What the right hand giveth . . . .
Posted by Heading Out on February 21, 2006 - 12:06am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: biofuel, energy plan, funding, hydrogen, nrel [list all tags]
On Tuesday, Bush plans to visit the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., to talk about speeding the development of biofuels.While I applaud the investment of more money into research in energy, one of the things that I have learned from the way some of our programs are funded is that money such as this is usually taken from somewhere else. And given that there are some other ongoing programs in DoE that are working on issues related to helping to ease some of the transition problems as we head over the hill, one can only hope that it is not these that will bear the cost of this transfer of funds.The lab, with a looming $28 million budget shortfall, had announced it was cutting its staff by 32 people, including eight researchers. But in advance of Bush's visit, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman over the weekend directed the transfer of $5 million to the private contractor that runs the lab, so the jobs can be saved.
The department ''has been informed that the NREL lab director will use these funds to immediately restore all of the jobs that were cut earlier this month due to budget shortfalls,'' the department said in a statement Monday.
''Our nation is on the threshold of new energy technology that I think will startle the American people,'' Bush said. ''We're on the edge of some amazing breakthroughs -- breakthroughs all aimed at enhancing our national security and our economic security and the quality of life of the folks who live here in the United States.''
The overall budget cut at NREL was apparently $28 million with the main impact on programs in biofuels, hydrogen and basic research. While the restoration will provide support for the folk that were laid off (8 research staff, and 24 support staff) one suspects that the external contracts that had been terminated will remain so. The current cuts in staff were only the first wave of a planned one hundred plus cut that were anticipated over the next year. Apparently the news of the cuts came rather later than normal, and after this years expenditures had started, so that the cuts may still need to be severe, since the make-up so far is only about 20% of the overall cut. I am not sure how to take the comment
Garman blamed the cuts in part on lawmakers steering research and development funds to colleges and universities in their districts.I think I will bite my tongue on this one. There is a more recent version of the story on Reuters that identifies that the money went to the Midwest Research Institute, that runs NREL (and which means that less of the money will likely make it to the lab itself). And as to where the monies are coming from
The programs at NREL are critically important to realizing the President's vision to diversify and strengthen our nation's energy mix," Bodman said. The Energy Department took the money from other accounts. The DOE said it will try to restore those funds by using money from several projects mandated by Congress in 2001 and 2002 "that have failed to make progress." Bush's 2007 budget requests a 78 percent increase in solar energy research; a 65 percent boost in biomass research; and a 42 percent rise in hydrogen research, work that would be conducted at NREL.
I'm just lamenting here... I don't really have a good point.
Pretty please with sugar on top, let us stop picking on Bush. Bush is not the problem. The Bush administration is not the problem. The Deep Problems go much deeper.
Bush, Cheney and Co. are merely symptoms of much more serious disorders.
I thought he was a big-time Longhorns fan, and I don't see how saying so is "picking on" him.
In the interest of full disclosure, I attend UT - San Antonio. It's in the UT system, yes, but it's kind of removed from UT - Austin. Unlike in California, where there are like three or four big, powerful schools under the UC system, UT Austin completely outperforms the other schools in the system.
Good-bye to Texas University
So long to the Orange and White.
Good luck to the dear old Texas Aggies,
They are the boys who show the real old fight.
The eyes of Texas are upon you.
That is the song they sing so well (sounds like hell!)
So, good-bye to Texas University...
;-)
A real Aggie would have used the term 't.u.', so I'm going to have to doubt your Farmer-cred, Leanan.
No offense.
My alma mater is RPI:
e to the x, dy/dx, e to the x dx
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine,
3.14159
Square root, cube root, log of pi,
Dis-integrate them RPI!
Dick Cheney?
The results of a new Time poll were announced yesterday. Roughly half of Americans believe that Dick Cheney "does not have America's best interests at heart." Bill Schneider, CNN's political analyst, said that it's because Cheney is seen as an oil man, and Americans have a deep distrust of big oil.
Why do we humans engage in the "blame game" so much and where does it get us to in this particualr situation?
(Inquisitive lemming minds want to know ^..^ )
I appreciate that you do not like Bush. But obsessing on Bush is like picking at a plantar wart when you have malignant melanoma. In other words, what I am suggesting is that all this Bush bashing is a HUGE fallacy of lack of proportion. Note the following:
- Under our systems of checks and balances, a president can do squat without Congress. A president may propose, but Congress appropriates the funds (or does not do so) and thus the power of the President to by himself do horrible things is very limited under our system of government. Congress and demosclerosis of Congress--structural problems, in other words, I think are about 100 to 500 times more serious than the fact that Bush is, to be polite, not likely to be remembered as one of our great presidents.
- There are huge urgent issues out there: developing substitutes for fossil fuels, dealing with climate change, stabilizing population, just to name three of the big ones. The more emotion and energy and time spent bashing Bush, the less there is to go at the big problems.
- Compared to the screwups of other presidents, such as J.F.K. and L.B.J. in getting the U.S. into the Vietnam War (a far, far, bigger and bloodier war than Iraq) G.W.Bush is not an especially heavy hitter as creating disasters go.
Thus I conclude that Bush bashing is counter productive.Get over it. Get down to very serious issues.
In three years Bush will be gone. NONE of our serious problems can be mitigated much by his going, no matter who his successor is.
"The buck stops here!"
So in that vain, Bush bashing is totally appropriate. He claims to be a leader but does not set an agenda that anyone can understand or follow.
Seems like a failure of leadership to me.
It also seems that you are overly sensitive to criticism of him.
Might you be a Bush supporter that does not like facing facts i.e. Bush is a failure!
Bush Jr. can ignore the Supreme Court, ignore the Senate or House when picking which version of a bill to sign (which will give the small states fits when they figure that out), print money whenever he wants and to hell with the debt limit, move money from one appropriation area to another if Congress doesn't give him what he wants, and God knows what else he's doing that we don't know about.
Bush will be the cause of more death, pain and hatred than any leader in the history of the world, simply because he deliberately didn't do anything.
The Bush people are smarter than you think. I've been pushing my Democratic representation in Congress to address peak fossil energy production, and the most they do is accuse the oil companies of excessive profits -- which might be true, but it isn't the point. We all knew that if the Democrats wouldn't own the issue, the Republicans would, and that's exactly what's happening. The Republicans will cast themselves as the party of energy progress and the Democrats as the party of the past, with only the latter being true.
Nevermind that Bush's entire notion of biomass is flawed, that he won't increase fuel standards for SUVs, that he won't admit global warming is in full swing. Reality isn't important when you have a news media that does little more than regurgitate what the party line is.
Welcome to Amerika. As Bill Moyers said:
I am a political independent, and have voted for both Republicans and Democrats. I voted for the current president's dad, and would do so again.
But something has changed now. I used to feel that politicians, whatever their foibles, had the best interests of the country at heart. I no longer believe that. The group in power now doesn't seem to care about the damage they are doing to the country. They are acting like there is no future.
That said, it would be so much better if we began somewhere else. A progressive tax on all vehicles that cannot get 40mpg would be a good start.
Think of the research funds that would raise.
"Saying the nation is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that would ''startle'' most Americans, President Bush on Monday outlined his energy proposals to help wean the country off foreign oil."
Having a bad day. Sorry. I'll shut up now.
* Credit to Hulmut at phronesisaical for that word image.
I will be impressed when Bush says the C-word.
I don't expect to be impressed.
Whenever I have raised the PO topic with (mostly) intelligent people few have shown any interest. We in the PO community have been a failure so far if judged by our effect on mass perception and global policy. I do not, however, think that failure is due to leadership or for want of trying. I'd guess that avoidance and denial are more likely reasons.
There is, nor need there be, any 'plan of attack'. We should continue to analyse and understand things and seek to inform people. We are, after all, not a political party, yet ;)
Does he know something we don't?
What's interesting to me is that I think the rest of the right wing is slightly stunned and hasn't quite figured out what to do.
"Switch grass? What's that Bush boy talking about?"
Great Uniter
and
The Education President