Free Republic

President Joe Biden’s budget proposal for 2024 includes billions of dollars spread across federal agencies to combat climate change, with a bulk of the investment going toward boosting conservation and disaster resilience, cutting pollution and advancing clean energy technologies. Some of Biden’s spending areas on climate include: $24 billion for climate resilience and conservation $16.5 billion for climate science and clean energy innovation $6.5 billion for energy storage and transmission projects $4.5 billion for jobs building clean energy infrastructure $3 billion for advancing adaptation finance $1.8 billion for environmental justice initiatives $1.2 billion for the Energy Department’s industrial decarbonization activities...

The International Energy Agency recently reported that shifting to clean energy will create between 13 and 26 million jobs by 2030. They present this as a benefit, but that’s misleading; jobs are not a benefit but a cost.That might sound counterintuitive, but it’s easy to understand. Say you need to do repairs on your home, and you can’t or don’t want to do them yourself. That means you have to pay for both materials and labor. But imagine that the materials would magically assemble themselves into the needed repair work all on their own. Then you would only have to...

“Fool me once,” Stephen King wrote, “shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.” His adage certainly applies to the myth (and fake math) of green jobs. During the 2020 election campaign, Joe Biden asserted that more than 3 million Americans are already “employed in the clean energy economy.” He then boasted that, “if executed strategically, our response to climate change can create more than 10 million well-paying jobs in the United States that will grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class … and not just in cities along the...

First of all, let me go on record as saying I've never thought Joe Biden would win the Democratic presidential nomination. Biden is this election's Rudy Giuliani. Rudy was the big name in the 2008 GOP primary. Everyone thought he was unbeatable. He never won a single state and quickly dropped out of the race. I've argued for many months that Biden will go nowhere in this Democratic primary. First and foremost, Democrats don't want a straight old white male. Then there's Biden's mind. It's clearly not functioning at top speed anymore. Biden is not just old but slow and...

The electric car company founded by former Gov. Terry McAuliffe filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week, blaming in part a wave of negative coverage by a conservative news website for its financial woes. GreenTech Automotive's bankruptcy petition cites 76 articles by the website Watchdog.org it says "negatively affected governmental, investor and public perception of GreenTech" and prompted investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Homeland Security. GreenTech in 2013 sued Watchdog.org, operated by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, for $85 million. A judge dismissed the case in 2014. McAuliffe resigned from GreenTech...

On May 31, 2017 the world’s first commercial atmospheric carbon-capture plant opened for business in Hinwil, Switzerland. The plant, designed and operated by a Swiss company called Climeworks, is different from existing carbon-capture facilities because it filters carbon dioxide out of the ambient atmosphere using proprietary technology, rather than from industrial exhaust, which is quite common. Climeworks claims their facility will be able to remove 900 tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year. Furthermore, its modular design will allow it to be scaled up as the demand for carbon dioxide increases.

In one of the more unexpected visits to take place to the penthouse at the Trump Tpower on Wednesday, Leonardo DiCaprio and the head of his foundation met with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss how jobs centered on preserving the environment can boost the economy.  In a statement to The Associated Press, Terry Tamminen, the CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, confirmed the meeting at Trump Tower in New York City. Tamminen said the pair gave a presentation to Trump, daughter Ivanka, and other members of Trump's team on how focusing on renewable, clean energy could create millions of...

No sooner had president-elect Trump announced a deal had been reached with air conditioner manufacturer Carrier to keep 1,100 manufacturing jobs in Indiana rather than being shipped to Mexico, the usual suspects began chattering about “corporate welfare”, “crony capitalism”, and the hypocritical picking of winners and losers. Carrier is an established business, not a pipe dream like the green energy failures President Obama subsidized like Solyndra. It is one of many U.S. businesses struggling to survive in the Obama era of high taxes and oppressive regulation. Trump has promised to cut corporate taxes and eliminate oppressive and job-killing regulations, but...

As contenders scramble for the White House this fall, thoughts have naturally turned to President Obama’s legacy, and particularly his environmental legacy. As taxpayers consider the lessons of that legacy they would do well to consider past support and use of taxpayer dollars for favored industries and companies. One of those once favored companies is the now defunct renewable energy company Solyndra. During the late 2000s, the Obama administration deployed its political capital to cultivate an environmentally friendly image for the president. In a quest for renewable energy as part of the stimulus package and at the urging of the...

In this election cycle, we hear a lot about the “establishment.” Most people are not really sure who they are, but they are sure that they do not like them. The anger toward the establishment is not party specific and has propelled two unlikely candidates: Donald Trump on the Republican side and Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democrats. The faithful following these outsiders may be more about “the grassroots trying to teach the establishment a lesson,” as Gary Bauer posited last month, than about affection for either man. In an InfoWars video, reporter Richard Reeves, at the University of Texas...

According to Van Jones, Donald Trump acted in an “Un-American” way when he claimed to have seen thousands of New Jersey Muslims on television, celebrating the 9/11 terror attacks. “This is just terrible. You have a presidential candidate who is deliberately stoking fear and smearing a whole population of people,” said Jones. “Somebody’s gonna go hurt some Muslim as a result of this kind of hatred.” For those who don’t remember, Van Jones is the dedicated Communist appointed by Barack Obama in 2009 as a special advisor for Green Jobs. Jones “…was the leader and founder of a radical group,...

Want a definition of a green boondoggle? This incredible report by the Associated Press tracking the three year program to tax corporations and give the money to schools for green energy projects - a ballot measure that promosed tens of thousands of new jobs - shows the total, abject failure of another green energy project. Three years after California voters passed a ballot measure to raise taxes on corporations and generate clean energy jobs by funding energy-efficiency projects in schools, barely one-tenth of the promised jobs have been created, and the state has no comprehensive list to show how much...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Three years after California voters passed a ballot measure to raise taxes on corporations and generate clean energy jobs by funding energy-efficiency projects in schools, barely one-tenth of the promised jobs have been created, and the state has no comprehensive list to show how much work has been done or how much energy has been saved. Money is trickling in at a slower-than-anticipated rate, and more than half of the $297 million given to schools so far has gone to consultants and energy auditors. The board created to oversee the project and submit annual progress reports...

Welcome in the latest celebrity suck-up to target and indoctrinate young people so fat, rich slobs can reap millions more (in the name of “jobs” for young people) while the world’s poor die because they are denied power.

While job creation can be a badge of honor for many politicians, a report praising Michigan for adding "green jobs" is a bit premature. Environmental Entrepreneurs, which describes itself as "a national community of business leaders who promote sound environmental policy that builds economic prosperity," released a recent report that stated, “Michigan ranks third in clean energy and clean transportation jobs announced in second quarter.” The news made the rounds on social media and the announcement was re-Tweeted by former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The report, however, is not based on actual jobs created. It’s based on jobs “announced” by...

In 2009, then Gov. Jennifer Granholm hailed Suniva as a company that would help turn the state into the “epicenter” of manufacturing green energy products. She said Suniva was opening a photovoltaic plant in Saginaw Township that would create 500 jobs over the next five years. That plant never came to fruition, joining several other solar projects that didn't work out in Michigan. But the process is starting again with more job predictions and state subsidies if they come through this time. Suniva, a Georgia-based company, was going to invest $250 million in 2009 and would get a $15 million...

Sarah Palin is right. Obama losing Lois Lerner’s emails is worse than Nixon erasing 19 minutes of tape. Two years of emails is much more significant than 19 minutes of conversation. But then Obama’s just being Obama. If the IRS would only turn over the hard drive of Lois Lerner, I would happily be able to restore those lost two years of data. Do you know how hard it is to permanently delete data off of a hard drive? Very hard… you’d have to deliberately do it. It would be kind of like spending $1 trillion on shovel ready...

The Environmental Protection Agency has handed out $3.6 million to 18 different community organizations across the country to train college graduates, the unemployed, low-income people and others to take on green jobs. To date, the EPA has funded 237 job training programs grants totalling more than $50 million to train 12,800 people how to work in the green industry. Of those trained, about 9,100 obtained green jobs — a 71 percent success rate at a cost of $5,500 in taxpayer funds per job. Last year, the free-market Institute for Energy Research estimated that the Department of Energy spent $26 billion...

When It Comes to Solar, Buy American By Brandon Workman |May 3, 2014 CAPS Rating 4/5 Stars $72.15 $0.95 (1.33%)   Last week, the Cleantech Group and Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti P.C. co-released their 2013 Clean Energy Patent Growth Index, which tracks clean energy patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The index is meant to depict a trajectory of innovative activity in the clean energy sector. Among its highlights:  Solar, with 965 patents, was the No. 1 technology, overtaking fuel cells. And each year, the technology commands a greater share of patent activity: Image credit: Clean Energy Patent...

...Five years ago, “green jobs” were all the rage in Washington. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was rolled out with a win-win agenda aimed at fixing the economy and healing the environment at once. Candidate Obama touted a “blueprint” for a green economy, with plans to create 5 million green jobs. Though federal green initiatives have provided vital seed money for wind farms and solar-generation projects nationwide, the blue-collar workers who have the most to gain from the projected clean-tech boom are still struggling to find any job, much less a green one. Indeed, some environmentalists say that green...