Mon, January 17, 2011
The Great "Climate Change" Taxpayer Rip-Off of 2011 By Alan Caruba
Unless I am seriously mistaken or misinformed, the rate of unemployment in the U.S. remains high and the foreclosure rate on homes is approaching the level of the Depression years. Two major bond rating companies, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s just warned that, if the federal government doesn’t stop spending and borrowing, America’s Triple-A highest ranking will be down-graded.
Along with all the other things in the federal budget wish list for 2011 are millions to be spent on climate change.
It helps to understand how obscene this is if you pause to consider (1) there is not one damn thing anyone can do about climate change, (2) climate change has been researched and studied since the late 1980s, enough to fill an entire wing of the Congressional Library to hold all the reports, and (3) the only climate change Americans really need to know about is what the weather will be tomorrow.
With a tip of the hat to Climatequotes.com and the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) report on “research development, fiscal year 2011”, let me share just a few of the ways the Obama administration intends to squander your money.
The magic number is $2,481,000 and it represents specific amounts devoted to "climate change" research or other programs requested for the 2011 budgets by an alphabet soup of federal agencies that include the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, Department of Energy (DOE), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of the Interior (DOI), and the Department of Agriculture (DOA).
The figures cited all come from chapter 15 of the AAAS report and you can access it via Climatequotes.com
NOAA’s total budget request is for $5.6 billion, an increase of 17%. It intends to devote $437 million for climate research funding, an increase of $77 million over last year.
Over at the National Science Foundation (NSF), its budget of $7.4 billion (that’s a lot of science!) includes a request for $480 million for Atmospheric and Earth Sciences, $765.5 million for NSF’s Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability program and $19 million for a joint program with DOE “to promote education in clean energy research. An additional $10 million would fund “Climate Change Education” in the nation’s schools. It’s not education, it’s indoctrination.
The Department of Energy which currently is projecting that permits for deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico won’t be forthcoming until, maybe, June. DOE seems oblivious to the fact that the price of oil is set to hit $100 a barrel and higher costs will hit everyone driving anything using gasoline or diesel fuel. Fuel oil prices will rise and any business that uses oil or anything made with oil will be forced to raise its prices. In short, everything.
DOE, however, is in no hurry and, of course, the Obama administration is dead set against ANWR or off-shore exploration and extraction of the BILLIONS of barrels of crude oil projected to exist.
However, DOE is set to receive $28.4 billion in 2011 and that includes $4.6 billion for research and development in its Office of Science and $2.4 billion for energy research and development. Its Office of Biological and Environmental Research is devoted to atmospheric science, including “climate modeling”, which would be allocated $627 million. Last time I checked, oil, coal, and natural gas were not found in the “atmosphere”, but rather were extracted from deep within the Earth.
The entire global warming hoax was and is based on “climate modeling”, all of which consistently found that the Earth was warming at an alarming rate. Except that the Earth is NOT warming. It has been cooling since 1998. And DOE intends to waste $627 million on more modeling. It is worth noting that the most sophisticated models of the National Weather Bureau still cannot predict with any confidence what the weather—not the climate—will be next week.
The Environmental Protection Agency, gearing up to regulate all utilities that produce carbon dioxide and all other industries that do the same, has zero authorization to do so under the Clean Air Act. It is CO2 that is designated by the warmists as the chief culprit for the global warming that is NOT happening.
Despite this, EPA has requested $169 million “to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”, with $43.5 million in new funding for “regulatory efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” through the Clean Air Act. And it wants $22 million for its Global Change Research Program. It is time to shut down this rogue agency before it totally destroys the economy.
Even the Department of Agriculture wants $159 million for “climate change research”, an increase of 42% and $179 million for renewable energy, to “help farmers.” Farmers are heavy users of fossil fuels to operate the machinery needed to till, plant, and harvest crops. They need reliable energy, not "renewable" energy.
The Recovery Act of 2009 has managed to blow more than $600 million on climate change research and billions on greenhouse gas mitigation.
This is just the tip of the ‘climate change’ rip-off in terms of billions wasted or soon to be wasted on “research” that can only be deemed an obscene diversion of taxpayer money that will not benefit a single taxpayer, generate any new jobs except for those in government agencies, and further bankrupt a bankrupted nation about to have its credit rating reduced.
The “scientists”, “regulators”, and “administrators” feasting off this federal largess should be handed a shovel to earn a living on one of those “shovel ready” projects we were told about.
Beyond that, if Congress was really intent on cutting back on spending, they could begin by defunding or shutting down the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and all the other federal grifters with their snouts rooting around in the climate change trough.
© Alan Caruba, 2011
http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/article/great-climate-change-taxpayer-rip-2011
Showing posts with label Climate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Climate. Show all posts
Monday, January 17, 2011
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Final Report from Cancun - COP 16
From Cathie Adams
December 11, 2010
U.N. Agrees on a Process to Design the Global Taxing Scheme
Cancun, Mexico’s record-setting low temperature during the “global warming” conference did not cool the “hot air” at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Conference of the Parties 16.
At 5:18 a.m. on Saturday, December 11, Mexican President Felipe Calderón proclaimed the meeting a success and announced next year’s confab in Durban, South Africa. That meeting will be another step on their way to a “legally-binding” document they hope to produce in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2012, a.k.a. Rio+20 signifying 20 years since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.
Key elements of the Cancun Agreement include:
• President Obama’s commitment in Copenhagen last year to reduce greenhouse gases by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 is now officially recognized by the U.N. The U.S. is to create a low-carbon development plan and strategy, and assess how they plan to meet them, including through market mechanisms, then to report their inventories annually to the U.N. It is incredulous for the U.N. to demand that a sovereign nation pass laws to fit the U.N.’s political agenda, but that is essentially what they did! In light of the November 2nd elections, “cap & trade/tax” legislation that would destroy the American economy while having a negligible impact on the environment, is unlikely to pass. But we must remain vigilant concerning the president’s abuse of Executive Orders and the Environmental Protection Agency to implement the unscientific radical environmental agenda.
• Poor countries’ actions to reduce emissions will also be officially recognized by the U.N. and a registry will be set up to record and match developing country mitigation actions to finance and technology support from rich countries. Poor countries must publish progress reports every two years.
• Parties meeting under the Kyoto Protocol (the U.S. is not a party) must continue negotiations with the aim of completing their work and ensuring there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods of the treaty. The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanisms were strengthened to drive more major investments and technologies to the developing world.
* A set of new initiatives and institutions were launched to deploy money and technology for poor countries to plan and build their own sustainable futures.
* Added to the Cancun Agreement are the $30 billion Fast Start Fund by 2012 and the $100 billion annual Green Fund by 2020 that President Obama committed to last year in Copenhagen.
* A process was established to design the $100 billion Green Climate Fund under the Conference of the Parties, with a board that equally represents rich and poor countries. The design will probably be for a tax on international shipping and aviation.
http://sovereignty.net/
December 11, 2010
U.N. Agrees on a Process to Design the Global Taxing Scheme
Cancun, Mexico’s record-setting low temperature during the “global warming” conference did not cool the “hot air” at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Conference of the Parties 16.
At 5:18 a.m. on Saturday, December 11, Mexican President Felipe Calderón proclaimed the meeting a success and announced next year’s confab in Durban, South Africa. That meeting will be another step on their way to a “legally-binding” document they hope to produce in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2012, a.k.a. Rio+20 signifying 20 years since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.
Key elements of the Cancun Agreement include:
• President Obama’s commitment in Copenhagen last year to reduce greenhouse gases by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 is now officially recognized by the U.N. The U.S. is to create a low-carbon development plan and strategy, and assess how they plan to meet them, including through market mechanisms, then to report their inventories annually to the U.N. It is incredulous for the U.N. to demand that a sovereign nation pass laws to fit the U.N.’s political agenda, but that is essentially what they did! In light of the November 2nd elections, “cap & trade/tax” legislation that would destroy the American economy while having a negligible impact on the environment, is unlikely to pass. But we must remain vigilant concerning the president’s abuse of Executive Orders and the Environmental Protection Agency to implement the unscientific radical environmental agenda.
• Poor countries’ actions to reduce emissions will also be officially recognized by the U.N. and a registry will be set up to record and match developing country mitigation actions to finance and technology support from rich countries. Poor countries must publish progress reports every two years.
• Parties meeting under the Kyoto Protocol (the U.S. is not a party) must continue negotiations with the aim of completing their work and ensuring there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods of the treaty. The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanisms were strengthened to drive more major investments and technologies to the developing world.
* A set of new initiatives and institutions were launched to deploy money and technology for poor countries to plan and build their own sustainable futures.
* Added to the Cancun Agreement are the $30 billion Fast Start Fund by 2012 and the $100 billion annual Green Fund by 2020 that President Obama committed to last year in Copenhagen.
* A process was established to design the $100 billion Green Climate Fund under the Conference of the Parties, with a board that equally represents rich and poor countries. The design will probably be for a tax on international shipping and aviation.
http://sovereignty.net/
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
ALERT-- CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES: OPPOSE S1733: Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act
S1733: Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act
This is the so-called Kerry-Boxer bill that proposes a cap and trade regime and would require emissions curbs of 20 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050.
BP has been involved in the writing of this bill. The administration and liberal Congress are using the BP oil spill to their advantage and to advance their agenda.
Why You Should Oppose the “American Power Act”:
• The Legislation includes a “Fuels’ Fee” that is in fact a $.27 Tax per Gallon of Gasoline
• The Bill is really just another Cap and Trade Scheme in disguise.
• It’s a jobs killer in the industrial Midwest and across the country.
• It’s an energy tax, hitting the poor and middleclass the hardest.
• It creates a brand new government slush fund for Washington to spend.
• It’s the largest tax increase ever.
• It will needlessly export more American jobs to China, India and other countries.
• It will do nothing to impact global climate temperatures.
Below are related bills and resolutions H.R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Passed House) and H.R. 2998: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Introduced). For more information, see Climate Change Legislation: Where Does it Stand?
http://www.govtrackinsider.com/articles/2010-04-27/climate-change
This is the so-called Kerry-Boxer bill that proposes a cap and trade regime and would require emissions curbs of 20 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050.
BP has been involved in the writing of this bill. The administration and liberal Congress are using the BP oil spill to their advantage and to advance their agenda.
Why You Should Oppose the “American Power Act”:
• The Legislation includes a “Fuels’ Fee” that is in fact a $.27 Tax per Gallon of Gasoline
• The Bill is really just another Cap and Trade Scheme in disguise.
• It’s a jobs killer in the industrial Midwest and across the country.
• It’s an energy tax, hitting the poor and middleclass the hardest.
• It creates a brand new government slush fund for Washington to spend.
• It’s the largest tax increase ever.
• It will needlessly export more American jobs to China, India and other countries.
• It will do nothing to impact global climate temperatures.
Below are related bills and resolutions H.R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Passed House) and H.R. 2998: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Introduced). For more information, see Climate Change Legislation: Where Does it Stand?
http://www.govtrackinsider.com/articles/2010-04-27/climate-change
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