Obama Administration Caught Redistributing Stimulus Dollars to Chinese Solar Firms
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Watch Now: EPA Gives Grants To China While it Closes U.S. Coal Plants: Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) Questions EPA About Grants to China for Coal Production
Watch video of Congressional hearing here. — (Note: The U.S. government also purchased Chinese solar panels for federal buildings. See here.)
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA): ‘We are taking money out of the pockets of the mines in U.S. while we are giving money to help the Chinese mines figure out their problems…We lost another 620 minters laid off in my district in one small town alone. We are helping the Chinese figure out how to – it’s technical assessment of coal mine gas recovery and utilization in China. The Chinese don’t seem to have any trouble competing with us on all kinds of different levels and I don’t understand why we are giving them grants to help them in their industries.’
Rep. Griffith to EPA official: “Have you given any $180,000 grants to U.S. mines to help them with this same type of thing? Yes or no? Have you given any grants of the similar size 180k or more to U.S. mining concerns in regards to helping them mine coal?
EPA official: “I do not know.” (Watch video here for full statements)
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Related Links:
Watch Now: Climate Depot’s Morano on Fox News on Fed stimulus bill money improperly used to buy Chinese solar panels for federal building — Morano: ‘It’s a classic government boondoggle…Renewables are not going to power the U.S. or China. …There is $250 billion spent globally; This money is going to produce 3% of electricity worldwide’ (More on China solar panels here.)
Analysis: ‘The global solar power industry is in crisis. The industry blames widespread national subsidy cuts & over productivity; China, in particular, being widely vilified’ — ‘Commercial scale solar energy remains a non-viable proposition’ — ‘Govt incentive schemes have created a glut of suppliers that capitalist free market would never have sanctioned…Given enormous govt subsidies there was literally no incentive to slow production down. In game of who could sustain massive public subsidy longest, cash-rich China clearly won. But the sun looks to be setting on China’s solar industry, too’
Report: Stimulus bill money improperly used to buy Chinese solar panels for federal building — ‘According to a report by the inspector general of the General Services Administration, taxpayer dollars from the federal stimulus bill were used to purchase Chinese solar panels for a federal building in Illinois. This was, the IG notes, in violation of the …
Walter Russell Mead: ‘GOP Dropping the Ball on Energy Debate?’
As the Economist‘s Lexington columnist notes, neither candidate has yet shown that he has a clear grasp of what U.S. energy policy should look like. Obama’s policies, in particular leave much to be desired:
For the most part, however, America’s good fortune has come despite the unqualified failure of Mr Obama’s most cherished policies on energy. The cap-and-trade scheme he wanted to adopt to cut greenhouse-gas emissions evaporated in the febrile air of Congress. The enthusiasm he shared with George W. Bush for biofuels made from agricultural waste rather than crops has also proved misplaced. Refiners are in theory still required to mix fixed quantities of “cellulosic ethanol” into their wares but are finding it tricky to do so, as no one is making any.
Talk of building a power plant that runs on “clean coal” has, as yet, come to naught. Mr Obama’s once relentless boosting of renewable energy and green jobs has become a political liability, thanks to the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a maker of solar panels on which his administration lavished money and attention. Meanwhile, even if Mr Obama did not actively oppose the shale-gas boom, he did little to promote it either.
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Energy Department Touts Solar Power That Generates 0.14% of Electricity
‘Coal provided 36.4 percent of June’s output, with natural gas supplying another 32.1 percent. By comparison, wind generation stood at 3.2 percent of the month’s overall total.’
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Analysis: Obama Policies Making US More Dependent on Persian Gulf Oil
Excerpt: The Obama Administration is touting that our “dependence on foreign oil has gone down every year during the Obama Administration, including a reduction in net oil imports by ten percent—or one million barrels a day—in the last year alone.” While good news, this trend is happening not because of policies or actions taken by the Obama administration, but because of 1) a poor economy and high oil prices resulting in a lower demand for oil, 2) an increase in oil production on private and state lands (not federal lands) due to less bureaucratic red tape in leasing and permitting on private and state lands, and 3) an increase in biofuel (mainly ethanol) production due to the mandates from the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
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Actions the Obama Administration Can Take
Approve the Keystone Pipeline. Four years ago, TransCanada proposed the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline to bring more oil from Canada to the United States. After years of study, the State Department has yet to decide whether or not to approve the pipeline. Because the pipeline crosses the U.S.-Canadian border, the State Department must decide whether the pipeline is in the “national interest.” Reducing our overseas imports of oil should be in our national interest as should be the pipeline’s economic benefits on both sides of the border. For example, its construction is expected create 20,000 jobs and states along the route are projected to receive an additional $5.2 billion in property tax revenue. U.S. companies are invested in Canadian oil sands and many of our businesses supply goods and services for the oil sands projects in Canada.
Canada has 175 billion barrels of proved oil reserves that can be produced now and moved to U.S. refineries via the Keystone pipeline. If the pipeline had been approved when submitted, more oil could be flowing into this country in the very near future. Canadian oil is a secure oil supply, as Canada is our friend and ally, and largest trading partner.
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A recent study found that the U.S. could come close to producing enough new oil and natural gas to displace all non-North American imports within 15 years. The study, by energy consultants Wood Mackenzie, assumed oil drilling would be allowed off the currently prohibited areas of the East and West Coasts, in waters off Florida’s Gulf Coast, in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, …