The International Energy Agency (IEA) released its Annual World Energy Outlook this week with the headline that the U.S. could become a net exporter of natural gas by 2020 and essentially energy independent by 2035. This transformation is a direct result of the private-sector innovation and investments to develop new …
On Tuesday morning, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will address the National Press Club. Here are five questions we’d like him to answer: You said the outcome of the Chicago teachers strike was “great for children.” Considering that the union hindered a merit-pay proposal that would have awarded the …
The Obama Administration appears to be picking winners and losers again. The President has said he wants to “double our exports over the next five years” through his National Export Initiative. Apparently, those exports don’t include natural gas, a booming and vibrant sector of the national economy. Currently, liquefied natural …
Don’t worry. The Department of Education says we can trust that the Obama Administration’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver plan is the best solution for improving public schools. In a letter to the editor in The Washington Post on July 25, Education Secretary Arne Duncan asserted that the waiver …
It is Department of Energy policy to ignore the federal government’s own criminal investigations into companies applying for taxpayer funding. The admission came from a DOE official who testified at a congressional hearing Thursday. The hearing focused on federal support for Ecotality, a company that manufactures electric vehicle charging stations. …
As a congressional panel looks into federal support for a major electric vehicle charging station manufacturer, more questions about the company’s political connections are surfacing. They speak to a virtual constant among recipients of federal “green energy” money: beneficiaries enjoy significant political connections. The company in question, Ecotality, has received …
The Energy Department can’t figure out how hundreds of thousands of dollars in “green energy” stimulus money earmarked for manufacturing equipment was spent, according to a new report from the agency’s Inspector General. DOE’s IG stated in a July 2012 audit report that $500,000 of equipment bought with stimulus money to …
Despite having a budget for only a few years, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) is quickly becoming a microcosm of the larger problems associated with the entire Department of Energy (DOE). ARPA-E, a program within the DOE, is meant to fund high-risk, high-reward projects that the private sector would …
A congressional hearing on May 16 exposed further details on just the kind of political maneuvering that was going on between the Obama Administration and beneficiaries of Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantees. Emails revealed during the hearing are the tip of the iceberg in a corrupt federal funding process …
The General Services Administration blew through $820,000 in taxpayers’ money in a lavish ”team building” trip to Las Vegas, and President Barack Obama is “apoplectic” at the news, according to the president’s campaign advisor, David Axelrod. Obama, he says, has devoted his efforts to saving “tens of billions of dollars” in …