A Free-Market Energy Blog

Obama’s 2015 Budget: Wish List Climate Spending ($10.8 billion for what?)

By Megan Toombs -- March 12, 2014

The federal government is $17.5 trillion in debt with this amount increasing at more than a half-trillion per year. Yet the Obama Administration has just proposed a budget that increases spending. It’s business as usual in D.C.!

President Obama Fiscal Year 2015 Budget, released last week, is a wish-list for the Administration’s pet programs. It has already been derided by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, but that does not make it irrelevant. It signals the goals of the Obama Administration going forward.

Included in the $3.9 trillion budget is $10.8 billion earmarked for climate change-related initiatives in addition to the $7.9 billion EPA budget. That makes a total of $18.7 billion of your money.

Where would this money go?

Climate Resilience Fund: $1 Billion

The Climate Resilience Fund, created to aid Americans preparing for a changing climate.

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Ad Hominem against MasterResource: Climate Alarmism at Wit’s End?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 11, 2014

 “The Master Resource people are whores of the fossil fuel industry. (Yes, that certainly includes you.)”

– David Appell (@davidappell) | March 5, 2014 at 10:33 pm |

Judith Curry at Climate, Etc. posted about a new analysis by Nic Lewis and Marcel Crok, “A sensitive matter:  How the IPCC buried evidence showing good news about global warming” (Global Warming Policy Foundation: press release here; short version here), for which she wrote an introduction (see Appendix B below).

Several hundred comments followed. A critical, emotive thread of comments toward Lewis/Crok, and by implication Curry, was coming from David Appell, a highly credentialed journalist with a widely read blog, Quark Soup, that focuses on climate issues from an alarmist perspective.

I noticed this comment from Dr. Appell in response to pokerguy (aka al neipris) | March 5, 2014 at 7:16 pm who argued that at lower climate sensitivity, the external effects would “more likely … be overwhelmingly positive in its effect.”…

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Charles Koch on Cronyism

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 10, 2014

Today, many governments give special treatment to a favored few businesses that eagerly accept those favors. This is the essence of cronyism…. One obvious example of this involves wind farms. Most cannot turn a profit without the costly subsidies the government provides.”

– Charles G. Koch, “The Importance of Economic Freedom.” August 17, 2012.

William Simon, the top energy regulator in the Nixon’s Federal Energy Administration, was surprised. Oil company head after head was visiting his office to demand this or that to alleviate their shortages of oil or get more entitlements credit for their refineries. But Koch Industries had come by to just ask the federal government to leave them alone—to allow price signals to allocate crude oil and petroleum products. It was a meeting that Simon would not forget.…

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Kenneth P. Green: 20 Years in the Energy/Environmental Movement (Part II)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 7, 2014
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Kenneth P. Green: 20 Years in the Energy/Environmental Movement (Part I)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 6, 2014
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NERC Reality vs. AWEA’s Goggin: Chasing a Ghost in Windland

By Kevon Martis -- March 5, 2014
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Wind2050: A Dystopian Society? (Vestas, et al. go Orwellian against anti-windpower grassroots)

By Mark Duchamp -- March 4, 2014
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AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: March 3, 2014

By -- March 3, 2014
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AOTA (‘All of the Above’) Energy Policy: A Political Argument for the Uneconomic, Cronyism

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 28, 2014
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Rep. Camp’s Bold Move: End of the Wind PTC (and other energy subsidies too)

By -- February 27, 2014
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