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Earlier this week, Stimulus beneficiary Evergreen Energy bit the dust. Then, Ener1, a manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles and recipient of Stimulus largesse, filed for bankruptcy. And today, the Las Vegas Sun reports that Amonix, Inc., a manufacturer of solar panels that received $5.9 million from the Porkulus, will cut two-thirds of its workforce, about 200 employees, only seven months after opening a factory in Nevada. I foresaw this spate of bad news last November. As I explained yesterday, In a previous post, I compared renewable energy spending in the 2009 Stimulus to a green albatross burdening the President....

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has learned of a UN plan recently put in place to hide official correspondence on non-governmental communication accounts, which a federal inspector general has already confirmed are subject to FOIA requests. This “cloud” serves as a dead-drop of sorts for discussions by U.S. government employees over the next report being produced by the scandal-plagued IPCC, which is funded with millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Although this is seedy and unlawful at any time, it also goes in the “bad timing” file, especially for the Obama Administration and the UN. Just as a brand new book...

The Obama administration is conspiring with the scandal-ridden UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to cover up official correspondence and screen it from national transparency laws, according to breaking news from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Writing for the climate website Watts Up With That?, CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner (left) announced his institute has today requested records from Obama's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) that reveal a "backchannel 'cloud' established to hide IPCC deliberations from" Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. He stated that a federal inspector general confirmed that the correspondence is subject to FOIA.

CEI has learned of a UN plan recently put in place to hide official correspondence on non-governmental accounts, which correspondence a federal inspector general has already confirmed are subject to FOIA. This ‘cloud’ serves as a dead-drop of sorts for discussions by U.S. government employees over the next report being produced by the scandal-plagued IPCC, which is funded with millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. By Christopher Horner, CEI.org for WUWT Although this is seedy and unlawful at any time, it also goes in the ‘bad timing’ file. Or it’s good timing, depending on one’s perspective. Just as a brand new...

CEI has learned of a UN plan recently put in place to hide official correspondence on non-governmental accounts, which correspondence a federal inspector general has already confirmed are subject to FOIA. This ‘cloud’ serves as a dead-drop of sorts ...... scandal-plagued IPCC, which is funded with millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

EXCERPT Enter John Doerr, a billionaire venture capitalist at the Silicon Valley firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers (KPCB). There, Doerr has been responsible for the firm’s successful investments in companies like Compaq, Intuit, AOL, Amazon, Netscape and Google. No one would argue that Doerr hasn’t earned his spot on Forbes magazine’s annual richest people in the world list. However, in recent years, Doerr has redirected his talent from picking out successful start-up companies to successfully lobbying the Obama administration into supporting “green” initiatives. While Doerr considers himself “a raging capitalist,” what he has been doing the last few years...

In an interview last week with the Albany Times Union, New York’s state geologist, Dr. Taury Smith, a self-described liberal Democrat, called the state’s natural gas deposits “a huge gift.” Over the last decade, the natural gas industry has been revolutionized by the rapid development of a drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing. In that time, economically recoverable reserves in the U.S. roughly doubled. New York could be among the biggest beneficiaries, as it sits upon huge deposits of gas, known as Marcellus Shale, that are now recoverable. Environmentalists, however, oppose hydraulic fracturing because they oppose all fossil fuels, and...

All Aboard the Climate Gravy TrainThere was a time when climate scientists were not extremely well paid, but that is no longer the case. Global-warming alarmists often portray climate scientists as poorly paid academics whose judgment is impervious to the influence of money. This seems strange given the billions of taxpayer dollars that have been invested in climate science over the past few years. And as the public-choice school of economics has clearly shown, the opportunity for reward affects even supposedly disinterested professionals. Therefore, it is fair to ask: Just how well rewarded are climate scientists? As it turns out, by...

Hours after a massive earthquake rattled Japan, environmental advocates connected the natural disaster to global warming. The president of the European Economic and Social Committee, Staffan Nilsson, issued a statement calling for solidarity in tackling the global warming problem. “Some islands affected by climate change have been hit,” said Nilsson. “Has not the time come to demonstrate on solidarity – not least solidarity in combating and adapting to climate change and global warming?” “Mother Nature has again given us a sign that that is what we need to do,” he added. Global Warming enthusiasts have also taken to Twitter to...

The intent of the Clean Air Act needs to be manipulated beyond logic to believe the EPA has any authority to regulate CO2. In a recent issue of the Daily Caller, reporter Jonathan Strong asserts that EPA’s global warming regulations are “no end-run around Congress,” because “This time Congress is being held hostage by its own laws.” That’s exactly what EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and just about every environmental advocacy group in America says. They are mistaken.Interestingly, much of Strong’s argument leads to conclusion that EPA is engaged in an end-run. His column leaves little doubt that the Clean Air...

Okay, you get the point. The Obama brief does everything except point out the final absurdity: Because everybody directly or indirectly consumes fossil energy, everybody is both victim and perpetrator. The implicit message of the plaintiffs’ suit is not merely sue thy neighbor, but sue yourself! Why then doesn’t Team Obama draw the obvious conclusion of its own argument and urge the Court to reinstate Judge Preska’s ruling? Why stop at the inherently provisional conclusion that the court of appeals should reassess its decision in light of prudential considerations? Maybe the calculation is simply that the Supreme Court would be...

Today’s Daily Express (London) opens with a stark reminder that there are consequences to the foolishness being crammed down on you now — and which will be voted upon in the Senate, we are told, at the end of this month. BRITAIN faces years of blackouts and soaring electricity bills because of the drive toward green power, a leading energy expert warned last night. A growing obsession with global warming and “renewable” sources threatens the stability of our supply. Derek Birkett, a former Grid Control Engineer who has a lifetime’s experience in electricity supply throughout Britain, warned that the cost...

Today, the SEC charged giant investment bank Goldman Sachs with more than $1 billion worth of securities fraud for its dealings in the subprime mortgage market. Ironically at the same time the SEC is seeking justice for Goldman's alleged vitims, President Obama and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) are pushing a bill that would reward the firm with potentially billions of dollars by instituting a so-called "resolution authority" that would in practice be a permanent bailout fund. Supporters of Dodd's bill maintain that it does not create bailouts because the failing firm's shareholders would be wiped out and...

The chance that the Senate will pass a comprehensive energy-rationing (a k a climate) bill this year remains close to zero. BP’s big oil spill in the Gulf changes very little. The global warming movement peaked last June 26 when the House passed the Waxman-Markey bill. When members went home for the Fourth of July, many who voted for it discovered that their constituents were angry and mobilized. Seeing the public reaction, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) dropped plans to move a cap-and-trade bill before the August recess and turned to health care reform. It’s been all downhill since...

I find it interesting that an entire nation like Greece can face bankruptcy. Greece will be loaned billions that it is not likely to ever repay. Meanwhile, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland are financially shaky as well. England is not much better off and the United States is printing money in the basement of the Federal Reserve while also borrowing it from China, Japan, and everyone else. Too much government intervention and too many regulations Our current miseries can be traced in part to too much government intervention and too many regulations. My hero, Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise...

In response to the EPA's contest for supporting regulation.

It's a sure sign that a government agency has become overmighty when it vastly increases its budget, grabs power unconstitutionally and treats Congress with contempt. All of this applies to the Environmental Protection Agency. Unless Congress acts quickly to curb the EPA's power, it will become a huge drag on the economy. Few bodies are more deserving of cutbacks now. This year, EPA's budget (which had hovered at $7 billion to $8 billion since 1997) increased by 34 percent, to more than $10 billion for the first time ever. The budget increase does not translate into an upsurge in staffing...

Energy Policy: Watch out when sweeping new legislation comes with a "bipartisan" label. Usually it's a bad, repackaged measure undeserving of passage. Case in point: the new energy bill. Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are working feverishly to craft a "tripartisan" approach for a new cap-and-trade bill. The goal reportedly is to slash carbon emissions 17% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Unlike the past efforts, which relied on a one-size-fits-all approach, this one will have separate caps on carbon output for manufacturers and utilities. It also boosts offshore drilling and nuclear power. Even...

he Competitive Enterprise Institute, a leading free-market think tank, will celebrate the Second Annual “Human Achievement Hour” between 8:30pm and 9:30pm on Saturday, March 27, 2010. The one-hour celebration coincides with “Earth Hour,” an hour in which governments, individuals, and corporations will dim or shut off lights to symbolically renounce the environmental impacts of modern technology. “Earth Hour’s creators suggest that human inventions and technology are a problem, but we see the ability to create and innovate as the ultimate resource,” says Human Achievement Hour founder and CEI Policy Analyst Michelle Minton. “Environmental challenges will not be solved by turning...

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) offers a free climate change e-mail newsletter "Cooler Heads Digest" which arrives weekly on Fridays.

While the World Wildlife Fund is encouraging everyone all over the planet to shut off their lights and anything else running on electricity at 8 P.M. tonight to celebrate "Earth Hour," the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington D.C. based think tank, is telling everyone to turn everything on at that time instead and celebrate "Human Achievement Hour."

According to recently disclosed e-mails from a National Academies of Science listserv, prominent climate scientists affiliated with the U.S. National Academies of Science have been planning a public campaign to paper over the damaged reputation of global warming alarmism. Their scheme would involve officials at the National Academies and other professional associations producing studies to endorse the researchers’ pre-existing assumptions and create confusion about the revelations of the rapidly expanding “Climategate” scandal.The e-mails were first reported in a front-page story by Stephen Dinan in the Washington Times today. The Competitive Enterprise Institute has independently obtained copies of the e-mails. A...

Watch the entire PJTV interview with Christopher Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute Watch here: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-the-global-warming-cover-up-spreads-to-nasa/

Email messages obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute via a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that the climate dataset of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) was considered — by the top climate scientists within NASA itself — to be inferior to the data maintained by the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU). Read more: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-stunner-nasa-heads-knew-nasa-data-was-poor-then-used-data-from-cru/

Email messages obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute via a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that the climate dataset of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) was considered — by the top climate scientists within NASA itself — to be inferior to the data maintained by the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU). The NASA scientists also felt that NASA GISS data was inferior to the National Climate Data Center Global Historical Climate Network (NCDC GHCN) database. These emails, obtained by Christopher Horner, also show that the NASA GISS dataset was not independent of CRU data....

Now a new "Climategate" scandal is emerging, this time based on documents released by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in response to several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suits filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The newly released emails further demonstrate the politicized nature of climate science, revealing a number of questionable practices that cast doubt on the credibility of scientific data provided by NASA. The emails reveal that GISS, like CRU, has done a poor job of preserving and managing its data. Although there is no evidence that GISS has destroyed its data, as CRU did...

The "Climategate" scandal, which broke in November 2009, revealed what many skeptics had privately suspected. Prominent climate scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) had collaborated to keep data out of skeptics' hands, subverted the peer review process, and used questionable methods to construct the temperature record on which the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change (IPCC) based its recommendations. Now a new "Climategate" scandal is emerging, this time based on documents released by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in response to several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suits filed by the Competitive Enterprise...

he still-growing Climategate scientific fraud scandal has already started to move public opinion against global warming alarmism. And even people who believe in looming climate catastrophe aren’t too happy about cap-and-trade legislation that would force them to pay more (and in reality, much, much more) for energy. What has kept cap-and-trade legislation alive in Congress is strong support from big business. Many major corporations have figured out that they can make billions of dollars in windfall profits if a cap-and-trade scheme is enacted that will give them free ration coupons and force consumers to pick up the bill. Big business...

The state of Texas and a coalition of free-market and global warming skeptic groups are asking a federal appeals court today to review U.S. EPA's finding that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare.Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples announced that the state is filing a petition (pdf) with the U.S. Court of Appeals challenging EPA's endangerment finding."Texas is aggressively seeking its future in alternative energy through incentives and innovation, not mandates and overreaching regulation," Perry said in a statement. "The EPA's misguided plan paints a big target on the backs...

The head of the UN's climate change panel - Dr Rajendra Pachauri - is accused of making a fortune from his links with 'carbon trading' companies, Christopher Booker and Richard North write. No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007. Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as “the world’s top climate scientist”), as a former...

Over at ICECAP.us Meteorologist Joe D’Aleo has posted an item on a “Russian Bombshell” highly relevant to the ClimateGate scandal. The Russian media first posted the story and now some Brits are loving it. The long and the short of it is best summarized by the Telegraph’s James Dellingpole: “What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.” That is, we have yet further evidence that the data is being cooked to make the long-running claim of an increase in global...

Lee Dorin and Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute do some "man on the street" type interviews of environmentalists on the subject of the Climategate e-mails.

Climategate may be just the tip of the global-warming iceberg according to the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, which says the next weather-science scandal may erupt right here in the United States. For nearly three years CEI, a free-market, public-interest organization, has pursued a series of Freedom of Information Act Requests intended to force NASA's climate-science division to hand over e-mails it says could reflect the same sort of pro-warming bias seen in the recent e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of East Anglia University. One reason NASA's unresponsiveness is drawing attention: For years, the CRU stonewalled a request...

Junk Science: The Environmental Protection Agency's sneak attack on the U.S. economy and our freedoms, curiously timed for the opening day of the Copenhagen climate charade, won't go unchallenged. Nor should it. The EPA's finding that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant explains why the administration wasn't too concerned over possible failure at Copenhagen. This was their Plan B. The finding is an environmental Sword of Damocles held over the head of the U.S. with a warning that if cap-and-trade legislation such as Waxman-Markey or Kerry-Boxer is not signed into law, the full regulatory fury of an unelected bureaucracy will...

There are so many deep flaws in the "Endangerment Ruling" announced Monday by President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency that it is quite possible the worst of them will escape notice. After all, it's hard to top the drama of the millions of lost jobs and the crippling energy crisis that will result if the agency begins regulating greenhouse gases -- mainly CO2. The agency unilaterally awarded itself authority to do just that with the ruling. But even worse will be the terrible damage this ruling will inflict upon one of the most basic of American constitutional pillars, the separation of...

Junk Science: The Environmental Protection Agency's sneak attack on the U.S. economy and our freedoms, curiously timed for the opening day of the Copenhagen climate charade, won't go unchallenged. Nor should it. (snip) EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, in a conversation with Sen. James Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has in effect admitted the finding was based on the junk science and data manipulation practiced at Britain's East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU). "She told me that EPA accepted those findings without any serious independent analysis to see whether they were true," Inhofe said. Dr....

As activists from groups as wide-ranging as the Girl Scouts and the World Council on Churches converge on the climate change conference in Copenhagen, some critics say it's turning into a "circus" sideshow, with 20,000 attendees creating an international echo chamber of climate piety. Apart from the main proceedings, there are 254 side events, 231 exhibits and more than 200 press conferences already on the schedule — meaning there are about 700 extra events keyed up for the 12-day conference. "These circuses get bigger and bigger," said Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise...

The Environmental Protection Agency today finalized its finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare and therefore must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. CEI announced that it will file suit in federal court to overturn the endangerment finding on the grounds that EPA has ignored major scientific issues, including those raised recently in the Climategate fraud scandal. “EPA is clinging for dear life to the notion that the global climate models are holding up,” said Sam Kazman, CEI General Counsel. “In reality, those models are about to sink under the growing weight of evidence that they...

When the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing on the state of climate science on December 2, the Republicans were ready to focus it on the Climategate fraud scandal. And the first witness, President Obama’s science adviser, Dr. John P. Holdren, was ready to respond. Instead of summarizing his written testimony in his oral remarks, Holdren read a prepared statement on Climategate. He said that the controversy involved a “small group of scientists” and was primarily about one temperature dataset. He said that such controversies were not unusual in all branches of science and...

Science: For two years, our space agency has refused Freedom of Information requests on why it has repeatedly corrected its climate figures. A leading researcher threatens to sue to find more inconvenient truths. What's become known as "Climate-Gate" may be about to explode on this side of the pond as well. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has threatened a lawsuit against NASA if by year-end the agency doesn't honor his FOI requests for information on how and why its climate numbers have been consistently adjusted for errors. "I assume that what is there is highly...

In the wake of the burgeoning Climategate fraud scandal, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) on December 2 filed an emergency petition demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency stop its plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, pending a complete investigation.

The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data. Chris Horner... said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s. "I assume that what is there...

Climate scientists are refuting claims that raw data used in critical climate change reports has been destroyed, rendering the reports and policies based on those reports unreliable. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market advocacy group, is arguing that U.S. EPA's climate policies rely on raw data that have been destroyed and are therefore unreliable. The nonprofit group -- a staunch critic of U.S. EPA's efforts to regulate greenhouse gases -- petitioned the agency last week to reopen the public comment period on its proposed "endangerment finding" because the data set had been lost (E&ENews PM, Oct. 9). But climate scientists...

When I read the Washington Post’s disgraceful editorial the other day on the Climategate scandal, I thought of how far they have fallen since their big moment in the sun, Watergate. In those heady days, editor Ben Bradlee and a team of crack investigative reporters led by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the Watergate cover-up and brought down President Nixon. Of course, they were then on the side of the permanent Washington establishment, who loathed Nixon (as he loathed them), just as they are now on the side of the permanent Washington establishment, for whom global warming alarmism is...

Allen Barton interviews Myron Ebell (CEI.org) about the scandal sparked by e-mails indicating that the Climactic Research Unit (CRU), which warns of global warming, massaged data to fit its agenda.

Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for those bodies’ refusal — for nearly three years — to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act. The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding “Climategate” scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries’ freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies. Numerous informed commenters had alleged such behavior for years, all...

Today, on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, I filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for those bodies' refusal - for nearly three years - to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act. The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding "ClimateGate" scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries' freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies. Numerous informed commenters had alleged such...

Today, on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, I filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for those bodies' refusal - for nearly three years - to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act. The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding "ClimateGate" scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries' freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies. Numerous informed commenters had alleged such...

I just wanted to remind everyone that Environmental Policy Expert Chris Horner will be speaking at UC Merced this Friday. There will be a Q & A session, so come with plenty of questions. In addition, if you own any of his books (The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming, Red Hot Lies) and would like them autographed, bring a copy with you. The event will take place in the Lakireddy Auditorium, with doors opening at 6 pm and the event starting at 6:15 pm. Refreshments will be provided and everyone is encouraged to attend. The event is FREE, so...

Control: The House and Senate climate bills contain a provision giving the president extraordinary powers in the event of a "climate emergency." As chief of staff Rahm Emanuel says, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. If you thought the House health care bill that nobody read has hidden passages that threaten our freedoms and liberty, take a peak at the "trigger" placed in the byzantine innards of both the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill and the Kerry-Boxer bill just passed by Democrats out of Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee. As Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation points...