I don’t like the idea of special interest combined bills that sell good government down the river for the votes of pork barrel voters.
I’m wondering what all the congressional budget committees have been working on if they aren’t the ones that proposed the bill that was passed so quickly. I’m wondering how the House Committee Chairs that attached riders to a budget bill without debate in their committees.
Being a supporter of the Republican side of the process, I am not encouraged with the performance of my guys. I got nothing. I am not pleased with the underhanded tactics employed by Boehner and McCarthy. If this is the leadership my party is proposing for the coming year, I’m not feeling too good.
One of the reasons American voters turned out the D’s in the fall elections was a lack of transparency. That would be the decision making in secret without member debate and public observation. That would be flat out lying to us.
Early in my public service career, my mentor Kelly Robinson taught me the importance of process in government. The absolute need to develop public processes that insure participation by all parties (and I don’t mean political parties) so that the collaborative outcome has legitimacy. I didn’t say fair or just, I did say legitimate since fairness or justness are fleeting. If we agree on rules we operate under in advance then we should be legit; the caveat being suspension of the rules because of “emergency”. Think about how many times your elected officials told you they needed to respond to the emergency which allows them to suspend their own rules and their accountability.
We elect these full time legislators and pay them handsome salaries with benefits to do the business of government and yet they are constantly working in “emergency” mode. What’s with that? If they weren’t in “recess” all the time they might get something done.
As unfortunate as it might be, Jonathan Gruber was right; the American public is stupid. And for my team, the conservatives, the leadership within the Beltway is in full agreement with him. The term “political elite” applies to both parties. Sadly, the thought that our elected officials are there to serve us is just not true. After a single term in office, the establishment determines whether a newcomer is suitable for membership in the club (that is a team player) and with that almost a guaranteed job for life serving the club and not the constituents that repeatedly elect them.
I am challenged to defend Republicans for their behavior and decisions by people I meet in my community. I have always said that the further from the constituents an elected official works, the less they feel obligated to those constituents and the poorer the quality of government. I know that when we do our homework and know what is in the hearts of our candidates by their past deeds (and to a lesser extent their words) we can decide whether to send them to a government job far, far away. It’s character, honesty and morality that will define their service.
I don’t like it when our elected officials fail to do their jobs and the result is threatening to “shut down” the government. I guess if you fail to do your job, you are in continual emergency mode.
Leadership is one of the qualities we expect in every candidate we elect. I can’t think of a position where the candidate doesn’t talk about his leadership qualities. What I am seeing in our federal government is a failure of leadership at every level. I don’t have much confidence that many of the 537 elected officials in Washington DC are working on my behalf.
I don’t want the government to shut down, I want everyone on the job who should be on the job. That includes those elected officials on the job, doing their jobs. I don’t want my congress woman to tell me that she is not part of the leadership and she can’t control the agenda. I want her to stand up in the House and demand that she and her colleagues be included in the process of government. If that means she’s rattling the cage, so be it. Edmund Burke hit the nail on the head when he said “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing.” Bad government can only happen if good men and women choose to let it happen.
I guess if you are corrupt then being silent makes perfect sense. I’m coming to the conclusion that since so many of them are silent, they must be of questionable character if they are not corrupt.
The burden of good government starts with each and every one of us holding our elected officials accountable by not being silent. Like I said, evil can only prevail if good men and women do nothing.
Regardless of your political point of view, I encourage you to start looking at what your government is doing to you. Not for you, but to you. Government is not serving the people and longer, we are serving the government. I’m sorry, but our Constitution specifically doesn’t provide for that. Please join me as we begin the process of holding our government accountable by not being silent.
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