politics
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Obama hypes the green aspects of his budget plan
President Obama is giving top billing to clean energy and green jobs as he promotes his $3.6 trillion budget plan. Addressing a group of clean-tech entrepreneurs and researchers on Monday, the president noted that his proposed budget includes $150 billion over 10 years for direct investments in clean energy and efficiency, as well as $75 […]
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First DOE loan guarantee goes to … a solar manufacturer
The Department of Energy announced on Friday that the first energy loan guarantee authorized by the 2005 (!) Energy Policy Act went to a plant that manufactures solar panels: Energy Secretary Steven Chu today offered a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc. to support the company’s construction of a commercial-scale manufacturing plant for its […]
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The U.S. requires a strong climate bill to remain competitive
Contrary to popular belief, a strong climate bill will not harm U.S. competitiveness. Quite the reverse — it is our only hope for restoring U.S. leadership in key job creating industries such as solar energy, wind power, and automobile manufacturing, which was lost in large part because of conservative orthodoxy (see “U.S. left in the […]
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Grist board member appointed to Obama administration
On Wednesday, the Obama administration officially announced that Grist board member and Ford Foundation program officer Michelle DePass has been nominated to serve as the assistant administrator for international affairs at the Environmental Protection Agency. Michelle currently manages the Ford Foundation’s initiative on Environmental Justice and Healthy Communities, concentrating on the intersections of environmental and […]
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GOP leader Scrooge Boehner disses weatherizing low-income homes and cutting the deficit
So what part of the economic stimulus plan did House Minority Leader John Boehner single out on PBS's Newshour:
And, if you look at the over $500 billion worth of spending, a lot of it's going to fix up federal buildings, and -- and $6 billion to community action programs to do weatherization programs.
It's just more of the same kind of wasteful spending that we have seen in the past. I was really -- I was shocked.The Republicans dumped more than $100 billion down the black hole of Iraqi reconstruction, and Bush flushed down the toilet who knows how many tens of billions of dollars of the bailout bill. But Boehner is shocked that Democrats want to spend a few billion dollars to:
- retrofit federal buildings to make them more energy-efficient, and
- weatherize the home of poor people.
I actually helped oversee both of those programs when I was at the Department of Energy (DOE) in the mid-1990s. The conservatives hated them then, too. What is so galling about the GOP's ongoing efforts to cut these programs is that not only are they job creators -- they are both deficit reducers:
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Umbra on politicians and the environment
Dear Umbra, I got into a long debate with a conservative friend recently about how President Bush has shown that he does not have environmental interests at heart. But I did not have any facts on hand about detrimental policies or budget cuts. On the other hand, my friend was able to go to the […]
