EPA duped on Energy Star program

One of the EPA's signature programs is Energy Star, which awards tax breaks and other incentives to consumers who purchase low-energy appliances. You've probably seen the small, blue Energy Star label on everything from washing machines to light bulbs. Most recently, the EPA awarded $500,000 to two buildings in Hawaii that replaced more than 20,000 incandescent bulbs.

There's just one really serious problem: The entire program is fraudulent.

The Environmental Protection Agency certified that a “gas-powered clock radio” was an energy-efficient product under the government’s Energy Star program, despite the fact that neither the clock nor its manufacturer ever existed.

The clock and 14 other phony products were part of an investigation into the Energy Star program conducted by the Government Accountability Office, which submitted 20 fraudulent Energy Star applications from four fake companies. The EPA evaluated 16 of those products while the Department of Energy (DOE) evaluated four.

Fifteen of the phony products – including the gas-powered alarm clock – and all four of the fake companies were certified by EPA/DOE under the Energy Star program.

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One of the phony products, which GAO submitted as an energy-efficient air cleaner, was pictured on a phony Web site as nothing more than a space heater with a feather duster taped to it.

The EPA was so clueless on this one, it almost seems like the GAO was having a little fun. Let's see what absurd thing we can run past them next. The Energy Star program is a pet favorite of the president's, who awarded states $300 million in his stimulus for the purchase of Energy Star appliances. Obama also started a new program called Home Star, a $6 million initiative designed to make homes more green.

This isn't the first time Energy Star has been knocked by independent investigations. An Inspector General report released in 2008 determined that statements made by Energy Star about its effect on reducing greenhouse gases were grossly exaggerated. EPA chief Lisa Jackson has yet to comment on any of this.

EPA seizes control of coasts

The EPA made a stunning power grab this morning that went virtually unnoticed in the press.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) today officially accepted the proposal to designate waters off the North American coasts as an Emission Control Area (ECA) – a move that will result in cleaner air for millions of Americans. Large ships that operate in ECAs must use dramatically cleaner fuel and technology, leading to major air quality and public health benefits that extend hundreds of miles inland. The ECA was proposed in March 2009 and the IMO adopted it in the fastest possible timetable.

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Enforcing the stringent ECA standards will reduce sulfur content in fuel by 98 percent - slashing particulate matter emissions by 85 percent, and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by 80 percent. To achieve these reductions, tougher sulfur standards will phase in starting in 2012, ultimately reaching no more than 1,000 parts per million by 2015. Also, new ships must use advanced emission control technologies beginning in 2016 which will help reduce NOx emissions.

This is the most sweeping environmental regulation yet by the EPA and its effects on the shipping industry could be devastating. Most of the ships that enter our waters are from other countries -- in other words, free trade. But if foreign nations have to pay exorbitant amounts of money to cut emissions on their ships, they may just decide trade isn't worth it after all. Regardless, the effect on American imports can only be detrimental.

In fact, we already know how this will play out. Buried in a short New York Times item on the EPA this morning was this bit of news.

In waters off California, where an emissions control zone extending 24 nautical miles from the coastline went into effect last year, cargo ships have been going out of their way to avoid the control area.

Now Obama's EPA has extended that emissions control zone in a loop around the entire country. It's now impossible for a ship to get in or out of U.S. and Canadian waters if it's polluting too much. What if the ships that went out of their way to avoid California's stringent rules now go out of their way to avoid American waters altogether? What if they decide it's just not worth it?

Obama plans massive land grab

Obama is determined to pay back environmentalists in whatever way possible. Now the greens are getting the ultimate reward from the president: lots and lots of land, snatched up from private citizens.

Often, presidents will set aside a portion of land as a national monument by executive order, a power given to them under the 1906 Antiquities Act. These land grabs are always controversial and probably unconstitutional, but no one's gotten around to fixing the law yet. In 1996, Bill Clinton outraged the nation when he announced the creation of the 1.7 million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. There was no congressional vote and the good people of Utah weren't consulted.

Now comes word that Obama might create not just one, but fourteen new national monuments. Their creation would require huge amounts of land in nine states: California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. This land grab would affect thirteen million acres, more than eleven million more than got Clinton in so much trouble. Think about it: Obama is planning to take sizable chunks of land in the West and declare them the property of the federal government, by fiat. If the fourteen sites are taken at once, it would be the largest land grab in American history.

And in what must be a huge coincidence, several of the sites are home to large oil and natural gas deposits. The Otero Mesa in New Mexico is believed to hide large amounts of natural gas. The San Rafael Swell in Utah is already home to dozens of oil and gas fields. And Montana's Northern Prarie is one of the oldest gas fields in the state. If Obama invokes the Antiquities Act, all drilling would be banned at these sites. The economic impact could be devastating.

But that's Obama's M.O. after all: Use whatever powers he has to stop fossil fuels from being produced while throwing away money on windmills.

Naturally the Obama administration is trying to keep this a secret. We only know about it because of a memo leaked from the Department of the Interior. In a desperate attempt to stop the president, Sen. Jim DeMint rushed an amendment to the Senate floor that would block Obama's theft. The amendment was voted down along party lines.

Watch DeMint railing against the president and note how others in the chamber keep talking over him.

It's inappropriate that we call these lands "monuments" because monuments are testaments to greatness. And this isn't about American greatness, it's about environmental delusions. If Obama claims this land, it will stop ranching, mining, energy production, and numerous other cogs in America's engine. People will lose their jobs, their property, and their freedom. Their travel will be restricted. Sounds more like a dictatorship.

Barack Obama gets Serious about cronyism

General Electric isn't the only company profiting from Obama's environmental nuttiness. Here's a conflict of interest so outrageous it will make your head spin.

Cathy Zoi is the Assistant Secretary for Energy. She's a first class green loony who has said the United States needs to "reorient the economy" to produce more green buildings. And if that doesn't work, then there's always "neighborhood-by-neighborhood mobilization that may be like the Peace Corps meets the military where literally SWAT teams go into neighborhoods and they retrofit every single house and every single business on Main Street."

Yes, Obama's assistant secretary of energy has actually called for a Green Gestapo to kick people's doors down. If only that were the worst of it.

Zoi is married to Robin Roy, a top executive at Serious Materials, which manufactures "sustainable green building materials." Zoi and Roy (yeah, really) own 120,000 stock options at Serious. Specifically, Serious Materials is responsible for manufacturing green windows, which are apparently all the rage in the new green economy. Obama is a huge fan of the idea, so much so that he allotted $16.8 billion in the stimulus bill for green programs, including a $1,500 tax credit for any homeowner who installs energy-efficient windows like the ones made by Serious Materials. The bureaucrat overseeing the distribution of that stimulus money? Cathy Zoi.

In fact, it looks like the Obama administration practically created Serious Materials. Prior to Obama's green binge, Serious was just a small manufacturing company in California. But with Zoi whispering in his ear, Obama gave the company front-and-center attention, holding a 22-minute press conference to praise Serious and beginning an address to the nation by mentioning the company. Joe Biden called Serious the "poster child" for a green recovery. Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious, has said that his company is "very close" to both the White House and the Department of Energy. Business for Serious has since exploded.

For more, the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota has put together a brilliant video documenting Obama's disgusting cronyism with Serious Materials.

Again, when it comes to Barack Obama, follow the money every time. For anti-capitalists, these left-wing crazies sure like to make a quick buck. Too bad it's with our tax dollars.

Obama to waste more taxpayer money on ethanol dreams

Barack Obama is as gullible an environmentalist as they come. He'll believe any save-the-earth fantasy, no matter how discredited it is.

His latest green kick is ethanol. The White House announced yesterday that they want the government to invest heavily in ethanol production over the next decade. Under something called the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (B-CrAP), the feds will budget in billions of dollars in loans and grants for ethanol conversion. It's all part of Obama's dream that we'll one day be driving cars that run on corn niblets. Or something.

It's all an absurd fantasy. Ethanol is one of the most spectacular failures of the environmental movement. The government already threw subsidies away on ethanol production during the Bush administration and remember what happened? Corn prices doubled between 2006 and 2008 alone. The world plunged into a massive food shortage that starved African nations like Malawi because our environmentalist head cases liked the idea of cleaner cars. Meanwhile, a study by Duke University found that so much carbon dioxide was emitted in the corn-ethanol conversion process that there was almost no environmental benefit.

Maybe that's why Obama announced this on a Friday right before a massive snowstorm in Washington. Or why the administration won't even use the words "corn" or "ethanol". Read slowly this quote from Tom Vilsack of the Ministry of Tru -- excuse me, the Department of Agriculture: "Advancing biomass and biofuel production holds the potential to create green jobs, which is one of the many ways the Obama Administration is working to rebuild and revitalize rural America."

Biomass??

In addition to food shortages, Obama's ethanol obsession will mean poor people can't drive their cars anymore. His proposed ethanol mix won't work in cars manufactured before 2000.

Is it any wonder Obama's budget exceeds $3 trillion this year? He'll throw away money to any worthless cause the left asks for.