Yesterday, Dr. Gregory Jaczko, Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), delivered at The Heritage Foundation his first major address since being appointed six weeks ago. Read more on his visit and what needs to be done about clean, renewable energy here.
Congratulations, Missourians. For saving electricity, you could have an additional fee show up on your energy bill: Some Missouri residents and businesses soon could see a new charge on their electric bills — a fee for using less energy. Though it might seem illogical, the new energy efficiency charge has support from utilities, most lawmakers, the governor, environmentalists and even the state’s official utility consumer advocate. The charge covers the cost of utilities’ efforts to promote energy efficiency and cut power use.
Speaking at an Air Force base near Las Vegas, President Obama pointed to a field of solar panels and boldly declared, “The first is a solar energy technologies program that will help replicate the success of the Nellis project in cities and states across America.” Obama, visiting Nellis Air Force Base between fundraising events in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, toured the largest solar power plant of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, a collection of more than 72,000 panels built on 140 acres, including part of an old landfill. …
The 2009 Offshore Technology Conference kicked off yesterday with a star-studded panel offering perspectives from all sides to discuss meeting America’s energy challenges in both the near and the long term. The panel included statements and question and answers from Roger Ballentine (Senior Fellow, Progressive Policy Institute), Jack Gerard (President, American Petroleum Institute), Bill Graves (President, American Trucking Association), Jason Grumet (Executive Director, National Council on Energy Policy), David Holt (President, Consumer Energy Alliance), Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Jim May (President, Air Transport Association) and Marvin Odum (President, Shell …
Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner’s message, written five years ago, is still very much relevant today: Almost all the settlers who arrived here hundreds of years ago were subsistence farmers. They cleared hundreds of millions of acres of trees. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, “A single household could consume 20 to 40 cords of wood annually.” Economic growth changed all that. First, we progressed from wood to coal. This allowed us to begin replacing millions of trees. Plus, coal was more efficient and easier to …
Though intended to help consumers and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the ethanol mandate has done just the opposite, contributing to high food and gas prices with little environmental benefit. A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report released yesterday confirmed this: Increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices between April 2007 and April 2008. In turn, increases in food prices will boost federal spending for mandatory nutrition programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps) …
President Obama has been touting green energy investment and green jobs since his campaign trail, but he really kicked it into another gear once the economy tanked, calling the green stimulus a cure to the recession and to climate change. During his push for stimulus bill support, President Obama said the following at a windmill plant in Ohio: If we don’t act now, because of the economic downturn, half of the wind projects difficult because of the capital intensive nature of these projects for them to move forward if they …
This morning’s breakfast had two very interesting speakers: climate skeptic Congressman Tom McClintock from California and Canadian author, columnist and environmentalist Lawrence Solomon. Solomon is a founder and managing director of the Energy Probe Research Foundation and is a strong advocate of renewable energy and written a book against urban sprawl. When Congressman McClintock addressed the audience he emphasized that the actual threat of global warming is a big one, but not because of temperature and more so because of what the radical environmentalist movement can do to control the …
Or should the question be how much will they waste? Economist Arnold Kling has a list of risks associated with a large stimulus. Number one on the list is: It is harder to spend larger amounts quickly and cost-effectively. One of Obama’s chief economists, Larry Summers, emphasized that stimulus spending must be quick and temporary. That doesn’t seem to be the case with the energy projects in the bill. From the WSJ: Minnesota’s Sage Electrochromics Inc. has been ready for months to move on just the sort of project the …
In delivering his speech on the Senate floor today, U.S. Senator Tom Udall, D-N.M is introducing a plan for even more green energy and more green jobs – on top of the stimulus package. The plan? According a release from U.S. Senator Tom Udall’s office, Tom continued his fight to enact a federal Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) into law by introducing legislation that would require utilities to generate 25 percent of their electricity from wind, solar and other renewable energy sources by 2025. The bill, Udall’s first since being elected …
