Free Republic

In 2011 the Environmental Protection Agency provided $1 million in grants to 46 different non-profit and tribal organizations to promote what it called “environmental justice.” Since 1994, a little-noticed EPA program has handed out a total of $23 million in such grants to 1,253 organizations, for stated purposes that observers are questioning. President Bill Clinton and the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) were responsible for implementing “environmental justice” as part of the EPA’s mission. In early 1990, following a lobbying push by the CBC, the EPA established the Environmental Equity Workgroup. In 1994 it was renamed the Office of Environmental Justice.

(CNSNews.com) – House Republicans sharply criticized the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Thursday for "politicizing" federal grants that benefit victims of human trafficking. Why was the most experienced and top-rated grant applicant -- the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops -- not selected, while lower-ranked groups got the money instead? The answer is discrimination, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) told the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee: “If you are a Catholic or other faith-based NGO, or a secular organization of conscience, there is now clear proof that your grant application will not be considered...under a fair, impartial, and...

The Energy Department's inspector general has launched more than 100 criminal investigations related to 2009 economic stimulus spending. In written testimony prepared for delivery to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, Inspector General Gregory Friedman said the investigations have involved "various schemes, including the submission of false information, claims for unallowable or unauthorized expenses, and other improper uses of Recovery Act funds." So far, the investigations have led to five criminal prosecutions and brought in "over $2.3 million in monetary recoveries," Friedman said. "This includes a series of cases involving fictitious claims for travel per diem resulting in...

Figures show that only 106 electric cars were bought in 2011 third quarter through 'plugged-in car grant' scheme. Hopes that £5,000 government grants would make 2011 "remembered as the year the electric car took off" have been dashed with the release of new figures showing uptake of the greener cars has sputtered out. ... The number of electric vehicles in the UK stands at just 1,107, a tiny chunk of the country's 28.5m cars. But the government had hoped to incentivise take-up with the launch of grants of up to £5,000

The indictment of a Chicago nurse accused of diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds for her personal use has turned a spotlight on an Illinois state agency that awarded her money while it was headed by one of President Barack Obama’s closest friends, Dr. Eric E. Whitaker, records show. Under Whitaker, the Illinois Department of Public Health awarded Margaret A. Davis — the former program director of the Chicago Chapter of the National Black Nurses Association — a no-bid contract and seven AIDS- and cancer-related grants that became part of her $500,000 cash-siphoning scheme, prosecutors say. According...

The president of local biotechnology firm GenPhar is accused of defrauding the federal government out of at least $3.6 million the company received to research vaccines against deadly diseases. The charges are contained in federal indictments unsealed today that also accuse GenPhar president Jian-Yun Dong and his estranged wife of making at least $31,000 in illegal campaign contributions to U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and his political action committee. Dong, who also is chief executive officer of GenPhar, is accused of submitting false claims to federal agencies, converting grant funds to his own use and committing wire fraud to scam the...

The healthy growth of mankind depends on continuously decreasing the cost of water and energy everywhere.Nice thought. Why mention it?Its a mission statement.For who?Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett — and through them America’s billionaires. Why Bill Gates? Why Warren Buffett?As to Bill Gates, his passion; According to a recent interview Understanding science and pushing the boundaries of science is what makes me immensely satisfied. What I’m doing now involves understanding maths, risk-taking. The first half of my life was good preparation for the second half.’ Now in the context of the interview he was...

U.S. Considers Funding Various Mexican Energy Projects By Steve Peacock, U.S. Trade & Aid MonitorThe U.S. Trade & Development Agency (USTDA) is weighing whether it should help finance a trio of energy projects in Mexico; however, prior to making those decisions, the agency will award consulting contracts to U.S. vendors to assess the viability of those respective endeavors. The first initiative is titled the Zacatecas Wind Power Project Feasibility Study, whose stated objective is to: enable the development of a 70 MW wind power generation project in the Municipality of Zacatecas. The Feasibility Study will allow the Grantee to assess...

Last Updated: Thu, 08/04/2011 - 12:54pm Despite getting more than $1 billion from the U.S. government to bolster security, the nation’s passenger train system—known as Amtrak—remains vulnerable to a terrorist attack because the money wasn’t spent efficiently to adequately protect the most vulnerable stations. It’s the last thing Americans need to hear in the tumult of an epic budget crisis and record-high unemployment, that tax dollars were wasted by yet another incompetent government agency with a bloated budget. It’s an old, worn out story that gets repeated way too often. In this case the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed...

Foundation Center:Look Up Organizations-990 finder directs you to an organizations IRS returns

"EPA Administrator Announces National Grants to Train Jobseekers in Green Jobs and Clean Up of Contaminated Sites" Today in Atlanta, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced that EPA is awarding more than $6.2 million in national environmental workforce development and job training grants to 21 grantees… Twenty-one governmental entities and non-profit organizations in twenty states are receiving up to $300,000 each to train individuals in the cleanup (and) other environmental skills… We’re looking to the people and community organizations who know these areas best to find the places where green jobs and environmental protection are going...

Anwar Awlaki, now believed to be an Al Qaeda recruiter hiding in Yemen, is connected to at least two recent suspected terrorism cases – the Fort Hood attack and the attempted Christmas Day jet bombing. The American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, considered by some to be one of the most wanted terrorists behind Usama bin Laden, was educated in the United States with taxpayers money, an ongoing Fox News investigation has found. Awlaki, now believed to be recruiting for Al Qaeda from hiding in Yemen, is connected to at least two recent suspected terrorism cases – the Fort Hood attack...

The Obama cabinet secretary who launched a costly program to make America’s minority communities green has sent millions of taxpayer dollars to environmental causes overseas, including China, Russia and India. Ranking members of a congressional energy committee call it “foreign handouts” amid record deficits, soaring unemployment and a looming debt ceiling in the U.S. The money—$27 million since 2009—has been issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is headed by Lisa Jackson. The cash was issued via 65 foreign grants that don’t even include Canada and Mexico, according to a report issued this week by the House Energy and...

The Environmental Protection Agency has given at least $1,285,535 in grants to China to promote environmental research in the country. In all, the EPA issued six grants that went to China, most of which pertained to researching methane in Chinese coal mines and reducing carbon emissions in China, a communist dictatorship long criticized by human rights groups. Two of those grants were awarded during the Bush administration; four were awarded during the Obama administration. The issue, at a time of mounting debt and deficits, is about fiscal responsibility, said Robert Gordon, senior advisor for strategic outreach for the Heritage Foundation,...

By the EPA’s own grant database, over the last ten years, the agency has bellied up to the bar and bought drinks for many of its friends at the taxpayers’ expense. Within the past decade, the EPA awarded or continues to have open more than 7,500 grants, totaling $3,847,160,250 to non-profit groups alone.

How much should a college education cost? According to the College Board, the average cost of earning a degree at a private, 4-year university is now more than $100,000. If tuition prices continue to rise as quickly as they did during the past decade, a college degree will cost more than $200,000 by the time today’s third-graders are applying. That price tag is enough to cause most parents to break into a sweat. Is a college degree really worth this cost? Some bright minds think Americans are paying way too much. In fact, Bill Gates--one of the country's most famous...

The United States government is funding the National Council of La Raza with our tax dolla La Raza, which literally means in Spanish “The Race,” is a radical organization that advocate open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens. I pulled and analyzed the tax return Form 990 the form filed by 501(c) 3 organizations to the IRS, and here is what was reported: Government Grants (contributions) to the National Council of La Raza 2008 Tax Returns, (October 1 2008 to September 30, 2009) $5,136,535

Proposed massive cuts by House Republicans to the federal housing budget would cripple the city's ability to prevent its affordable housing stock from falling into disrepair, housing officials and advocates warned Tuesday. At a time when 100,000 units of affordable housing are overleveraged and at risk of deteriorating, Republicans in the House of Representatives have proposed eliminating funding of Community Development Block Grants, the stream of money that pays for the inspectors and other personnel who administer the city's aggressive code enforcement program.

New York City is pouring hundreds of thousands of federal dollars into television ads telling people they’re better off knocking back a glass of seltzer water or fat-free milk than chugging a soda — part of hundreds of millions of dollars from President Obama’s economic stimulus package devoted to getting Americans to change their behavior by eating more veggies, kicking cigarettes and picking up dumbbells. In the latest spot, part of a $870,000 stimulus-funded “Pouring on the Pounds” campaign, a narrator warns that while it may seem harmless to have “midmorning soda, a sweetened tea at lunch, a frozen coffee...

A week after Republicans announced plans to investigate waivers granted to organizations for healthcare reform provisions, President Obama’s health department made public new waivers for more than more than 500 groups. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is granting temporary waivers to organizations that would not be able to meet the reform law’s new requirement for annual coverage limits. As of last week, HHS had granted waivers to 222 organizations covering 1.5 million individuals. Though the number of groups receiving waivers has now more than tripled, the number of individuals covered by the waivers increased just 600,000 to...

Today, Virginia taxpayers, a state lawmaker and a public interest law firm are asking the University of Virginia to produce important "global warming" records under that state's Freedom of Information Act. These are records the school no longer denies possessing but nonetheless refuses to release, even to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. They address one of the most high-profile claims used to advance massive economic-intervention policies in the name of "global warming." In response to a previous FOIA request, U.Va. denied these records existed. However, during Cuccinelli's pre-investigation under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act ("FATA"), a 2007 law passed unanimously...

You are not going to believe some of the things that the U.S. government is spending money on. According to a shocking new report, U.S. taxpayer money is being spent to study World of Warcraft, to study how Americans find love on the Internet, and to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam. Not only that, but money from the federal government is also being used to renovate a pizzeria in Iowa and to help a library in Tennessee host video game parties. These are just some of the examples in a new report on government waste from Senator...

Subsidizing Sanctuary Cities: Federal Government Reimburses for Jailing Illegals, Even When Locals Obstruct Immigration Enforcement WASHINGTON, Nov. 8, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new Center for Immigration Studies Memorandum finds that the Department of Justice annually awards millions of dollars in grants to local governments to compensate for the cost of jailing illegal aliens, even when those governments have policies obstructing immigration law enforcement or encouraging illegal settlement. The report includes a list of the 27 sanctuary jurisdictions receiving grants in 2010. The grant program, known as the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), doled out a total of $400 million...

(CNSNews.com) - The Environmental Protection Agency recently listed 76 community groups and government agencies that will share almost 2 million taxpayer dollars in the form of "environmental justice grants."The grants – around $25,000 each -- will fund projects that help people living in poor, minority communities increase recycling, avoid heat stroke, improve indoor air quality, "reduce carbon emissions through weatherization," and participate in "green jobs" training programs.But beyond the EPA's mission of protecting human health and the environment, the grant money will boost the coffers, and perhaps the influence, of some far-left groups.The EPA defines “environmental justice” as the...

WASHINGTON - The Energy Department said Tuesday it was awarding $575 million for carbon capture research-and-development projects in 15 states. The experimental technique involves storing carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and other sources underground, in an attempt to reduce pollution blamed for contributing to global warming. "This is a major step forward in the fight to reduce carbon emissions from industrial plants," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "These new technologies will not only help fight climate change, they will create jobs now and help position the United States to lead the world in clean coal technologies, which will only...

ST. LOUIS • Stacey Wright had more than a dozen choices when it came to enrolling three of her children in an elementary school, from charters to magnets to traditional public schools in every corner of the city. She chose Jefferson Elementary School, the brick St. Louis public school across the street. And for that, she may get $900. For the first time, a local organization is offering parents a cash incentive to enroll their children at Jefferson. ~ SNIP ~ Proponents say the cash rewards are no different from offering college scholarships to top achievers at a high school,...

VP Biden's bullish remarks--that $862B stimulus created or saved some 3.6M jobs--are part of a WH push to convince deeply skeptical voters that the economy is on a comeback.......Repubs question the validity of the numbers.

Concerned that too many students are using federal grants to attend the “wrong kind of schools,” the US Department of Education is weighing new rules that would restrict grant money from being used to pay for schooling provided at for-profit institutions. For-profit schools provide training in fields like information technology, health care, criminal justice, and automotive repair. Enrollment at these for-profit schools has increased by 20% since the recession knocked so many out of their jobs. “Increasing enrollment in these private for-profit schools is not what the President had in mind when he expanded the grant program last year,” said...

Huntington County Indiana has applied for, and been denied, an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant.

Description Provides funding for surveys to locate roost sites of lesser long-nosed bat in Arizona to update inventory of sites for management purposes. Also work to design an improved monitoring protocol for the species

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Department of Education will give $437 million in competitive grants to districts that reward teachers for improving student achievement in high-need schools.

MUMBAI: In 2008, when Atlanta-based Georgia Tech University bought 250 acres of land in Hyderabad it left many gaping. It did something even more astonishing shortly afterwards: it invited its own faculty members to quit their jobs and consider moving to India. A professor in the computer science department of the university told TOI: ‘‘Each one of us got a formal note. Even more amazingly, he added, all of us were offered the same salary that we were getting in Georgia. It was clearly an offer very few would even think of refusing; given the cost of living in India,...

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) announced three airports in northern Michigan have received grants totaling $726,409 for airport maintenance and improvements. The funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration. “This federal funding will help these airports better provide critical services to communities in northern Michigan,” Stupak said. “I am pleased the FAA has made this investment in our local airports and the individuals and businesses they serve.” Alpena County Regional Airport received a grant of $85,500 to acquire friction measuring equipment, specifically a decelermeter and tow vehicle, to replace equipment that has...

The number of illegal immigrant college students paying in-state tuition and receiving financial aid at Texas' public colleges and universities continues to climb, according to state higher education records. During the fall semester, 12,138 students – about 1 percent of all Texas college students – benefited from the state law granting in-state tuition, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Most of the immigrants among those students are illegal, and some others are not legal permanent residents or U.S. citizens. Texas awarded about $33.6 million in state and institutional financial aid to those students between fall 2004 and...

Three Boston street workers hired to steer young people away from lives of crime have themselves been arrested since June, challenging ambitious efforts by the city and the Boston Foundation to guide gang members toward rehabilitation. Last month, a 44-year-old street worker funded by the Boston Foundation was arrested in Newton and charged with heroin possession and passing about $1,500 in counterfeit bills to buy goods at T.J. Maxx. Two months earlier, another worker hired through the foundation was charged with assaulting a police officer on a Dorchester street. And last June, a street worker hired by the city was...

A prominent US climate scientist at the centre of the "climategate" leaked email controversy has been virtually cleared of professional misconduct by an internal university enquiry. Michael Mann, of Penn State University, featured regularly in the more than 1000 emails that were hacked from the University of East Anglia in the UK last November. His emails and comments have since then featured in countless blogs and news articles. Some have claimed the emails reveal that mainstream climate scientists have massaged data in order to demonstrate that climate change is caused by human activities. The scientists in the emails, including Mann,...

Mickey Gets a Mickey Malcolm A. Kline, February 3, 2010 Apparently, the federal government is employing more than one use of the word “stimulated” when it doles out grants to colleges and universities. “Researchers at Florida Atlantic University received $8.408 in stimulus funds to study whether mice become disoriented when they consume alcohol,” the Washington Examiner reported on February 2, 2010. “Researchers might consider studying whether government’s continuous waste of taxpayer money disillusions voters.”...

Posts on a number of threads at FR have correctly pointed out the damage done by many types of federal grants, dispensed with strings attached to states, and I’d been meaning to jot down some thoughts on the topic and respond. Of course, now I can’t find any of those threads, so I’ll just start one of my own. In reality, this is an issue of such importance it probably deserves its own thread. The offer of “federal funds” in exchange for the state taking some action desired by the feds is an implicit admission that it’s an issue on...

In a Washington Post op ed, Penn State University Professor Michael Mann insisted that “Palin and other global warming deniers have distorted the content” of the e-mails from the British University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. “Ms. Palin and her ilk are pulling words out of context to create the impression that global warming is a hoax,” Mann said. “She is merely broadcasting her ignorance of scientific terminology in pursuit of a political agenda bent on preventing governments from exercising the necessary control to avert climate catastrophe.” Among the “scientific terms” Governor Palin is said to have misconstrued are...

While it is not uncommon to see those who are climate change skeptics challenged in the media for having a pro-business financial interest in voicing their views, on Saturday's Fox News Watch, conservative columnist and regular panel member Cal Thomas made an observation that cuts in the opposite direction rarely given attention in the mainstream media -- that there are financial incentives that can also pressure scientists to voice agreement with the climate change theory that blames human activity for affecting climate patterns.After panel member Judith Miller argued that Climategate should have inspired more public debate among scientists -- which could then have...

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced this morning at Google's Mountain View campus the first round of federal grants on high-risk but potentially high-reward ventures, such as converting bacteria into gasoline, to counter global warming. Chu chose Google's college-campus-like headquarters to fulfill a pledge by the Obama administration to back the kind of convention-breaking technology Silicon Valley — and the innovative search engine company — is known for. "We are trying to hit home runs, not base hits," Chu said. "These are out-of-the-box approaches." The grants are being directed through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or Arpa-e, a relatively new organization...

WASHINGTON — The government on Wednesday awarded $5 billion in grants that President Barack Obama said would pay for research into cures for cancer and other diseases, and create tens of thousands of jobs. Obama made the announcement at the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Md., with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Before making remarks about the grants, Obama and Sebelius toured a NIH oncology laboratory. "That's a pretty spiffy microscope," Obama remarked as he walked through the lab. Researchers allowed the president take a look at the brain cells they're studying, explaining the difference between...

*NEA conference call full audio and transcript here** Should the National Endowment for the Arts encourage artists to create art on issues being vehemently debated nationally? That is the question that I set out to discuss a little over three weeks ago when I wrote an article on Big Hollywood entitled The National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?” The question still requires debate but the facts do not. The NEA and the White House did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address politically controversial issues under contentious national debate. That fact is irrefutable. But some have claimed that...

ACORN, a social justice organization with roots in [New Orleans], battles a string of scandals. The announcement stuck to a wall outside the entrance to ACORN's local office in the 2600 block of Canal Street quietly signals the trouble afoot. In English and Spanish, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now tells walk-up clients that ACORN's housing office has shut itself down for two weeks to immerse itself "in an intensive training program." The sign is a symptom of a tumultuous week in the history of a controversial poor people's social justice movement -- one founded by a New...

Received via e-mail: ------------- The following is being sent at the request of Vint Cerf on behalf of Susan Crawford, National Economic Council We need your help in support of a broadband initiative that President Obama cares deeply about. Specifically, we are seeking subject matter experts who would review grant applications being filed with the federal government by applicants seeking financial support for broadband projects throughout the country. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act appropriated $7.2 billion to the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and to expand broadband...

Youth hit hard by lack of jobs, school grants Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, July 12, 2009 Jordan Atkinson had all the trappings of a typical Marin County childhood. He lived in a big house in Novato, played Pop Warner football, spent weekends with friends listening to hip-hop. Now, three years out of San Marin High School, Atkinson is homeless, a casualty of the recession. "I was spoiled. I had a lot of things easy," Atkinson said recently while drinking a smoothie at a Novato cafe, taking a break from job applications and college forms. "Now, unless someone physically...

See the article! A grant of $14000.00 AU for first time home buyers! Tax-cuts! I'm moving.

Faking scientific data and failing to report commercial conflicts of interest are far more prevalent than previously thought, a study suggests. One in seven scientists says that they are aware of colleagues having seriously breached acceptable conduct by inventing results. Around 46 percent say that they have observed fellow scientists engage in "questionable practices," such as presenting data selectively or changing the conclusions of a study in response to pressure from a funding source. However, when scientists were asked about their own behavior, only 2 percent admitted to having faked results.

Communities in 28 states will receive $800,000 to address “environmental justice challenges,” the Environmental Protection Agency announced this week. Forty grants of up to $20,000 each are going to community-based organizations and to local and tribal governments for community projects addressing environmental and public health issues. One of the grant recipients is the Women's Environmental Institute at Amador Hill in North Branch, Minn., which describes itself as a “retreat center” where people can “renew, learn and organize for environmental justice.”

COMBAT OUTPOST APACHE, Iraq, Nov. 19, 2008 – Iraqi restaurant owner Ziyad Kareem was talking to his chef in the kitchen on the morning of Nov. 10 when a car bomb exploded in Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district. Ziyad Kareem, whose restaurant in Baghdad was destroyed by a car bomb, thanks Army Capt. Patrick Soule for a microgrant at Combat Outpost Apache, Iraq, Nov. 18, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jerry Saslav  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Two of his customers and one of his workers were killed in the attack, Kareem said. Two other civilians were killed and...