Coal energy powers the small Colorado town of Craig — quite literally. The community relies on the energy produced at the Craig Station plant to keep the lights on and the economy moving.

New regulations, however, threaten the community’s prosperity. Colorado imposed a renewable energy mandate that stipulates 30 percent of energy production must come from wind, solar and other renewable sources by 2020.

“Society cannot have reliable power based on when the wind blows and/or when the sun shines,” said Rick Johnson, plant manager at Craig Station, in a new video about the town’s plight.

Johnson oversees the 1,311-megawatt Craig Station plant, one of the largest coal-fired power plants in America. To illustrate his point, Johnson notes in the video the drastic difference in megawatts produced by coal energy compared to renewable sources.

The Cimarron Solar Facility in New Mexico, for example, has a capacity to produce 30 megawatts. The Kit Carson Windpower Project in Colorado has a capacity of 51 megawatts. Neither plant was operating even close to that capacity during filming of the video.

Heritage’s Nick Loris, an expert on energy policy, warned that additional regulations would ultimately mean higher electricity prices for consumers and economic consequences.

“Coal-fired electricity provides nearly half of America with affordable, reliable electricity generation but environmental activists have been intent on significantly reducing that percentage,” Loris said. “Adopted, proposed and pending regulations that are both expensive and stand on a weak scientific foundation would significantly increase compliance costs for existing coal plants, and make it more difficult to build new coal plants, increasing the cost of electricity and destroying jobs.”

Aside from producing energy, the Craig Station plant offers other benefits to the community. It employees more than 300 people and helps generate revenue for other businesses in the area — like so many other energy companies in Colorado.

Some of those businesses are already suffering as energy companies, facing Colorado’s new regulations, look elsewhere to invest their resources. Revenue at the local Best Western Hotel is down significantly, forcing the owners to lay off workers for the first time.

“Really what’s happening in Colorado is this perfect storm of federal regulations hammering down on the energy industry and state regulations that are having a tremendous impact on the cost of electricity,” said Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research. “This is happening in places all around the country where we see this attack on the very energy sources that have powered our economy and made this engine run.”

An examination of “administrative earmarks” around the time of congressional votes on key pieces of President Obama’s agenda suggests the White House used its power to fund local projects as a means to “buy” votes for major legislative efforts.

Administrative earmarking refers to the federal government’s allocation of funds from its discretionary budget for specific projects. The practice is less transparent than legislative earmarking, since, according to the Congressional Research Service, “[t]here is no source that defines and comprehensively identifies Administrative earmarks.”

But an analysis of grants from agencies during the early years of the Obama administration shows that the districts of moderate Democrats, whose support was so crucial for Obama during the 111th Congress, received large sums right around the passage of three key pieces of legislation: Obamacare, Dodd-Frank financial regulations, and the cap-and-trade bill.

During the run-up to votes in the House of Representatives for each of those pieces of legislation, the rate of administrative earmarking spiked. This chart shows the number of grants requested by 12 federal agencies, as documented at Grants.gov.

The number of grants given by those agencies spiked precisely when the House was considering each of the three pieces of legislation.

Even more troubling: during the same time periods, significant grant money went to the districts of numerous Democratic representatives who looked to face tough battles for re-election. The legislation Obama was attempting to get through Congress was generally unpopular, and vulnerable members needed other ways to appeal to constituents. Federal grants made for a perfect opportunity.

Then-Rep. Chris Carney (D-PA), for instance, kept his support for Dodd-Frank quiet. His website never posted a press release announcing his “yes” vote on the bill. It did, however, tout two federal grants totaling $3.6 million for businesses in his district two days before the Dodd-Frank vote.

Then-Rep. Zach Space (D-OH) hailed from a district reliant on the coal industry, which would have been hit particularly hard by cap and trade. He voted for the measure, but neglected to publicize the vote on his website. He did, however, announce eight federal grants totaling roughly $1.8 million all made during the month before the House passed cap and trade.

At least 32 vulnerable House Democrats received significant federal grant money in the periods leading up to or directly after their votes on at least one of these three pieces of legislation (see charts below), raising concerns that those grants may have been used either to encourage or reward votes in favor of the administration’s position.

The use of administrative earmarks to “buy votes” is not new. President Richard Nixon saw the practice as “a way to gain political support for Nixon’s re-election by using federal resources and grants to influence key states and voting blocs.”

President Franklin Roosevelt was an early pioneer of the political use of administrative earmarking. He “deliver[ed] large defense projects to key states whose electoral votes he wanted to secure,” according to historian Burt Folsom.

But while administrative earmarking is a practice used by nearly every administration, CRS found in a report published in April 2010 — immediately after the time period at issue — that “[b]oth the number and value of earmarks requested solely by the President increased since FY2008.” The number of earmarks had increased by 54 percent, CRS found, while the value of those requests had increased by a whopping 126 percent.

The timing of those requests also suggests political factors at play. Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Elections Commissioner, said the administration’s actions “show how taxpayer funds are used for crass political purposes — it is a rank abuse of the government’s power and another sign of this administration’s lack of a moral compass.”

While speculating on the motives of individuals responsible for these grants is difficult, this administration has a history of using its powers for political purposes. In the case of “vote-buying” in particular, the administration offered to expand Medicaid funding to residents of Louisiana and Nebraska to the tune of roughly $145 million to secure the votes of Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) for the Obamacare bill.

One year ago all eyes were on Wisconsin as labor unions stormed the Capitol building in Madison to protest Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget reforms.

Heritage sent a team to cover the demonstrations. We’re showcasing our myth vs. fact video again today, one year later, given the ongoing debate over Walker’s plan.

While there’s not nearly the hysteria of one year ago, Walker now faces the prospect of losing his job in a recall election later his year.

During a recent speech at CPAC, Walker defended his reforms as a prudent step in response to a growing budget deficit. The results haven’t led to the draconian steps predicted by unions one year ago.

“Our most powerful tool is the truth,” Walker said at CPAC as he defended his actions.

Walker’s reforms encompassed a range of issues — tax incentives for job creators, regulatory relief, tort reform and new options for health savings accounts — but the most controversial addressed government unions.

The reforms empowered state and local governments to address budget deficits by asking government employees to make a 5.8% pension contribution (about the national average) and 12.6% health insurance contribution (about half the national average). Because those changes involved collective bargaining for government workers, unions protested.

Walker, however, remains a staunch defender of his decision — just as he was one year ago when Heritage’s team interviewed him.

“Collective bargaining is not a right,” Walker said at CPAC. “In the public sector, collective bargaining is an expensive entitlement.”

This year’s Index of Dependence on Government presented startling findings about the sharp increase of Americans who rely on the federal government for housing, food, income, student aid or other assistance. (See last week’s chart.)

Another eye-popping number was the percentage of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, which now accounts for nearly half of the U.S. population. Meanwhile, most of that population receives generous federal benefits.

“One of the most worrying trends in the Index is the coinciding growth in the non-taxpaying public,” wrote Heritage authors Bill Beach and Patrick Tyrrell. “The percentage of people who do not pay federal income taxes, and who are not claimed as dependents by someone who does pay them, jumped from 14.8 percent in 1984 to 49.5 percent in 2009.”

That means 151.7 million Americans paid nothing in 2009. By comparison, 34.8 million tax filers paid no taxes in 1984.

The rapid growth of Americans who don’t pay income taxes is particularly alarming for the fate of the American form of government, Beach and Tyrrell warned. Coupled with higher spending on government programs, it is already proving to be a major fiscal challenge.

“This trend should concern everyone who supports America’s republican form of government,” Beach and Tyrrell wrote. “If the citizens’ representatives are elected by an increasing percentage of voters who pay no income tax, how long will it be before these representatives respond more to demands for yet more entitlements and subsidies from non-payers than to the pleas of taxpayers to exercise greater spending prudence?”

The anti-fracking documentary “Gasland” has served as a rallying cry for environmentalists seeking to halt hydraulic fracturing, the process used by energy companies to extract petroleum and natural gas from underground. Even the State Department is promoting the film.

Critics of the widely-debunked documentary acknowledge its impact. Irish journalist and filmmaker Phelim McAleer is among them.

“I think it’s one of the most influential documentaries of maybe the last 10 years,” McAleer told us. “It’s driven the narrative. It has created a story. And it’s very, very entertaining, very well filmed, very well edited, actually extremely well edited, and it’s driven the whole story. It’s just so much that’s in it, even from my initial investigation, that’s just not true.”

McAleer is now seeking the truth. He’s producing a documentary called “FrackNation,” which aims to set the record straight about fracking.

Listen to the interview with Phelim McAleer on this week’s Scribecast

McAleer and his wife Ann McElhinney hope to raise $150,000 for the documentary. They’ve gone public with their campaign on Kickstarter, a funding platform for creative projects like “FrackNation.” They are nearly halfway to their goal and have 47 days let to reach it.

“The 1 percent have been having the conversation,” McAleer said. “I want to get this conversation to the 99 percent. And I want them to fund this movie. This is a movie by the people, for the people.

A trailer for “FrackNation” features individuals who have firsthand knowledge of fracking and have suffered the consequences of the campaign against it. McAleer said his goal is to tell their stories to counter the existing narrative.

The podcast runs about 11 minutes. It was produced with the help of Hannah Sternberg. Listen to previous interviews on Scribecast or subscribe to future episodes.

Livid at delays in the confirmation process for 90 of the president’s nominations, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said on Friday that he would encourage President Obama to make even more unconstitutional non-recess appointments if Republicans did not accede to his demands.

“Virtually every one of these nominees could be approved today if the Senate Republicans would cooperate,” Reid exclaimed. “If something doesn’t break here, I am going to recommend to the president he recess appoint all these people, every one of them.”

The nominees were not being blocked, though Reid tried to characterize it that way. While a handful of Senators have vowed to oppose every nomination the president submits util he rescinds his four non-recess appointments, they don’t have the 40 votes needed to filibuster them.

But they can prevent nominations from sailing through the Senate by unanimous consent, and that is just what they have done.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), the Senate’s most vocal critic of the non-recess appointments, has vowed to oppose all nominations until the president submits Richard Cordray and the three new members of the National Labor Relations Board to the Senate to undergo the full advice and consent procedures.

Lee fired back at Reid in a news release of his own: “It is odd, to say the least, for the Senate Majority Leader to suggest that unless we stop responding to the President’s unconstitutional actions, more unconstitutional actions will follow,” he said.

“This is not a partisan issue for me,” he said. “I would be equally outraged if this were a Republican president doing this same thing.”

No. It’s that simple.

A number of House members and senators have been circulating this picture of the first panel from yesterday’s House Oversight Committee hearing, which featured five clergymen, decrying it as an “all-male hearing,” in the words of Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA). A number of Murray’s Senate colleagues, and numerous House members, echoed the falsehood.

In fact, as this picture shows, the hearing was not “all-male.”

The second panel to testify before the committee featured Dr. Laura Champion, medical director of Calvin College Health Services, and Dr. Allison Dabbs Garrett, senior vice-president for academic affairs at Oklahoma Christian University.

The incessant attempts by liberals to distract from the real issue of yesterday’s hearing – the constitutional problems in forcing employers to violate their own religious beliefs – prompted thoroughly fallacious claims that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who chairs the Oversight Committee, and other congressional Republicans, were conducting a “war on women.”

The argument is absurd on its face, but few of its supporting claims have been so thoroughly and demonstrably false as the notion that yesterday’s Oversight hearing featured testimony only from men.

The State Department is promoting a widely-debunked film about natural gas development as part of an effort at “smart power diplomacy.”

The film, “Gasland,” is widely credited with spreading hysteria about the practice of hydraulic fracturing, a natural gas mining technique under fire from environmentalists nationwide. The film purports to show the dangers of “fracking,” but many of its key findings – including the iconic image of flames spewing from a kitchen faucet – have been shown to be wildly misleading.

State announced the event in a news release last week:

The American Film Showcase builds on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vision of “smart power diplomacy,” which embraces the use of a full range of diplomatic tools – in this case film – to bring people together and foster greater understanding.

Comprised of 29 American films, the Showcase represents work of high artistic quality, illustrates diverse viewpoints, and reflects contemporary American society and culture. In addition to presenting the films to overseas audiences, the filmmakers and film experts will also conduct lectures, workshops, master classes on a variety of topics including filmmaking, storytelling, cinematography, marketing, distribution and funding, animation, digital technology, and emergent media, among others.

Gasland is one of 19 documentaries to be shown. The film makes numerous factual misstatements, such as its claim that the natural gas industry is exempt from the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. It routinely misrepresents the fracking process, its impacts on the environment, and government regulators’ views on the practice.

In fact, Josh Fox, the film’s director, has openly admitted that he disregarded facts in order to present hydraulic fracturing in a more negative light. The now-famous scene in “Gasland” of a faucet being lit on fire was presented in the film as evidence that nearby fracking operations had injected flammable chemicals into the area’s drinking water supplies.

But the area in question had seen such phenomena as far back as 1936 – decades before hydraulic fracturing was even invented. That would seem to belie the claim that flaming faucets could be blamed on the practice, but, confronted on that fact, Fox insisted that the information was not relevant.

Colorado’s Oil and Gas Commission itself rebuked the film and criticized its “several errors” – which included the conclusions Fox drew from the flaming faucet. The commission’s request to review the film before release, “which might have prevented [its] inaccuracies,” went unheeded.

In short, Gasland is riddled with factual inaccuracies and misleading hysteria about the natural gas industry. It is therefore striking that the State Department would use taxpayer funds to promote the film.

President Obama has been accused of violating the Constitution with two high-profile decisions over the last month. Polling and reactions from elected officials reveal an important truth: the Constitution is a winning political issue – Americans respect it and want their leaders to adhere to it.

Most recently, the administration has attempted force companies and organizations that offer health insurance plans to cover the full costs of contraception. For groups that have a religious objection to doing so, the policy represents a brazen violation of their First Amendment rights.

But proponents of the policy are quick to insist that the issue is not Americans’ fundamental rights of conscience, but rather the availability of contraception. In an attempt to backstop that position, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Del. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-DC) stormed out of a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on Thursday after a Georgetown University student was prohibited from testifying about contraception.

“As the hearing is not about reproductive rights but instead about the administration’s actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience,” committee staff stated, Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) “believes that Ms. Fluke is not an appropriate witness.”

It stands to reason that committee liberals would attempt to shift the debate to one of “reproductive rights.” When the issue is the constitutional right to free religious practice, the American people are wholly opposed to the contraception mandate.

Townhall columnist Guy Benson examined a pair of polls on the issue in a Wednesday blog post. He found that when the issue is framed as one of a “right to contraception,” Americans support the policy. When it’s about freedom of conscience – and freedom from government coercion against one’s deeply held beliefs – Americans oppose it.

The fact that the issue is a constitutional one, then (even if one agrees with the policy, the constitutional issue is unavoidable), makes the left-wing position less tenable. Hence Maloney’s and Holmes-Norton’s desire to shift the debate to any issue other than the policy’s constitutionality.

The same efforts are underway with respect to the president’s unconstitutional non-recess appointments. In discussing the move, explained Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) at a Heritage event on Wednesday, “Democrats won’t even discuss” the recess appointments clause, “its history, its purpose, its text, or even its original meaning. They want to set that aside.”

While polling on the issue has been scarce, the rhetoric from the president’s allies speaks for itself: they insist on discussing supposed Senate obstructionism – never mind that the Senate could not have moved on two of the non-recess appointed officials even if they had wanted to, or that Democrats themselves hold the Senate majority and therefore set the agenda.

Since the administration’s position is indefensible from a constitutional perspective, they insist on shifting the issue in any way they can.

These attempts to draw attention away from the constitutionality of these proposals are instructive: in order to sell them to the American people, their advocates must avoid discussion of the Constitution altogether. The fact that that is necessary should demonstrate that the Constitution is still a winning issue for the American people.

President Obama’s recent assault on the U.S. Constitution — first with his illegal “recess” appointments and then Obamacare’s anti-conscience mandate — demonstrates a lack of respect for America’s founding principles, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) said Tuesday.

“Loud and proud, I’m talking all over my district and any forum I have, saying this is a constitutional crisis,” Walberg said during a visit to The Bloggers Briefing at Heritage.

Obama has touted recent administration actions as part of the White House’s “We Can’t Wait” campaign. From that stemmed the president’s decision on Jan. 4 to make four “recess” appointments, even though the chamber wasn’t in recess.

>> Watch: Sen. Mike Lee tells Heritage that Obama was “manifestly wrong” on appointments

Obama followed his illegal appointments with another controversial decision. This month he backed an Obamacare mandate that forces health insurance plans to cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if employers have religious objections.

“This is a constitutional crisis that says, we will not afford First Amendment liberties, and right of religion, and right of conscience, to our citizens regardless of where they come down on the issue,” Walberg said.

“The media continue to push out this contraception and birth control [story]. That isn’t the issue. Women have a choice, women can make that choice, the majority of women can make that choice through their insurance companies or their health care providers. But bottom line is this is an issue of liberty, and the First Amendment and of conscience.”

>> Watch: Sen. Roy Blunt tells Heritage he will fight Obama’s anti-conscience mandate

Despite these recent attacks on the Constitution, Walberg said Americans should always be reminded of their rights.

“Our Constitution serves us well and provides us the greatest amount of freedom, liberty, and opportunity,” he said. “There’s an established fact that there are such things as unalienable rights, God given rights that government can’t give or take away.”