Paul Ryan, Rep. Wisconsin is calling for cuts in federal spending on clean energy research and development and the elimination of subsidies and tax breaks for wind, solar, and other alternative energy technologies. He justifies these cuts to clean energy R & D by describing  them as expensive handouts for "uncompetitive" energy sources. He neglects to mention enormous subsidies and tax breaks for non-clean energies such as oil, gas, and coal, making it far from a level playing field. If the tax breaks and subsidies for dirty energy are continued, clean energy will find it impossible to become competitive in the global market place.

In its first session the 112TH CONGRESS has crafted a bill to amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas due to concerns regarding possible climate change, and for "other" purposes. That "other" is so vague as to be laughable if the rest of this proposal weren't so ridiculous. If it becomes law the country stands to set back the passage of a rational energy policy many years.

We need a strong energy policy. Anyone that is not living in a cave would likely agree to that. The devil is in the details. I don’t support the oil, coal, and gas industry’s policy of business as usual (BAU). All talk of sustainability goes out the window with just tweaking the current system a little and letting CO₂ spewing industries trade the pollution with some third world country or some company that grows tomatoes. You can trade credits, but the pollution is still there. Pollution refuses to outsource itself. Cap and Trade is not a solution. We need polluters to stop polluting. I don’t care how they do it or how much it costs. We simply have to do it. The consequences of not doing it are too great. We won’t be going to other planets any time soon in mass quantities…

You saw the Town Hall meetings on TV with people shouting down congressmen over the health care bill, acting like utter idiots. We know that most of the shouters were shills. Shill is a word from the early days of this country when hucksters selling snake oil, or some magic elixir that would “cure” every malady known to man, would go from town to town with a wagon. The shill was a person who pretended to be a customer who would be miraculously cured of his disease right before the crowd’s eyes. It was great theater but served to cheat the public. Now the shills of the big oil companies are doing the same thing on the climate bill...

Columnist Kathleen Parker wrote in her column in the Washington Post, Tuesday August 4, that the Waxman-Markey energy bill now before Congress, would make us less secure if passed. She claims we only have two choices:  we can either be green or we can be less dependent on foreign oil. Her reasoning is a bit convoluted. She is assuming that we continue business as usual. To her alternative energy is a non-starter. Any attempts by the government to cap CO2 emissions will cause a stampede to OPEC for our oil supplies. We will certainly continue to need oil for some time as we transition to a fossil fuel free economy. Most of our oil comes from Canada and Mexico, but there is some new developments that could alter that...