LOCKED IN THE CABINET

Steven Chu is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, a brilliant innovator whose research fills several all-but-incomprehensible paragraphs of a Wikipedia entry that spans his achievements in single-molecule physics, the slowing of atoms through the use of lasers and the invention of something called an “optical tweezer.” President Barack Obama even credits Chu with solving the 2010 Gulf oil spill, claiming that Chu strolled into BP’s office and “essentially designed the cap that ultimately worked.” With rare exception, Chu is the smartest guy in the room, and that includes the Cabinet Room, which he occupied uneasily as secretary of energy from 2009 to the spring of 2013.

But the president’s aides didn’t quite see Chu that way. He might have been the only Obama administration official with a Nobel other than the president himself, but inside the West Wing of the White House Chu was considered a smart guy who said lots of stupid things, a genius with an appallingly low political IQ—“clueless,” as deputy chief of staff Jim Messina would tell colleagues at the time.

In April 2009, Chu joined Obama’s entourage for one of the administration’s first overseas trips, to Trinidad and Tobago for a Summit of the Americas focused on economic development. Chu was not scheduled to address the media, but reporters kept bugging Josh Earnest, a young staffer, who sheepishly approached his boss, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, with the ask. “No way,” Gibbs told him.

Via: Politico

Continue Reading.... 

Rules that could 'kill'? Safety, cost concerns over EPA's new coal regs

New clean-energy rules pushed through by the Obama administration are raising concerns that they could cripple the coal industry -- and may require power plants to use technology so risky that even the president's former top energy official once warned it could "kill."

The EPA, by Friday, is expected to release a new proposal to set the first-ever carbon dioxide limits for new power plants. 

To meet those emissions caps, power plants would likely have to use what is known as "carbon-capture technology," which involves burying the carbon underground. 

The technology, which is still under development, remains expensive and not commercially available. But there are lingering safety risks. 

Steven Chu, who served until recently as President Obama's energy secretary, cautioned in a 2007 talk sponsored by the Berkeley Lab in California that the process could be dangerous and bring legal challenges -- as well as additional costs -- for the companies involved. 

Though he said the carbon would be stable in the long-term, the chief concern would be that in its initial state "as a big bubble of gas," it might leak to the surface. He seemed to describe those concerns as legitimate. 

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading....

Ahead Of Election, Obama Stops Releasing “Stimulus” Bill Reports As Required By Law…

The $831,000,000,000 economic “stimulus” that President Obama spearheaded and signed into law requires his administration to release quarterly reports on its effects.  But “the most transparent administration in the history of our country” is now four reports behind schedule and has so far not released any reports whatsoever in 2012.  Its most recent quarterly report is for the quarter than ended on June 30, 2011.

One wonders how the administration would treat a private citizen who acted like such a scofflaw in response to one of Obama’s principal legislative initiatives.  It certainly appears that this administration, which is so very fond of regulating Americans’ lives — witness the 13,000 pages of Obamacare regulations it has already penned — doesn’t hold itself accountable to the same set of rules that it’s so eager to compel the American people to obey.

Section 1513 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the “stimulus”) explicitly states, “In consultation with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisers shall submit quarterly reports to the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate and House of Representatives that detail the impact of programs funded through covered funds on employment, estimated economic growth, and other key economic indicators.”  (The head of the Council of Economic Advisors, currently Alan Krueger, is appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate, and works within the Executive Office of the President.  He is the president’s chief economic adviser.)

Indeed, the old reports that the administration released begin, “As part of the unprecedented accountability and transparency provisions included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) was charged with providing to Congress quarterly reports on the effects of the Recovery Act on overall economic activity, and on employment in particular.” 

Section 1513 of the ARRA further specifies, “The first report…shall be submitted not later than 45 days after the end of the first full quarter following the date of enactment of this Act….The last report required to be submitted…shall apply to the quarter in which the [Recovery Accountability and Transparency] Board terminates under section 1530.”  Section 1530 declares, “The Board shall terminate on September 30, 2013.” 

Via: Weekly Standard

Continue Reading...

DOE loan chief warned staff that personal e-mail could be subpoenaed

Tuesday, the Washington Post reported on documents showing that Jonathan Silver, the former head of the Department of Energy’s $38 billion clean-energy loan guarantee program, directed a staff member not to use personal e-mail addresses in official DOE correspondence in order to prevent personal accounts from becoming eligible for government subpoena — and did so a matter of days before the now-failed, $500-million-loan-recipient solar company Solyndra went bankrupt.

“Don’t ever send an email on doe email with a personal email addresses,” Silver wrote Aug. 21, 2011, from his personal account to a program official’s private Gmail account. “That makes them subpoenable.” …

Silver repeatedly communicated about internal and sensitive loan decisions via his personal e-mail, the newly released records show, and more than a dozen other Energy Department staff members used their personal e-mail to discuss decisions involving taxpayer-funded loans as well. The Washington Post received the e-mails from Republican investigators on the committee. …

Silver said Tuesday that he did not mean to avoid congressional scrutiny. “I intended to advise my DOE colleagues to use their official email for official purposes and personal email for personal purposes,” he said in a statement. “It was never my intention to avoid the requirements of the Federal Records Act.”

…The White House and Chu have repeatedly asserted that the Energy Department staff made all loan decisions based on merit, without regard to politics or donors. …

Silver wrote on June 12, 2011, to David Lane, counsel to White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, arguing that approving a loan to a solar-generation facility called Project Amp would help Obama politically.

Despite Silver’s protestations, this all looks more than a little bit sketchy. Perhaps instead of worrying over how to avoid making loan-related correspondence subject to Congressional subpoena, maybe they should have been worrying about — oh, I don’t know — not doing things that would make a Congressional subpoena cause for alarm?

Via: Hot Air

Continue Reading...

What's next Mr. President ?

Have you read the recent newspaper headlines Mr. President? If you have not, let me give you the highlights. We start with $14.3 million for retraining former Solyndra employees. Who was the one that approved that loan? You’re Department of Energy with Secretary Steven Chu at the helm. What a shock it went bankrupt and “We the People” lost $535 million. This next story looks interesting.  Super committee fails and where were you Mr. President during this time.  You were on one of your campaign bus trips disguised as a presidential event to talk about more plans but you never quite get to the real problems.  You are traveling to Hawaii and to foreign countries where you knock our education system and apologize about America’s shortcomings instead of our exceptionalism.  Let’s see?  Who runs the Department of Education? Another one of your socialist friends (Secretary Arne Duncan) and you wonder why our education system is in such disarray.

As we move on we see your $447 billion jobs bill that you said repeatedly "pass it now" "we can't wait". Well Mr. President this is not how to stimulate the economy. And to continue, your friend Jon Corzine is missing $1.7 billion of his client’s money . Did you not ask him for economic advice when you were first elected? He certainly knows how spend others money. Is that how you decided to spend the money “We the People” gave you in taxes, and not be held accountable again?  Leading by example you spend millions more of our tax dollars for travel and a Democrat Congressman is using constituent’s campaign funds for trips to weddings. This is what you call leading?

As we continue on we see that the debt reached $15 trillion last week.  Most people can’t comprehend this because they are too busy living in poverty which is now over 15%, and this includes some of the 47 million people now depending on food stamps to eat.  The unemployed continue to search for those non-existent jobs that you promised when you passed your first stimulus plan. Where are the jobs Mr. President?  The next headline has to be my favorite and it just reads “In Michigan, ObamaCare is already a job Killer”.  Where are the 800,000 new jobs that you promised when you signed this bill? And we will never forget those words uttered by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “We have to pass the bill so that we can find out what is in it.  And the newest statement by Pelosi who “wants to do for child care what we did for health care”.

In all fairness Mr. President we sometimes get jobs that are way over our heads and it’s nothing to be ashamed of if you can’t handle it.  If this is truly the case there are plenty of community organizer’s positions currently available in your home town of Chicago.  I hope that you are able to find a position that is better suited for you.

One more item that is important for the American people to ask themselves, what did Chris Mathews mean when he asked Obama, “Just tell us, commander. Give us our orders and tell us where we’re going. Give us the mission.”  This sums up your presidency all too clearly. What’s next Mr. President.