Energy

2010 Looms: Democrats Crash and Burn in Virginia and New Jersey

dlindorff — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:58:27 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

It would be easy to read too much into the few statewide races that
were decided last night, but I think it’s fair to say that the results
in New Jersey and Virginia, where Republican gubernatorial candidates
won--in New Jersey’s case knocking off a well-funded Democratic
incumbent--that the results were a blow to the Barack Obama/Rahm
Emanuel strategy of playing to the right, of avoiding confrontation in
Congress and of ignoring the progressive voters whose enthusiasm and
effort back in the 2008 campaign put Obama in office.

Exit polls showed that many Obama voters sat out this election in
New Jersey and Virginia, with turnout low in both races. In part that
was because of local conditions, of course. In Virginia, Democrat R.
Creigh Deeds ran as a conservative, and was attacked by the Republican
candidate, former state attorney general Robert McDonnell, as a
tax-happy liberal. With liberal voters in Virginia unenthusiastic about
Deeds, and Republicans revved up, the loss was a foregone conclusion,
even with Obama making two visits to campaign for Deeds, and with the
national Democratic Party pumping in $6 million in campaign funding.

In New Jersey, incumbent Democrat John Corzine was wildly unpopular
for raising taxes, so that even with Democrats holding an almost 2:1
registration advantage in the state (half of all voters are
unaffiliated), he too had no enthusiastic backing from his former base.
No amount of money poured in by the former Goldman Sachs chief
executive could overcome the negative views of his record as governor.

But despite the lackluster candidates in both Virginia and New
Jersey, I think it’s safe to say that there was also clear evidence
that the losses, and the margins of the losses—huge in Virginia’s case,
and significant in normally safely Democratic New Jersey—provide
evidence that the Obama presidency, and the prevailing Democratic
strategy of minimalist legislative initiatives on health care reform,
global warming etc., expanded and unending war in Afghanistan, support
for Wall Street and neglect of the one-in-five Americans who are
unemployed or underemployed, are a political disaster in the making for
Democrats in general and Obama in particular.

The president came into office on a wave of populist enthusiasm and
high expectations for the “change” candidate Obama promised. No change
has been forthcoming now for over nine months, and with the president
now past the first-year anniversary of his historic election victory,
the latest election results suggest that his presidency could already
be headed for the rocks.

2010 is an election year that will see all seats in the House, and
a third of the seats in the Senate up for grabs. Typically, a
president’s party loses seats in that election even when things are
going well. When things are not going well, the losses can be
significant.

Obama had a chance, coming into Washington after a big rout of
Republicans last year, to set out an agenda of major progressive
change. He could have called for expanding Medicare to cover all
Americans. Instead he handed health reform over to Congress and
immediately put out the word that he was open to compromise with
Republicans, thus dooming reform from the outset. He could have
announced a thorough review of America’s two wars, and then set in
motion a withdrawal form both Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead he dithered
on Iraq, and added troops in Afghanistan, assuring that both these
disasters inherited from the Bush/Cheney administration became his own
disasters, which will now drag on through his whole term. He could have
declared a global climate emergency, and announced a job-creating crash
program to develop renewable energy in the US and to make the US a
leader in renewable energy R&D. Instead, he did almost nothing in
this critical area. As for the economic crisis, he could have taken a
progressive stand against the abuses of Wall Street, ordered a criminal
investigation of the banking class, broken up the big banks and
established a new regulatory system to put an end to the era of casino
capitalism. Instead, he put the bankers in charge of Treasury and
poured trillions of dollars into the largest banks, allowing them to
grow even bigger and more predatory.

Voters, their collective assets shrunken over the year by $14
trillion, understandably are left wondering how, aside from better
verbal skills, this president differs from the last one. As for the
Democratic Congress, with Democrats pretending that nothing can be done
unless they have not just 60 seats in Congress, but perhaps 70 or 75
(enough to be able to survive the inevitable defection of conservative
members of the party), they can’t do anything of consequence—a claim
that only is true if, as is the case, the party’s leadership and the
president are unwilling to punish those who break rank.

If Democratic and progressive independent voters feel the same way
about Obama and the Democratic Congress next fall, it will be curtains
for the Democrats and for Obama’s presidency, such as it is.

And you know what? It won’t matter much if that happens, because
what we’re seeing is that having Obama in the White House, and
Democrats “in control” of Congress doesn’t get you much in the way of
progressive change.
___________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest
book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work
is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Congressman Perriello Proposes Green Energy

davidswanson — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:02:07 -0400

Unveiling a blueprint for the VA-5th to lead the nation in clean energy economy: http://tinyurl.com/ldmtvd

What Makes Sense for Health Care Makes Sense for Autos: Car Industry Needs Public Option Too

dlindorff — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:49:32 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Just imagine for a moment that you are a retired contractor,
struggling to get by on your pathetically shriveled 401(k). when your
ne-er-do-well child suddenly comes to you saying he’s got this idea to
start buying derelict homes and rehabbing them for resale. He asks you
to stake him with a $100,000 loan (about half of what you’ve got left
in your retirement fund), promising to repay you when he sells his
first couple of houses. You know the kid’s flat busted and has been
laid off from his job as a dishwasher, so you want to help, but you’ve
also seen his carpentry skills: The doghouse he build in high school
fell apart on a windy day, and his own house has a leaking roof, needs
repainting, and all the plumbing leaks. You’ve also seen his business
skills: He plays the Lotto excessively, hasn’t saved a penny, and buys
most of his supplies at the local 7-Eleven.

Would you front this kid half your money?

Well, if you really loved the kid, and if he was in danger of
losing his house, you might want to help,. But the smart thing to do
would be to offer to go in with him in the business, acting as the
contractor, so that you could train him in the necessary business and
contracting skills, and at the same time make sure the rehab jobs got
done properly.

That might work out. Your son might never learn to be a master
carpenter, but at least you’d have a good shot at getting your
investment back.

What wouldn’t make sense would be to just hand over the $100,000,
and say, “I’m going to stay out of your way son. Good luck, and
remember to pay me back when you sell a few of those houses.”

Crazy, right? And yet that’s what the Obama administration’s auto industry “rescue” plan amounts to.

We Americans like to fancy ourselves the supreme rationalists, but
when it comes to economic policy, we are as mired in superstition and
religious dogma as any theocratic society in the world.

Our religion is “free-market economics,” which posits that an
“invisible hand” of competition takes care of all problems, leads to
the optimum outcome in terms of distribution of wealth and standard of
living, and ensures maximum success in business.

Looking at the auto industry rescue program objectively, you have
to ask why President Barack Obama would insist that the government,
despite being the major owner of both Chrysler and General Motors, is
refusing to demand a primary say, or really any say, in running those
companies. I mean, if you are the major shareholder—and in this case
“you” is not just the government, it is all of us, the taxpayers—you should
be running the company. It is the government that should be naming all
the members of the boards of directors of the two firms, and it is the
government that should be deciding who will be the chief executives.

For the rest of this story, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net

---------------

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest
book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work
can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Liveblogging Politico Forum on Climate Change at Starbucks on Capitol Hill

davidswanson — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:10:23 -0400

7:10 p.m. ET on Thursday: Mindy Lubber from CERES is one of the speakers, formerly at EPA; also Brad Figel global director of govt. affairs for Nike formerly at Senate finance committee (holding up a "sustainable shoe" and supposedly wanting to push Congress to pass "meaningful" climate legislation this year); (Rep. John Dingell seems to be late).

7:15 Lubber wants to address global warming right away, says "financial leaders" want this, just like Greenpeace and that sort of group. Building a green economy, Lubber says, is answer to environment and economy. I agree with all of this, but there are no details on desirable legislation or citizen action. I doubt anyone in the room COULD POSSIBLY disagree with anything said, with the possible exception of the claim that a sneaker is sustainable.

7:20 Figel is selling more shoes: they now use a non-greenhouse gas for "air cushions" in shoes.

7:22 Lubber likes Waxman's climate bill. She doesn't want the US to show up in Copenhagen without having passed it. She wants a strong bill and soon. Asked about the wisdom of waiting and doing a stronger bill after Copenhagen, she said our hands would be tied in Copenhagen if we don't pass a bill first. This seems to parallel Obama's claim that he can't agree to anything in Copenhagen unless Congress pre-approves a treaty (which is a weird twist on his acceptance of an Iraq treaty made without Congress and his signing-statement claim on treaty power).

7:25 Nike, Gap, Ebay, and lots of other companies listed as the good guys on this. They want Congress to act now.

7:30 No Q&A. Panelists done and off stage. Congressman Dingell now being introduced: has been in Congress since 1955. His wife is here too.

7:33 Politico questioner, Mike Allen I think, asks about healthcare. Dingell says his dad introduced first bill on medicare, but nothing happened until Pres Johnson. Thought that Medicare in '65 would lead to step 2: national health insurance. But no, nothing serious until Clinton. Clinton let Ira Magaziner lead it, which didn't help. Bill didn't come up for months, and insurance company ads were all over tv. But we need it done now for health and economic reasons. The fiercest enemies are fewer now, Dingell says. But note that Dingell has not cosponsored HR 676 and for no apparent reason he just said what a great president Obama is. So, what is he talking about? The "Massachusetts plan"?

7:43 Now Allen turns to climate change. Dingell says we need a shift away from oil for financial as well as environmental reasons. Wants to "do something." Mentions US Cap. Ran out of time last congress to pass a bill. Dingell supports Waxman-Markey bill. But no details on it. When asked to distinguish a serious from a gradual bill, he declines.

7:51 Now Allen is reading pre-submitted audience questions from cards, so I may not get to ask why he's not signed onto HR 676.

I think I'll split.

On Earth Day 2009, President Obama Addresses The Third Economic Pillar, Renewable Energy

Chip — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:17:37 -0400

To recognize Earth Day 2009, President Obama returned to Iowa, the state where he broke out of the pack as a contender last year, to visit a wind turbine plant. Renewable energy is one of the economic pillars in his strategy to grow our nation out of the fiscal calamity the Bush administration left in its wake.

President Obama's remarks on the administration's plans to support expanded renewable energy development follow.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much. Thank you, Rich, for the great introduction. Thank you very much. Please, everybody have a seat.

It is good to be back in Newton, and it's a privilege to be here at Trinity Structural Towers. I've got a couple of special thank yous that I want to make, because I've got a lot of old friends -- not old in years, but been friends for a long time now. First of all, your outstanding Governor, Chet Culver, please give him a big round of applause. (Applause.) His wonderful wife, Mari, I see over here. She's not on the card, but -- (applause.) My outstanding Secretary of Agriculture, who I plucked from Iowa, Tom Vilsack and his wonderful wife Christie Vilsack. (Applause.) We've got the Attorney General of Iowa, one of my co-chairs when I ran in the Iowa caucus and nobody could pronounce my name -- Tom Miller. (Applause.) My other co-chair, Mike Fitzgerald, Treasurer of Iowa. (Applause.) We got the Iowa Secretary of State, Mike Mauro. There he is. (Applause.) We've got your outstanding member of Congress who's working hard for Newton all the time, Leonard Boswell. (Applause.) And your own pride of Newton, Mayor Chaz Allen. (Applause.) There he is, back there. It's good to see you again, Chaz.

It is terrific to be here -- and by the way, I've got a whole bunch of folks here who were active in the campaign, and precinct captains. And I just want to thank all of them for showing up, and to all the great workers who are here at this plant -- thank you. (Applause.)

I just had a terrific tour of the facility led by several of the workers and managers who operate this plant. It wasn't too long ago, as Rich said, that Maytag closed its operations in Newton. And hundreds of jobs were lost. These floors were dark and silent. The only signs of a once thriving enterprise were the cement markings where the equipment had been before they were boxed up and carted away.

Look at what we see here today. This facility is alive again with new industry. This community is still going through some tough times. If you talk to your neighbors and friends, I know they -- the community still hasn't fully recovered from the loss of Maytag. Not everybody has been rehired. But more than 100 people will now be employed at this plant -- maybe more, if we keep on moving. Many of the same folks who had lost their jobs when Maytag shut its doors now are finding once again their ability to make great products.

Now, obviously things aren't exactly the same as they were with Maytag, because now you're using the materials behind me to build towers to support some of the most advanced wind turbines in the world. When completed, these structures will hold up blades that can generate as much as 2.5 megawatts of electricity -- enough energy to power hundreds of homes. At Trinity, you are helping to lead the next energy revolution. But you're also heirs to the last energy revolution.

Think about it: roughly a century and a half ago, in the late 1950s [sic], the Seneca Oil Company hired an unemployed train conductor named Edwin Drake to investigate the oil springs of Titusville, Pennsylvania. Around this time, oil was literally bubbling up from the ground -- but nobody knew what to do with it. It had limited economic value and often all it did was ruin crops or pollute drinking water.

Now, people were starting to refine oil for use as a fuel. Collecting oil remained time consuming, though, and it was back-breaking, and it was costly; it wasn't efficient, as workers harvested what they could find in the shallow ground -- they'd literally scoop it up. But Edwin Drake had a plan. He purchased a steam engine, and he built a derrick, and he began to drill.

And months passed. And progress was slow. The team managed to drill into the bedrock just a few feet each day. And crowds gathered and they mocked Mr. Drake. They thought him and the other diggers were foolish. The well that they were digging even earned the nickname, "Drake's Folly." But Drake wouldn't give up. And he had an advantage: total desperation. It had to work. And then one day, it finally did.

One morning, the team returned to the creek to see crude oil rising up from beneath the surface. And soon, Drake's well was producing what was then an astonishing amount of oil -- perhaps 10, 20 barrels every day. And then speculators followed and they built similar rigs as far as the eye could see. In the next decade, the area would produce tens of millions of barrels of oil. And as the industry grew, so did the ingenuity of those who sought to profit from it, as competitors developed new techniques to drill and transport oil to drive down costs and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Now, our history is filled with such stories -- stories of daring talent, of dedication to an idea even when the odds are great, of the unshakeable belief that in America, all things are possible.

And this has been especially true in energy production. From the first commercially viable steamboat developed by Robert Fulton to the first modern solar cell developed at Bell Labs; from the experiments of Benjamin Franklin to harness the energy of lightning to the experiments of Enrico Fermi to harness the power contained in the atom, America has always led the world in producing and harnessing new forms of energy.

But just as we've led the global economy in developing new sources of energy, we've also led in consuming energy. While we make up less than 5 percent of the world's population, we produce roughly a quarter of the world's demand for oil.

And this appetite comes now at a tremendous cost to our economy. It's the cost measured by our trade deficit; 20 percent of what we spend on imports is the price of our oil imports. We send billions of dollars overseas to oil-exporting nations, and I think all of you know many of them are not our friends. It's the same costs attributable to our vulnerability to the volatility of oil markets. Every time the world oil market goes up, you're getting stuck at the pump. It's the cost we feel in shifting weather patterns that are already causing record-breaking droughts, unprecedented wildfires, more intense storms.

It's a cost we've known ever since the gas shortages of the 1970s. And yet, for more than 30 years, too little has been done about it. There's a lot of talk of action when oil prices skyrocket like they did last summer and everybody says we got to do something about energy independence, but then it slips from the radar when oil prices start falling like they have recently. So we shift from shock to indifference time and again, year after year.

We can't afford that approach anymore -- not when the cost for our economy, for our country, and for our planet is so high. So on this Earth Day, it is time for us to lay a new foundation for economic growth by beginning a new era of energy exploration in America. That's why I'm here. (Applause.)

Now, the choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline. We can remain the world's leading importer of oil, or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy. We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc across the landscape, or we can create jobs working to prevent its worst effects. We can hand over the jobs of the 21st century to our competitors, or we can confront what countries in Europe and Asia have already recognized as both a challenge and an opportunity: The nation that leads the world in creating new energy sources will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy.

America can be that nation. America must be that nation. And while we seek new forms of fuel to power our homes and cars and businesses, we will rely on the same ingenuity -- the same American spirit -- that has always been a part of our American story.

Now, this will not be easy. There aren't any silver bullets. There's no magic energy source right now. Maybe some kid in a lab somewhere is figuring it out. Twenty years from now, there may be an entirely new energy source that we don't yet know about. But right now, there's no silver bullet. It's going to take a variety of energy sources, pursued through a variety of policies, to drastically reduce our dependence on oil and fossil fuels. As I've often said, in the short term, as we transition to renewable energy, we can and should increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas. We're not going to transform our economy overnight. We still need more oil, we still need more gas. If we've got some here in the United States that we can use, we should find it and do so in an environmentally sustainable way. We also need to find safer ways to use nuclear power and store nuclear waste.

But the bulk of our efforts must focus on unleashing a new, clean-energy economy that will begin to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, will cut our carbon pollution by about 80 percent by 2050, and create millions of new jobs right here in America -- right here in Newton.

My administration has already taken unprecedented action towards this goal. It's work that begins with the simplest, fastest, most effective way we have to make our economy cleaner, and that is to make our economy more energy efficient. California has shown that it can be done; while electricity consumption grew 50 percent in this country over the last three decades, in California, it remained flat.

Think about this. I want everybody to think about this. Over the last several decades, the rest of the country, we used 50 percent more energy; California remained flat, used the same amount, even though that they were growing just as fast as the rest of the country -- because they were more energy efficient. They put in some good policy early on that assured that they weren't wasting energy. Now, if California can do it, then the whole country can do it. Iowa can do it.

Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we've begun to modernize 75 percent of all federal building space, which has the potential to reduce long-term energy costs just in federal buildings by billions of dollars on behalf of taxpayers. We're providing grants to states to help weatherize hundreds of thousands of homes, which will save the families that benefit about $350 each year. That's like a $350 tax cut.

Consumers are also eligible as part of the Recovery Act for up to $1,500 in tax credits to purchase more efficient cooling and heating systems, insulation and windows in order to reduce their energy bills. And I've issued a memorandum to the Department of Energy to implement more aggressive efficiency standards for common household appliances, like dishwashers and refrigerators. We actually have made so much progress, just on something as simple as refrigerators, that you have seen refrigerators today many times more efficient than they were back in 1974. We save huge amounts of energy if we upgrade those appliances. Through this -- through these steps, over the next three decades, we will save twice the amount of energy produced by all the coal-fired power plants in America in any given year.

We're already seeing reports from across the country of how this is beginning to create jobs, because local governments and businesses rush to hire folks to do the work of building and installing these energy-efficient products.

And these steps will spur job creation and innovation as more Americans make purchases that place a premium on reducing energy consumption. Business across the country will join the competition, developing new products, seeking new consumers.

In the end, the sum total of choices made by consumers and companies in response to our recovery plan will mean less pollution in our air and water, it'll reduce costs for families and businesses -- money in your pocket -- and it will lower our overall reliance on fossil fuels which disrupt our environment and endanger our children's future.

So, that's step number one: energy efficiency. That's the low-hanging fruit. But energy efficiency can only take us part of the way. Even as we're conserving energy, we need to change the way we produce energy.

Today, America produces less than 3 percent of our electricity through renewable sources like wind and solar -- less than 3 percent. Now, in comparison, Denmark produces almost 20 percent of their electricity through wind power. We pioneered solar technology, but we've fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in generating it, even though we've got more sun than either country.

I don't accept this is the way it has to be. When it comes to renewable energy, I don't think we should be followers, I think it's time for us to lead. (Applause.)

We are now poised to do exactly that. According to some estimates, last year, 40 percent of all new generating capacity in our country came from wind. In Iowa, you know what this means. This state is second only to Texas in installed wind capacity, which more than doubled last year alone. The result: Once shuttered factories are whirring back to life right here at Trinity; at TPI Composites, where more than 300 workers are manufacturing turbine blades, same thing; elsewhere in this state and across America.

In 2000, energy technology represented just one half of one percent of all venture capital investments. Today, it's more than 10 percent.

The recovery plan seeks to build on this progress, and encourage even faster growth. We're providing incentives to double our nation's capacity to generate renewable energy over the next few years -- extending the production tax credit, providing loan guarantees, offering grants to spur investment in new sources of renewable fuel and electricity.

My budget also invests $15 billion each year for 10 years to develop clean energy including wind power and solar power, geothermal energy and clean coal technology.

And today I'm announcing that my administration is taking another historic step. Through the Department of Interior, we are establishing a program to authorize -- for the very first time -- the leasing of federal waters for projects to generate electricity from wind as well as from ocean currents and other renewable sources. And this will open the door to major investments in offshore clean energy. For example, there is enormous interest in wind projects off the coasts of New Jersey and Delaware, and today's announcement will enable these projects to move forward.

It's estimated that if we fully pursue our potential for wind energy on land and offshore, wind can generate as much as 20 percent of our electricity by 2030 and create a quarter-million jobs in the process -- 250,000 jobs in the process, jobs that pay well and provide good benefits. It's a win-win: It's good for the environment; it's great for the economy.

Even as we pursue renewable energy from the wind and the sun and other sources, we also need a smarter, stronger electricity grid -- some of you have been hearing about this, this smart grid -- a grid that can carry energy from one end of this country to the other. So when you guys are building these amazing towers and the turbines are going up and they're producing energy, we've got to make sure that energy produced in Iowa can get to Chicago; energy produced in North Dakota can get to Milwaukee. That's why we're making an $11 billion investment through the recovery plan to modernize the way we distribute electricity.

And as we're taking unprecedented steps to save energy and generate new kinds of energy for our homes and businesses, we need to do the same for our cars and trucks.

Right now, two of America's iconic automakers are considering their future. They're facing difficult challenges -- I'm talking about Chrysler and GM. But one thing we know is that for automakers to succeed in the future, these companies need to build the cars of the future -- they can't build the cars of the past. Yet, for decades, fuel economy and fuel economy standards have stagnated, leaving American consumers vulnerable to the ebb and flow of gas prices. When gas prices spike up like they did last summer, suddenly the market for American cars plummets because we build SUVs. That's it. It leaves the American economy ever more dependent on the supply of foreign oil.

We have to create the incentives for companies to develop the next generation of clean-energy vehicles -- and for Americans to drive them, particularly as the U.S. auto industry moves forward on a historic restructuring that can position it for a more prosperous future.

And that's why my administration has begun to put in place higher fuel economy standards for the first time since the mid-1980s, so our cars will get better mileage, saving drivers money, spurring companies to develop more innovative products. The Recovery Act also includes $2 billion in competitive grants to develop the next generation of batteries for plug-in hybrids. We're planning to buy 17,600 American-made, fuel-efficient cars and trucks for the government fleet. And today, Vice President Biden is announcing a Clean Cities grant program through the Recovery Act to help state and local governments purchase clean-energy vehicles, too.

We can clean up our environment and put people back to work in a strong U.S. auto industry, but we've got to have some imagination and we've got to be bold. We can't be looking backwards, we've got to look -- we've got to look forward.

My budget is also making unprecedented investments in mass transit, high-speed rail, and in our highway system to reduce the congestion that wastes money and time and energy. We need to connect Des Moines to Chicago with high-speed rail all across the Midwest. (Applause.) That way you don't have to take off your shoes when you want to go visit Chicago going through the airport.

My budget also invests in advanced biofuels and ethanol, which, as I've said, is an important transitional fuel to help us end our dependence on foreign oil while moving towards clean, homegrown sources of energy.

And while we're creating the incentives for companies to develop these technologies, we're also creating incentives for consumers to adapt to these new technologies. So the Recovery Act includes a new credit -- new tax credit for up to $7,500 to encourage Americans to buy more fuel-efficient cars and trucks. So if you guys are in the market to buy a car or truck, check out that tax credit.

In addition, innovation depends on innovators doing the research and testing the ideas that might not pay off in the short run -- some of them will be dead-ends, won't pay off at all -- but when taken together, hold incredible potential over the long term. And that's why my recovery plan includes the largest investment in basic research funding in American history. And my budget includes a 10-year commitment to make the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit permanent. That's a tax credit that returns $2 to the economy for every dollar we spend. That young guy in the garage designing a new engine or a new battery, that computer scientist who's imagining a new way of thinking about energy, we need to fund them now, fund them early, because that's what America has always been about: technology and innovation.

And this is only the beginning. My administration will be pursuing comprehensive legislation to move towards energy independence and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, while creating the incentives to make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

Now, there's been some debate about this whole climate change issue. But it's serious. It could be a problem. It could end up having an impact on farmers like Rich. If you're starting to see temperatures grow -- rise 1, 2, 3 percent, have a profound impact on our lives. And the fact is, we place limits on pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide and other harmful emissions. But we haven't placed any limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It's what's called the carbon loophole.

Now, last week, in response to a mandate from the United States Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency determined that carbon dioxide and other tailpipe emissions are harmful to the health and well-being of our people. So there's no question that we have to regulate carbon pollution in some way; the only question is how we do it.

I believe the best way to do it is through legislation that places a market-based cap on these kinds of emissions. And today, key members of my administration are testifying in Congress on a bill that seeks to enact exactly this kind of market-based approach. My hope is that this will be the vehicle through which we put this policy in effect.

And here's how a market-based cap would work: We'd set a cap, a ceiling, on all the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that our economy is allowed to produce in total, combining the emissions from cars and trucks, coal-fired power plants, energy-intensive industries, all sources.

And by setting an overall cap, carbon pollution becomes like a commodity. It places a value on a limited resource, and that is the ability to pollute. And to determine that value, just like any other traded commodity, we'd create a market where companies could buy and sell the right to produce a certain amount of carbon pollution. And in this way, every company can determine for itself whether it makes sense to spend the money to become cleaner or more efficient, or to spend the money on a certain amount of allowable pollution.

Over time, as the cap on greenhouse gases is lowered, the commodity becomes scarcer -- and the price goes up. And year by year, companies and consumers would have greater incentive to invest in clean energy and energy efficiency as the price of the status quo became more expensive.

What this does is it makes wind power more economical, makes solar power more economical. Clean energy all becomes more economical. And by closing the carbon loophole through this kind of market-based cap, we can address in a systematic way all the facets of the energy crisis: We lower our dependence on foreign oil, we reduce our use of fossil fuels, we promote new industries right here in America. We set up the right incentives so that everybody is moving in the same direction towards energy independence.

And as we pursue solutions through the public and private sectors, we also need to remember that every American has a role to play. This is not just a job for government. You know, some of you may remember, during the campaign, when gas was real high, I suggested during the campaign that one small step Americans could take would be to keep their tires inflated. Do you remember that? Everybody teased me. They said, oh, look, look, that's Obama's energy policy. My opponents sent around tire gauges. But I tell you what, it turns out that saves you an awful lot of gas -- money in your pocket. It also made sense for our energy use as a whole. If everybody kept their tires inflated, that would have a big dent; it would produce as much oil savings as we might be pumping in some of these offshore sites by drilling.

So we've got to get everybody involved in this process. I don't accept the conventional wisdom that suggests that the American people are unable or unwilling to participate in a national effort to transform the way we use energy. I don't believe that the only thing folks are capable of doing is just paying their taxes. I disagree. I think the American people are ready to be part of a mission. I believe that. (Applause.)

It's not just keeping your tires inflated. If each one of us replaced just one ordinary incandescent light bulb with one of those compact fluorescent light bulbs -- you know, the swirly ones -- that could save enough energy to light 3 million homes. Just one light bulb each -- 3 million homes worth of energy savings. That's just one small step. So all of us are going to have to be involved in this process. And like I said, if you make the investment upfront, you, the individual consumer, will save money in the long term, and all of us collectively will be better off.

Now, this is also a global problem, so it's going to require a global coalition to solve it. If we've got problems with climate change, and the temperature rising all around the world, that knows no boundaries; and the decisions of any nation will affect every nation. So next week, I will be gathering leaders of major economies from all around the world to talk about how we can work together to address this energy crisis and this climate crisis.

Truth is the United States has been slow to participate in this kind of a process, working with other nations. But those days are over now. We are ready to engage -- and we're asking other nations to join us in tackling this challenge together. (Applause.)

All of these steps, all of these steps we've taken in just the first three months, probably represents more progress than we've achieved in three decades on the energy front. We're beginning the difficult work of reducing our dependence on foreign oil. We're beginning to break the bonds, the grip, that fossil fuels has on us. We're beginning to create a new, clean-energy economy -- and the millions of jobs that will flow from it.

Now, there are those who still cling to the notion that we ought to just continue doing what we do; that we can't change; Americans like to use a lot of energy, that's just how we are; that government has neither the responsibility nor the reason to address our dependence on energy sources even though they undermine our security and threaten our economy and endanger our planet.

And then there is this even more dangerous idea -- the idea that there's nothing we can do about it: our politics is broken, our people are unwilling to make hard choices. So politicians decide, look, even though we know it's something that has to be done, we're just going to put it off. That's what happened for the last three, four, five decades. Everybody has known that we had to do something but nobody wanted to actually go ahead and do it because it's hard.

So the implication in this argument is that we've somehow lost something important -- that perhaps because of the very prosperity we've built over the course of generations, that we've given up that fighting American spirit, that sense of optimism, that willingness to tackle tough challenges, that determination to see those challenges to the end, the notion that we've gotten soft somehow.

I reject that argument. I reject it because of what you're doing right here at Trinity; what's happening right here in Newton after folks have gone through hard times. I reject it because of what I've seen across this country, in all the eyes of the people that I've met, in the stories that I've heard, in the factories I've visited, in the places where I've seen the future being pieced together -- test by test, trial by trial.

So it will not be easy. There will be bumps along the road. There will be costs for our nation and for each of us as individuals. As I said before, there's no magic bullet, there's no perfect answer to our energy needs. All of us are going to have to use energy more wisely. But I know that we are ready and able to meet these challenges. All of us are beneficiaries of a daring and innovative past. Our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents adapted to much more difficult circumstances to deliver the prosperity that we enjoy today.

And I'm confident that we can be and will be the benefactors of a brighter future for our children and grandchildren. That can be our legacy -- a legacy of vehicles powered by clean renewable energy traveling past newly opened factories; of industries employing millions of Americans in the work of protecting our planet; of an economy exporting the energy of the future instead of importing the energy of the past; of a nation once again leading the world to meet the challenges of our time.

That's our future. I hope you're willing to work with me to get there. Thank you very much. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. Thank you.

3.5 Trillion budget has now passed BOTH houses of congres!!!

seawolf1957 — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 01:29:33 -0400

HOUSE and SENATE have now BOTH passed the BUDGET...

FLASH

WASHINGTON POST

just off the press

Who's Calling the Shots Now: The Death of American Empire

dlindorff — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:59:11 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

It may not be obvious today, and certainly it’s not how the corporate media reported it, but future historians are likely to look back at March 13, 2009 as the day that American imperialism began it’s inexorable decline. That’s the day that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced that his country was “worried” about its holdings of over $1 trillion in US treasury securities, and warned that he wanted the US to assure China that it would maintain its good credit and “honor its promises” and “maintain the safety of China’s assets.”

There is no way that the US can accommodate Premier Wen and still finance and operate a global military system with over 1000 overseas bases, massive aircraft carrier battle groups, and with hundreds of thousands of men and women armed to the teeth with the latest high-tech military hardware, not to mention fight endless wars on the far side of the globe.

What China is doing is pulling the rug out from under America’s six decades of global military dominance. It is no coincidence that the weekend before Wen’s statement, Chinese naval vessels aggressively harassed a US intelligence ship, the Impeccable, that was operating in the South China Sea.

The implied threat in Wen’s seemingly mild comment was that if the US doesn’t trim its deficit spending dramatically, and get its economic house in order—which means dramatically reducing the American standard of living, and reducing wasteful spending of its military, China will simply cut back on its funding of the US deficit, in the form of buying US Treasury issues, an act which would cause the collapse of the US dollar and what’s left of the US economy.

Now this decline of the US as an economic and military power is not going to be an overnight thing, because China needs to keep selling manufactured goods to the US market—the largest in the world—and in order to do that, it needs to keep recycling dollars spent on Chinese goods back into the US, which to date has meant buying US debt issues.

But there are other ways to recycle dollars back to the US, most notably by investing in actual US assets. To date, China has done this cautiously, in part to avoid arousing political concern in the US. Typically China, when it has purchased shares of US companies, has done so by buying small minority stakes, as it did in the case of the Blackstone Group, a private equity investment firm. But if China were to decide to stop funding America’s massive deficit, this could change. It could decide to just let the dollar slide, and take advantage of the slumping value of US assets to start buying the US up on the cheap.

There is already talk of Chinese auto companies buying up General Motors and Chrysler, and why not? They could have those companies, not to mention most of the national banks, for a song now. But China wouldn’t have to limit itself—nor would it—to buying up dying companies. It could also buy entities like General Electric, Boeing and IBM, or it could buy agricultural assets and mines—or oil companies and oil reserves.

In fact, China has been using its vast trade-surplus-fueled currency reserves of dollars and Euros to lock up at cheap prices on long forward contracts for oil and other critical commodities. This is just the beginning. (It would be ironic and incredibly foolish if the US, which has spent several hundred billion dollars in borrowed money, and as much as $3 trillion if interest costs are factored in, on conquering and controlling Iraq, really did so to gain control of oil, since China has accomplished the same thing peacefully for a small fraction of that cost, by just buying forward supply contracts.)

It is likely that India, whose economy is doing even better than China these days, will do much the same thing.

The end result will be a vast permanent weakening of America, as its economy becomes increasingly subservient to the interests of its new owners.

There is a delicious irony here, since the US, for decades, has done precisely this kind of thing around the world to developing nations, buying up their industries and their resources, and manipulating and controlling their political systems, to its own advantage, always with the backing, or threatened use, of America’s powerful military. Now the once-might US (remember Dick Cheney’s “world’s lone superpower” and George H.W. Bush’s “New World Order”?) is reduced to pleading with China to leave its warships alone, and to shamelessly begging, as Hillary Clinton did in one of her first public statements as secretary of state, for China to “keep buying” US Treasuries.

From the point of view of the majority of the world’s people, who have lived for too long under the American jackboot, this is all a good thing. But forcing the new “Rome” to retreat back within its own borders will also be good for us Americans, who have had to pay for all those military adventures in the name of empire and corporate profits over the years with our blood and taxes.

The problem, for us, however, is that all this military and economic comeuppance will also be accompanied by a dose of reality about our own real living standard. As long as China, India and the oil-producing states were willing to just keep buying American government securities to finance our multi-generational spending binge, it was possible for the US government to keep us citizens all fat and happy by creating a series of bubble economies, pushing up our salaries and the value of our homes to absurd levels, while interest rates remained comfortably low and the US dollar, as the world’s reserve currency, remained strong enough for us to continue to buy goods, the production of which was increasingly being moved overseas.

Suddenly, however, in one brief speech, Chinese Premier Wen has made it clear that the US is no longer calling the shots. Nobody’s saying it out loud here in America, but behind the scenes, it’s clear that increasingly US economic policy is going henceforth to be dictated by governments in places like Bejing, Tokyo, New Delhi and Brazilia. Those same places will also increasingly be telling us where and even if we can use our once mighty military forces.

Given our post-WWII history, that can’t be a bad thing.
_______________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. He spent five years reporting on China and Hong Kong for Business Week magazine in the 1990s and is author, most recently, of “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Obama's Address: Smooth? Yes. Transformative? No.

dlindorff — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:34:32 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

Barack Obama’s first address to Congress provided Americans with
yet another example of competent speechmaking, and I suppose, given
that we’ve just endured eight painful years of oratorical farce, being
able to listen to your president without wincing is something.

The problem is that the way forward proposed by the president as
laid out in this address was almost always half-hearted, wrong-headed
or doomed.

Obama declared at the outset of his address that the economic
crisis was the major issue confronting the country, and while one could
argue that this crisis is merely a symptom of much bigger issues, like
the nearly completed deindustrialization of the nation, the death grip
of militarism, and the growing political power of corporations, one
could also concede that there is an urgent need to deal with the
deepening recession.

But clearly, the proposals offered by the president for tackling
the crisis are not up to the task. He spoke primarily of the need to
“get banks lending” again, explaining that this would require pouring
still more hundreds of billions of dollars into these failing
institutions. You’d think that with a whole stable of bankers at his
elbow, the president would by now have heard from at least someone that
this is nonsense, but apparently not. Nobody in the White House or the
Cabinet seems to want to point out to the boss that the reason banks
aren’t lending is because most people—and companies—aren’t interested
in borrowing. The economy is tanking and assets are sinking in value by
the day. Why would anyone want to borrow to invest in such an economy?
Furthermore, even if someone did? want to borrow, banks will
not want to lend unless they think there’s a reasonable prospect of
having the money repaid. That means they want to see income, they want
to see a full order book, they want to see, in the case of a mortgage,
an asset that is fairly valued. None of this exists.

That’s why the first $350 billion that was given to the banks last
fall was simply pissed away and lost, not lent out, and it’s why the
same thing is likely to happen to the next $350 billion Obama is
preparing to give away. It won’t matter if he establishes a monitoring
system for the second tranch of the Troubled Assets Relief Program
bailout funds, or a mandate that they be used for making loans.

What is needed to fix this crisis is job security, and the only way
to create that is by creating jobs. Obama talks of creating 3-3.5
million jobs, but most of these won’t even be created, even in smaller
numbers, until the end of this year, by which time the official rate of
unemployment could be above 9%, and the real unemployment rate above
20% (that would be including people who’ve given up looking for work,
or who are involuntarily working part time).

If the president really wanted to kick-start the economy, he would
have announced a massive government program to directly hire the
unemployed, by both the federal government and state and local
governments (through block grants to the states), which would put
people to work right now as teachers’ aides, park workers, school
crossing guards, library assistants, companions for the elderly, city
and rural clean-up crews, housing renovation project workers, mural
painters, etc. If he wanted to get really creative, he could establish
teams of people, working under skilled contractor supervisors, to serve
as an army of disaster relief workers, who could speed to the scene of
future disasters to help local residents rebuild. Millions of
out-of-work people could be put productively to work with far fewer
dollars than what is about to be shoveled out to contractors to
construct or repair bridges and highways a year from now or more.

But that’s just the start of the problem with Tuesday’s address to
Congress. Obama then turned to what he said were the nation’s three
great challenges—energy, health care and education. He’s right that
these are all serious problems, but his solutions are not up to the
challenge.

On energy, he proposed spending $15 billion on research and
development and for programs to improve efficiency. If he really wanted
to reduce US reliance on foreign energy, and to significantly reduce US
greenhouse gas emissions, though, instead of funneling money to huge
corporations and utilities, he would have called for a major national
program, through tax credits, to subsidize the retrofitting of homes
with geothermal heating systems. These systems, which use the earth’s
internal heat to warm water, can reduce the use of oil for home heating
to zero, could be installed for as little as $10,000 per home on
average if done in volume, and would pay for themselves over time. A
federal tax credit of $5000 would probably be enough to convince many
homeowners to do it, and the work would provide endless numbers of jobs
across the country to plumbers and plumbers’ helpers and well drillers,
besides massively reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Heck, he could
kill two birds by calling for a massive training program to train
unemployed people to do geothermal conversion work. Credits could also
be offered to massively expand the installation of home rooftop solar
water heaters, again a major potential source of employment for
laid-off workers.

Obama’s health care plans, as they’ve been explained, are a recipe
for failure. There is no way that this nation’s health care cost and
access problems can be solved that includes the insurance industry as a
part of it. The key to solving them is having the government become the
paymaster, as every other modern society in the world has long since
realized. While Obama was whizzing through Canada, he should have
stopped at a local Canadian health clinic and asked the locals how they
like their health care system. He would have gotten an earful! There is
no need for him to convent meetings of “business and labor, experts and
health providers” to figure out what to do. Instead of trying to
reinvent the wheel, he need only ask some Canadian health officials to
come down and set up a version of their system here. For that matter,
he could ask the executives at Canadian subsidiaries of US companies
operating in Canada—they love the Canadian health care system too!

Finally, on education, the president missed the point. It’s true
that education in the US is a disgrace, that it is grossly unequal in
both availability and quality depending upon the race and class of the
local students, and that the educational standard of the nation as a
whole is in decline. But simply pouring money into schools and into
college loan programs won’t solve all this. One answer is to end the
crazy idea of having local government be the primary source of funding
for education. A second problem is that Americans have been discovering
that getting an education is no ticket to success. Jobs are being
shipped overseas so fast these days—including good jobs like
engineering and math, and lately even law—that it makes no sense for
students to borrow a king’s ransom to pay tuition and learn a trade. If
they’re lucky people who earn a PhD in physics may end up managing a
Burger King outlet. Worse yet, those Americans who decide to pursue
education for reasons of passion rather than earning potential are also
often dismayed to learn that subjects like literature, art, music and
other “soft” subjects are not valued at all in our crass, commercial
society. In China, talented students fight to enroll in state-run
conservatories to study the arts. In Taiwan, the government just opened
a striking new high school and university of the arts. In Europe,
students study musical instruments as part of their state curriculum.
Here in the US, meanwhile, school districts are killing off their art
and music programs, and focusing on the “Three Rs” (forget creative
writing). Even history gets short shrift.

If the president wants to revive education, he should stop talking
about it as a job-training program, and start talking about it as the
essence of a civilization. Instead of men in uniform being honored in
the Capitol peanut gallery during his speech, or at least along with
them, he should have invited some teachers so he could ask them to
stand up and take a round of applause. (Even Connecticut Senator Joe
Lieberman, the turncoat Democrat who backed Obama’s opponent John
McCain last fall, and who looked like he was sucking on a lemon as the
president spoke, would have had to clap then.)

Finally, of course, there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And here Obama was particularly disappointing, though this was no
surprise. He promised have most US troops out of Iraq by August
2010—but not all. US forces will continue to be there, fighting and
supporting fighting, indefinitely. Meanwhile, instead of coming home,
many American soldiers will simply be moved to Afghanistan, where Obama
is expanding the war, with plans likely to have 60,000 troops there by
this summer, and no doubt far more by the time Iraq has (hopefully)
wound down. If the president thinks he is going to help cut the federal
deficit by ending the war in Iraq, as he claimed in his address, he
doesn’t know much about accounting. The War in Afghanistan will
certainly eat up any savings he gets out of Iraq, particularly if it
leads to a wider conflict in Pakistan.

It was finally, both tragic and ironic that the most forcefully
delivered line of the evening was shamelessly and without citation
lifted by the president from his predecessor. His assertion that "The
United States of America does not torture" was a repeat of an identical
statement made by President George W. Bush, and since Obama has merely
told the military to abide by the military field manual in that regard,
and has declined to prosecute the torture crimes of the past
administration, it is just about as empty.

No amount of smooth talking gets around it: this was not the program of a “transformative” presidency.
________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Whatever Happened to Antitrust?

dlindorff — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:12:38 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

Now here’s a word you’re not hearing in America these days: anti-trust.

The country is being dragged down by monstrous businesses, all of
which, we’re told, are just “too big to fail.” As a consequence of
this, the nation’s taxpayers, and their progeny born and yet unborn,
are having trillions of dollars sucked away to prop up these giant
rotting corporate corpses.

Zombie banks, zombie automakers, zombie insurance companies, all bigger than nation states, and all on life-support.

There is a simple answer to this problem. Bust them up.

Looking at the nation’s largest banks—Bank of America, Citicorp, JP
Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and others—it’s clear that some parts of them
are functional. They have, for example, massive deposits. They also
have massive debts, many of these toxic and pretty much worthless.
Instead of bailing these failed institutions out, which is not going to
work anyhow, and which only delays and makes more costly the final day
of reckoning, the answer is to have the government carve out the
profitable banking parts of these financial institutions, and set them
up as free-standing banks, and then let the rest of the carcass of each
bank go down the tubes, taking gullible shareholders and bondholders
with them.

Then the remaining banks left from this process should be broken up by anti-trust actions into regional or even state entities.

There is simply no need for national banks. Such institutions are a
disaster for smaller companies and individuals, since they are only
really interested in lending to big national or multinational
companies. I remember years ago, back in the early 1980s, when bank
consolidation was just getting underway, how Citibank began adding fees
to its checking services simply because it wanted to drive away small
customers. It was an indication of what was coming. Screw the little
guy.

It doesn’t matter to large companies if there are no national banks.
When they want a big loan, they simply arrange for a syndicate of
smaller regional banks to put a package together. That is the way
things used to be done, and it can be done again.

Insurance companies too should be broken up. It is ridiculous to
have companies the size of AIG or Aetna or Prudential, any of whose
failures can threaten the global economy. Again, there is simply no
rationale for the existence of such mega-corporations. Insurance
companies have ways of sharing risk through reinsurers, so that smaller
companies are no more vulnerable to disaster than larger firms. They
may, in fact, be less vulnerable, since their managers will be closer
to their customers and probably more careful about what they insure and
what they invest in.

Finally, let’s look at what used to be called “Detroit.” In its
heyday, there were many more car companies than simply three. There
were American Motors, Hudson, Packard, and Studebaker, there was Mack
Trucks. Then we had a wave of consolidation and bankruptcy. In the end,
several companies—Ford, GM and Chrysler—won the day, but not because
they had better products. Rather, they were bigger, and had bigger
marketing budgets and more extensive dealership networks. Unable to
compete, good companies went bust.

As the number of car companies dwindled, so did the need to
innovate. With Chrysler just a shadow of its former self, there are
really only two domestic carmakers today, and they have spent much more
time and money using their political clout to block efforts in Congress
to force them to make better, more efficient and more socially
responsible products, than they have devoted to actually competing in
the marketplace. They have become “too big to fail.”

So now we’re being asked to bail them out to the tune of tens of
billions, and ultimately probably hundreds of billions of dollars.

Okay, I’m willing to agree that it is a good idea for the US to
have a domestic car industry, but there is no reason why it should
consist or two or three giant companies.

Let’s break these companies up into smaller enterprises, each
making one nameplate, and let them compete. With smaller, nimbler car
companies, we would see quality electric cars at affordable prices in
no time, and gas mileage would soar.

While we’re at it, let’s not stop there. The Federal Trade
Commission and the Justice Department should conduct a broad study of
the US economy, looking at every industry, with an eye to busting up
every company that is deemed “too big to fail” because of the impact
such a failure could have on the broader economy.

“Too big to fail” should mean “too big to exist.” It’s not just
that giant companies put the economy at risk. Their size makes them way
too powerful economically and politically, too. (Just look at how
Microsoft, a company that has a mediocre product line, has been able to
succeed in killing off its competition not by making a better
mousetrap, but by simply crushing or buying up those firms that do make
better ones.) Politically, breaking up mega companies prevents such
monopolistic behavior. It also creates more diversity of interest
within each industry, thus providing openings for other political
groups—like trade unions, environmentalists, etc.-- to play companies
off against each other on particular issues.

While we're at it, let's also break up the huge companies that dominate three crucial sectors of the economy, to the detriment of the public good: energy, the media and the military. Does anyone doubt that the phenomenal rise in energy prices we have been experiencing is related directly to the mergers that have occurred over the last decade in the energy industry? Or that America's endless wars, and its military budget--now equal in size to that of all other military budgets in the world combined--are a direct result of the dominance of several giant military companies--GE, Westinghouse, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman and Raytheon? Finally, if it weren't for all those media mergers, we wouldn't have newspapers closing down all over the place, and we wouldn't have the homogenized, sanitized network news we're stuck with now, either.

The tools are already at hand to tear all these anti-democratic,
anti-social and uneconomic corporate monstrosities apart. So let’s fire
up the legal chainsaws and start cutting them down to size. Instead of
bailout, we need to start hearing the word anti-trust in Washington.
____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book
is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now
available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Energy

HarryLee — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:56:26 -0500

I have been howling at the moon about Home-Grown, Green and Renewable Alternate sources of Energy for years. I've written three books on the subject. They are the MADDERnHELL.org trilogy. You can read them for free at http://www.USA-EnergyIndependence.org - check it out.