Posted on 09/27/2012 1:40:26 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) -- Former Vice President Al Gore is slated to speak at the opening of Nova Southeastern University's $50 million coral reef research center.
The South Florida center will focus on protecting coral reefs around the world and will cultivate coral species in nurseries for re-introduction to the ocean. Florida is home to most of the nation's coral reefs.
Nova received a $15 million dollar federal stimulus grant to help fund the center. University officials said the center has created 22 new academic jobs, 300 construction jobs and will employ 50 graduate students....
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Gore to visit Nova’s coral reef research center [$15 Million Fed Stimulus Grant] ..... and a 7.0 mag earthquake could mess the whole thing up in a matter of seconds.
Fifteen million doesn’t sound like that much of a problem.
Gore should match that contribution with all he has made with his clean air hype.
“Fifteen million doesn’t sound like that much of a problem..”
Multiply it by thousands of these “small” vote buying, supporter keeping buys (many “green”) using tax payer money. But how many jobs were “saved or created?”
This 2010 article explains some of this “scam”:
“Report stresses stimulus logjam”
By Asher Price, AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF - Sept 26, 2010
In December, Austin won $7.5 million in federal energy-efficiency stimulus money to improve the lighting at City Hall, undertake a retrofit of a building that houses first responders, upgrade duct work at fire stations, and install equipment to capture methane and convert it to electricity at the city’s southeast solid waste plant, among other projects.
But as of Aug. 1, the city had spent only 2 percent of the money. Same goes for the $45.6 million awarded to the State Energy Conservation Office . Round Rock, which won $955,400, had spent 6 percent of its share of the money. The city has hired a consultant to plan the rest of the spending.
Those figures are in a federal Government Accountability Office report issued this month on the accountability of stimulus money.
The report focuses on a relatively small pot of money, $208.9 million awarded to the state to promote energy efficiency programs and create or retain jobs.
Although the numbers in the report are already outdated and the cities say they are on course to meet spending requirements, the report suggests the larger trickle-down challenges of spending the federal money meant to circulate quickly, effectively and efficiently.
City officials in Austin and Round Rock reported that although the federal money has “been helpful in furthering specific efforts, such as energy efficiency and rehabilitation of homes, the funds have had a limited overall impact on their ability to address ongoing fiscal challenges,” according to the report.
The cities have until 2012 to spend the money and say they are on track to do so. Austin’s Fred Yebra, director of energy efficiency services for Austin Energy, says that now 12 percent of the money has been spent.
More than 81 percent of Austin’s money is tied up in contracts for planned work.
“We’re on schedule to get it done,” Yebra said. “There are lots of requirements that come with these grants, and we have to be very, very judicious in the ways we’re spending the money. It starts off slow, then just starts ramping up.
“We have contractors under contract, and they’re the ones building up the work force to get these projects done.”
Round Rock officials also say much progress has taken place since March, when that city’s share of the federal money was awarded.
Since statistics were reported to the GAO, spending has increased in the city, with 40 percent of the money now spent.
In September, for instance, Round Rock awarded a contract for $22,010 to replace lights at 12 city-owned facilities. Officials estimate that will translate into three jobs being retained.
In August, Round Rock retained Austin-based Solar Community for a $212,268 contract to put solar panels atop the City Hall parking garage. The project, estimated to be completed in February, will lead to nine jobs being created or retained.
The city is also paying ESA Energy Systems Associates Inc. $36,840 to provide assistance for implementing energy efficiency strategies. The company was already paid $11,415 to develop the grant application and strategy submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy to win the federal energy efficiency money.
The GAO report also looked at the State Energy Conservation Office, which plans to allocate the majority of its $45.6 million in federal funding to small cities and sparsely populated counties that don’t qualify for direct grants from the Department of Energy. Eighty-nine percent of the money is obligated through contracts with local entities — 1,061 cities and counties in Texas will receive the federal money, with an average grant of $39,000. As of mid-August, only 2 percent of the money had essentially been regifted.
The state pays the cities and counties after they send in invoices for work that is done, said R.J. DeSilva, a spokesman for the Texas comptroller’s office, which oversees the energy conservation office.
“This is to ensure projects follow guidelines and to avoid waste or fraud,” he said, adding that the state is on track to disburse the money before its 2012 deadline .
With little spending has come little or no job creation thus far. From April to June, the quarter GAO officers examined, Round Rock reported that less than one full-time employee position had been created or saved with federal dollars. The energy conservation office reported approximately eight workers.
Austin and Bryan said they did not create any jobs during the quarter, but Austin expects its first job report in October.
The spending build-up in Texas cities “is following a nationwide trend,” said Lorelei St. James, acting director of the physical infrastructure team at the GAO’s Dallas field office. “A lot of money has been obligated, but as in Texas, it hasn’t all been spent yet.”
Overall, Texas officials say $12.2 billion has been spent of the approximately $19.8 billion in federal stimulus money it has been awarded.” [end]
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/report-stresses-stimulus-logjam-1/nRyFD/
$15 million is not enough to get him down there. Nova probably has a ‘School of Massage’ wing they want to dedicate. All they have to do is furnish him with an ugly co-ed in a skimpy white nurse looking uniform, a table, a bottle of massage oil and NO TOWEL....and, a certified letter stating that he will not be prosecuted for any sexual assault charges, in the event he is accused of such by the masseuse. He’d speak all day, for free.
GREENING up science AKA.....
“Stimulating science
Within a week of the election in November 2008, and with the economy in free fall, Obama’s advisers started working with the scientific community to survey ‘shovel-ready’ projects for potential inclusion in a stimulus package intended to boost construction and get people back to work. They initially aimed for US$5 billion in initiatives, but House Democrats doubled that in a draft of the stimulus bill released on 15 January 2009, five days before Obama’s inauguration. And the role of science and innovation continued to grow.
On 17 February, exactly 4 weeks into office, Obama signed a $787-billion stimulus bill that contained at least $53 billion for science. The bill made good on Obama’s promises to advance basic and applied research and development aimed at the major problems of the day, including clean energy and global warming. It boosted research funding by $2 billion at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Virginia, and by $8.2 billion at the NIH. As he signed the bill at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science in Colorado, Obama called it the biggest increase in the history of basic-research funding......
.......If the health-care bill demonstrated the administration’s skills with Congress, then the way it handled NASA in early 2010 revealed how easily relations could sour. When the president rolled out his budget request in February, it held a bitter surprise for congressional supporters of the space agency. On the list of projects to be eliminated was Constellation, a programme to develop massive rockets to return humans to the Moon.
“This was a major policy pronouncement but it was revealed in a budget release,” says Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington DC.Normally, an administration prepares Congress for such a change — but Obama’s sudden move led to what Pace calls a “bruising, year-long fight” with lawmakers in both parties. Eventually, several parts of the Constellation programme were reinstated. But by then, NASA had become an agency adrift, left to the mercy of parochial interests in Congress.
Human space flight and many other elements of NASA’s mission were never priorities of the Obama administration. In the 2013 budget request, the agency’s astrophysics and planetary-science programmes lost 8% of their funding compared with 2008. Obama was more interested in fixing problems with his home planet, and boosted funding for NASA’s Earth-sciences programmes by 44% over the same period......”
http://www.nature.com/news/us-science-the-obama-experiment-1.11481
I second the motion.
Thanks forr all that detail!
Got any pictures,...maps...graphics??
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U.S. Congresswoman and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz will also attend Thursday's event.
Algore doesn’t give money he only takes money. He’s the Goracle!
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Maybe I missed it....I'll add it.
OK....looks like I did.....more good reading.
Wut? It’s a book? lol
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