Posts Tagged ‘EPA’
Friday, July 21st, 2023
More Biden corruption, a bit about music, and cute dogs. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Here’s a fairly extensive timeline of Biden corruption.
2009 – The Obama-Biden administration takes office
November 1, 2013 – China / BHR:
Hunter Biden, business associate, and Chinese investors agree to create Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd. (BHR), an investment fund controlled by the Bank of China, to focus on mergers and acquisitions, and investment in and reforms of state-owned enterprise.
December 4, 2013 – China / BHR
Vice President Biden travels with Hunter Biden on Air Force 2 to China and meets CEO of BHR, Jonathan Li. Shortly thereafter, BHR’s business license was approved and Hunter Biden was a board member.
February 5, 2014 – Kazakhstan
Kenes Rakishev, a Kazakhstani businessman, meets with Hunter Biden at a hotel in Washington, D.C.
April 15, 2014 – Ukraine
Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, appoints Biden business associate to their board of directors.
Etc. etc. etc.
“California Democrats retreat on their effort to defend child slavers.”
After initially killing a bill on July 12, 2023 that would have increased the penalties on child sex traffickers, the Democrats who completely control the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee reversed course one day later and voted to advance the bill.
With a final vote of 6-0, including two abstentions from progressive Democrats, the bill now moves to the Appropriations Committee, after which, if it is approved, can move the bill to be voted upon by the entire State Assembly. If passed, SB 14 will make trafficking of minors a serious felony that would qualify under California’s three strikes law, which keeps dangerous, serial criminals off the streets, and make individuals convicted of the crime ineligible for early release.
I highlight the two abstentions by Democrats. Even after a nationwide uproar over their willingness to block harsh penalties on those who traffic young children for sexual slavery, these two Democrats, including Assembly Majority Leader Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles), still could not bring themselves to vote for the bill.
(Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
State Senator Charles Schwertner (my state senator) has his DWI charges dismissed. Still, he hardly crowned himself in glory. At least he didn’t yell “Call Greg!” (It did make me wonder what Rosemary Lehmberg is doing today, and if she ever conquered her alcoholism…)
Mexico surpasses China as America’s biggest trade partner. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Remember Toast Tab’s 99¢ fee from last week’s LinkSwarm? Well, public reaction was so negative that their shares cratered and they rescinded the fee.
Will the Biden Administration use a lizard to kill the Permian Basin shale revolution?
“This car has all the annoying things about EVs and none of the cool stuff…this car doesn’t live up to any expectations. Nothing
works.”
TSMC delays Arizona plant opening due to labor shortage.
A detailed look at the recording of one of my favorite albums of all time: Peter Gabriel III.
Just what does electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick’s “Silver Apples of the Moon” sound like? You know that scene in a 70s SciFi dystopia where someone’s face gets ripped off to reveal they’re a robot? It sounds like that.
GWAR plays for NPR. So on one side you have horrible monsters who are unbearable to listen to, and on the other side you have GWAR…
That’s one sly kissing bandit.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Tags:Arizona, Austin, Charles Schwertner, China, corruption, Democrats, DWI, electric cars, EPA, Georgetown, GWAR, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, LinkSwarm, Mexico, Morton Subotnick, music, natural gas, oil industry, pedophilia, Permian Basin, Peter Gabriel, Semiconductors, sexual slavery, Texas, Toast Tab, trade, TSMC, Ukraine
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »
Thursday, May 11th, 2023
You know how the much of the Texas interconnect grid went black back in 2021 due to over-reliance on trendy renewable energy rather than natural gas and nuclear baseload?
Well guess what?
Public Utility Commission (PUC) Chairman Peter Lake and Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) CEO Pablo Vegas sent a clear message to the Texas Legislature on Wednesday: tweak the electricity market so that natural gas generation can be supplemented, or continue to face problems in the summer heat.
I just have to pause here to note that “Pablo Vegas” sounds like an Anthony Weiner pseudonym.
“Operationally, the ERCOT grid is ready for this summer,” Lake said, unveiling the 2023 Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy (SARA) report. “The reliability reforms that were put in place have been tested and continue to work. We’ve made the grid we’ve got as strong as possible using every tool available.”
The SARA report, as Lake stated, is an estimate of electricity demand and supply for certain scenarios based on past data, not a forecast of what is to come this summer.
It estimates peak demand to reach 82,739 megawatts (MW); for comparison, 1 MW can power about 200 homes during the peak demand hours of the late summer afternoon through evening. To cope with that demand, the state expects to have 97,000 MW of capacity available — two-thirds of which is thermal generation, combined with 13 percent from solar and 11 percent from wind.
However, Lake tinged the grid’s readiness with an omen.
“Data shows for the first time that peak demand this summer will exceed the amount we can generate from on-demand dispatchable power,” Lake warned. “There is no longer enough dispatchable generation to meet the demand of the ERCOT system. So, we will be relying on renewables to keep the lights on.”
The State of Texas is adding about 300,000 people per year, which means a larger and larger demand for electricity on the state’s largest power grid.
“In this new reality, our risk goes up as the sun goes down,” Lake added.
Vegas likened the situation to a car: the metaphorical vehicle — the physical grid itself — is up to par on maintenance, but it lacks the necessary fuel — the electricity supply — to power its full trip ahead.
Lake said that ERCOT’s dispatchable supply fleet only grew 1.5 percent from 2008 to 2022. During that time, its renewable footprint grew substantially with now more than 30,000 MW of wind power installed and more than 10,000 MW of solar.
The influx of renewables is driven primarily by the Production Tax Credit — a federal subsidy that pays renewable generators 2.6 cents per kilowatt-hour produced — which has given wind and now solar an advantage over thermal generation sources. ERCOT has 31,000 MW of solar generation in the queue along with 5,000 MW of wind.
In contrast, only 800 MW of dispatchable power has been added in the last year, according to Lake.
So thanks to renewables, blackouts may be in the future of Texans this summer.
But don’t worry! The federal government has a solution: making sure no one has reliable power.
The Biden administration is announcing a climate rule that would require most fossil fuel power plants to slash their greenhouse gas pollution 90 percent between 2035 and 2040 — or shut down.
The highly anticipated regulation being unveiled Thursday morning is just the latest step in President Joe Biden’s campaign to green the U.S. economy, an effort that has brought a counterattack from Republicans and coal-state Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. That’s on top of efforts by Biden’s agencies to promote the use of electric cars, subsidize green energy sources like solar and wind and tighten regulations on products including gas stoves and dishwashers.
The draft power plant rule from the Environmental Protection Agency would break new ground by requiring steep pollution cuts from plants burning coal or natural gas, which together provide the lion’s share of the nation’s electricity. To justify the size of those cuts, the agency says fossil fuel plants could capture their greenhouse gas emissions before they hit the atmosphere — a long-debated technology that no power plant in the U.S. uses now.
As an alternative, utilities could hasten their decisions to shut down their aging coal plants, a trend that has already gathered speed in the past two decades. The rule allows plants that agree to close in the first half of the 2030s to avoid most or all of the pollution-reduction mandates.
Safe, reliable nuclear and fossil fuel powered energy is anathema to the Democratic Party because they can’t rake off enough graft from it. Unless you’re willing to let them shove their disasterous green energy programs down your throat, they want you deplorables sitting in the dark.
Tags:blackout, Energy Policy, EPA, ERCOT, natural gas, Pablo Vegas, Peter Lake, Public Utility Commission (PUC), Regulation, Texas
Posted in Republicans, Texas | 12 Comments »
Sunday, July 3rd, 2022
Evidently $8 a gallon gas simply isn’t high enough for the Biden Administration’s EPA. Hot on the heels of the Supreme Court telling the EPA it can’t regulate carbon dioxide absent congressional authority to do so, the EPA is attacking drilling in the Permian Basin over ozone.
The Permian Basin, straddling Texas and New Mexico, is the world’s biggest oil field and accounts for over 40% of the nation’s petroleum production.
It is now in the regulatory crosshairs of the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency . . . not because of carbon dioxide, but due to ozone.
The Environmental Protection Agency is weighing labeling parts of the Permian Basin as violating federal air quality standards for ozone — a designation that would force state regulators to develop plans for cracking down on that smog-forming pollution. The move, outlined in a regulatory notice, could spur new permitting requirements and scrutiny of drilling operations.
Ozone levels in the basin have surpassed a federal standard “for the last several years — really since the fracking boom took off in the Permian,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians.
The conservation group formally petitioned EPA for the so-called non-attainment designation in March 2021 and, roughly six months later, warned the agency it intended to sue to force action. The designation “basically says you’ve got to clean up this mess or the consequences are going to get even more severe as far as restricting your ability to permit more pollution and more development,” he said.
So expect an industry that’s already taken it on the chin thanks to Flu Manchu lockdowns and Biden Administration policy to be further slammed during an energy crunch.
Oil prices sit consistently above $110 per barrel. Average gasoline prices in Texas have eclipsed $4.50. And natural gas prices in May were three times higher than in 2019.
Fossil fuel producers do not see a break in these high costs any time soon, according to a survey done by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Uncertainty about their industry is as prolific as was their fossil fuel production before the pandemic.
Nearly half of respondents blamed labor shortages, inflation, and supply chain bottlenecks as the primary causes for oil and gas production concerns — each of which is an indirect consequence of government policy.
Responding to the coronavirus pandemic — a factor outside of their control — federal, state, and local governments shut down business operations across the nation: grounding air travel, closing everyday businesses, or putting strict constraints on ingress and egress of persons.
This sent a ripple effect throughout the global supply chain, creating a self-fulfilling disruption for both demand and supply. Fewer people traveling meant less demand for fuel. Less demand for fuel at first drove down the cost of oil to historic lows, but then led to less fuel production when the market adjusted. As travel demand recovered, the production side struggled, and continues to struggle, to catch up — playing into the high prices currently seen.
Another consequence of the shutdowns, unemployment skyrocketed both as a result of the closures themselves and the loss of business profits the lockdowns exacerbated. The oil and gas industry is still struggling to return to pre-pandemic levels of employment — employing 30,000 fewer workers than at the end of 2019.
How important is the Permian Basin for American energy production?
In July, the Permian Basin will produce roughly 60% of the oil barrels per day from of the seven most prolific U.S. basins, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA); 5.316 million BPD out of a total of 8.901 million.
In June, the Permian Basin is expected to generate 5.232 million BPD; the second most prolific area is expected to produce 1.152 million BPD.
The idea to wield ozone regulations against Permian Basin operations evidently came from environmental activist and regulator Joe Goffman.
Climate activists also want EPA to tighten ozone standards to indirectly regulate CO2 from fossil fuels. Joe Goffman, a champion of this idea, is leading EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation on an acting basis, and he’s in charge of ozone rules.
Mr. Goffman midwifed the Obama Clean Power Plan that had sought to conscript states into a force-fed green energy grid transition until the courts killed it. A 2014 article from E&E News described Mr. Goffman as the “U.S. EPA’s law whisperer. His specialty is teaching an old law to do new tricks.” How many more tricks does he have up his sleeve to keep gas prices high?
Just how high does the Biden Administration want to raise the price of gas?
Tags:Economics, EPA, fracking, gas prices, Joe Goffman, oil industry, Permian Basin, Regulation, Texas
Posted in Economics, Regulation, Texas | 6 Comments »
Friday, September 17th, 2021
Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Chaos at the border and buying American military tech to oppose China are two of the themes this week:
8,000 illegal aliens await processing underneath the Del Rio bridge on the U.S./Mexican border.
Here’s a drone shot:
Those illegal aliens are there because Democrats and the Biden Administration want them there, so they can turn those illegal aliens into Democratic Party voters via amnesty.
So damaging is that drone footage that the FAA has closed airspace over the bridge to prevent it:
I guess Bret Weinstein spoke too early…
Australia signed an agreement with the U.S. and the UK to build nuclear submarines.
This effort is just one part of a new partnership between the three countries, dubbed AUKUS, which is short for Australia-United Kingdom-United States, that also includes cooperation in other areas, including long-range strike capabilities, cyber warfare, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. President Biden said AUKUS would help all three countries work more closely together to help ensure peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region in the long-term.
On the whole, this is probably a good move to counter China, and I hear that Canberra was the driving force behind the agreement. All that said, the United States was already in formal alliances with the UK and Australia through other treaties, so it’s not anything like a tectonic shift.
Another sign of the new alliance: The UK is going to station new vessels in the Indo-Pacific. [Senior Royal Navy admiral Tony Radakin] “said that the Taiwan Strait is clearly ‘part of the free and open Indo-Pacific.'”
Naturally France pitched a snit fit over the deal because Australia cancelled a contract with French shipbuilder Naval Group. “This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr Trump used to do,” Le Drian told franceinfo radio. “I am angry and bitter. This isn’t done between allies.” Cry some more, Jean-Claude. But it isn’t like France was ever going to come to Australia’s aid in a dust-up with China, so the deal makes sense as drawing Australia closer to the regions remaining nuclear naval powers. (Russia can barely keep its own navy running these days.)
Speaking of possible China opponents buying American technology, Japan is buying more F-35s.
Gavin Newsom survives recall election. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
John Durham finally files an indictment over the Russian collusion hoax investigation. “Special counsel John Durham reportedly seeks a grand jury indictment against Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer at a Democratic-allied law firm closely linked to British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier.” That firm, of course, would be Perkins Coie, who you may remember from regular appearances in the Clinton corruption updates.
Also:
More military resignations:
“Despite his bellicose rhetoric and bluster, Trump had probably been more reluctant to use military force than any president in memory.”
Texas Monthly is shocked, shocked to find Hispanic Texans voting Republican:
The Democrats of Texas have long, as in 30 years or more, believed that the Hispanic vote would eventually hand them total control of Texas forever. They believe they need not adjust their policies on faith, family, life, the Second Amendment, taxes — anything — because the party brand itself was enough. If it wasn’t, then they would resort to bullying. They could go all the way left to Wendy Davis and Karl Marx if they wanted to — and they have — and the Hispanic vote would save them.
But a funny thing happened along the way. People like state Rep. Aaron Peña switched parties on principle and others followed them. And more are following them. His daughter, Adrienne Peña-Garza, is quoted in this Texas Monthly story regarding how the Democrats operate when it comes to independent-minded folks like her father and herself.
Peña-Garza, the Hidalgo County Republican chair, said Hispanic South Texans, who have long been conservative, “have become liberated” to vote on their long-held beliefs. “People have been bullied into voting Democrat. If you got involved [in conservative politics], people said, ‘I’m not going to give you this contract; I’m not going to give you this job.’ But I think the bullying has backfired. People are more empowered and courageous.”
When I was reporting on border issues in Hidalgo County during my first stint with PJ Media, I’d hear about the bullying she mentions but it wasn’t provable. Rampant and endemic, but hidden with no paper trails. Tejanos and Tejanas started standing up to it a decade ago, some by running for office, others by working courageously together underground and actually going after some of the political criminality. People noticed. Groups like Hispanic Republicans of Texas and the Conservative Hispanic Society rose up to answer the call outside any party structure. One of the most popular and successful talk radio hosts in the Lone Star State is my friend Chris Salcedo, the “liberty-loving Latino.” The conservative juggernaut is heard expounding on the joys of freedom and how Democrats would take it away on the air every day in Houston and Dallas and nationally on NewsmaxTV.
People are noticing how embarrassingly paternalistic and out-of-touch the Democrats are when it comes to South Texas. They really don’t know Texas at all and haven’t bothered to understand.
Snip.
That’s because they’re not immigrants. Treating them as immigrants cancels their ancestors and their heritage. Tejanos have been in Texas for generations, from the time when it was part of the Spanish Empire. Badly misunderstood and under-reported is the fact that Tejanos are and have been part of the culture of Texas long before we Anglos showed up. By the time my ancestors arrived in Texas in the 1850s and 1860s, Tejanos had been building Texas for more than a century. They’re not immigrants in any sense of the word. They’re Texans and American citizens. They resisted elitist dictator Santa Anna, fought at the Alamo and San Jacinto, they’ve served in every major war defending the United States, they’ve won Medals of Honor and have state veterans homes named after them — and their communities are the most directly affected by the chaos that out-of-state Democrats tend to unleash on the border. They serve in the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard, and they work in the oil fields and own thriving businesses. Coyotes, cartels, drugs, and trafficking all affect Tejano communities first, while the rich Democrats who party at the Met are unaffected personally and weaponize the border as a racial cudgel. RGV citizens are not happy about that and they know whom to blame.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
How to skew poll samples, CNN edition.
The country is in the best of hands: “White House Cuts Live Stream of Biden Mid-Sentence as He Asks a Question.”
“At Bail Reform Bill Signing, Abbott and Patrick Lay Blame with ‘Socialist’ Harris County Judges.”
Gov. Greg Abbott visited Houston on Monday to sign new legislation he said would directly address lenient bail practices and rising crime in Harris County.
“Lives are being lost because the criminal justice system in Harris County is not working the way it should,” said Abbott.
Known as the Damon Allen Act, Senate Bill (SB) 6 is named after a state trooper who was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop on Thanksgiving Day 2017. Despite having a history of assaulting a law enforcement officer, the shooter was out on a $15,000 felony bond at the time of the murder.
Allen’s widow, Casey Allen, who has become an advocate for the reforms implemented by SB 6, joined Abbott at the Safer Houston Emergency Summit held by a coalition of ministry groups.
Noting that her husband had been killed by a “violent, repeat offender,” Mrs. Allen added, “The murderer still went to jail, and my life and my kids’ lives were forever changed by actions that can’t be taken back.”
The new law will create an online public safety report for judges and magistrates to access more complete information about a suspect’s criminal history before setting bail. In addition, SB 6 requires additional training for judges and magistrates, and prohibits the release of certain violent suspects or repeat suspects on personal recognizance (PR) bonds.
“Same FBI That Chased Russia Collusion Hoax for Years Covered Up Sexual Abuse of USA Gymnasts.” Why did James Comey’s FBI fail to investigate charges against Larry Nassar?
Masks are for cameras, and the little people:
Jackson, I’m goin to Jackson…to get murdered. (Hat tip: Reader Alan Stallings.)
A thread about Rick Rescorla, one of the biggest heroes of 9/11.
Evidently LA parents are not wild about a teacher that has a F*CK THE POLICE poster in his classroom.
Funny how no one talks about Sweden’s response to coronavirus.
Meanwhile, fully vaccinated Israel is seeing record cases. But the death rates appear to be low. (Hat tip: Michael Quinn Sullivan.)
“EPA Peer Review: The Best Rubberstamping Cronies Money Can Buy.”
Now that the Biden EPA has rolled back the conflict-of-interest standards imposed by the Trump EPA on the agency’s outside scientific peer review panels, it has gone back to its old practice of stocking its peer review boards with agency research grant-recipient cronies who can be counted on to rubber-stamp whatever EPA wants to do. The Biden EPA most recently announced the particulate matter (PM) subpanel for the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). As per below, 17 of the 22 members are current and/or former EPA grantees. The amounts associated with them as principal investigators are shown. Note the largest grantee (Lianne Sheppard, recipient of $60,032,782 in EPA grants) is, naturally, the chairman. Sheppard is also the chairman of the main CASAC panel as well as a member of EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB), a separate outside review panel. The Biden EPA needs a reliable multi-purpose rubber-stamper and that is Sheppard, an activist who sued the Trump EPA because it instituted conflict of interest rules under which she was ineligible to rubber-stamp agency wishes.
Here’s a UK funeral director who claims all the Flu Manchu deaths he’s seeing now are from vaccinations:
Take this with a grain of salt and in the interest of gathering data points.
What. The. Hell. “Apple threatened to kick Facebook off its App Store after a 2019 BBC report detailed how human traffickers were using Facebook to sell victims.” What’s a little sexual slavery compared to all those likes?
Busted!
Coronavirus actors in Australia?
Part of the $3.5 trillion Democratic Party payoff porkulus is subsidies for newspapers, because of course. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
Norm Macdonald, RIP.
Another tribute to him from Bill Burr.
Bad bad boys, what ya gonna do, what ya gonna do when they reboot you? (Hat tip Dwight.)
Speaking of Dwight, here’s that list of Mannix episodes where he’s menaced by an old army buddy you’ve been waiting for!
The Vinland Map is a fake.
First edition of Frankenstein sells for $1,170,000. I guess I won’t be adding that to my collection anytime soon…
“Nation Cheers As Democrats Will Remain In California.”
“Woman Attending Ultra-Exclusive Gala For The Elite In Expensive Designer Dress Lectures Nation On Inequality.”
“Powerful: AOC Writes ‘Tax The Rich’ In The Sky With Her Private Jet.”
Live footage of the 101st GoodBoys drop:
Tags:Adrienne Peña-Garza, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Apple, AUKUS, Australia, Bill Burr, Border Controls, China, Chris Salcedo, Christopher Steele, CNN, Communism, Cops, Dan Patrick, Del Rio, Democrats, dogs, Donald Trump, EPA, F-35, Facebook, Foreign Policy, France, Gavin Newsom, Greenland, Greg Abbott, Harris County, Hidalgo County, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Illegal Aliens, Israel, Jackson (Mississippi), Jake Sullivan, James Comey, Japan, John Durham, Larry Nassar, Mannix, Media Watch, Met Gala, Michael Sussmann, Military, Norm Macdonald, Perkins Coie LLP, Regulation, Rick Rescorla, Rio Grande Valley, submarine, Sweden, Taiwan, Texas, Tony Radakin, UK
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Military, Regulation, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 4 Comments »
Sunday, March 21st, 2021
Congressional Democrats are offering up a bill whose effects will be to destroy the American plastics industry and drive manufacturing to China:
Republican lawmakers are raising concerns that provisions in the sweeping climate bill from top House Democrats would stifle the plastics industry.
One late addition to the nearly 1,000-page piece of legislation, known as the CLEAN Future Act, is meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution emitted from the petrochemical facilities that produce plastics or the raw materials used to make plastics.
Most significantly, the bill would impose a temporary pause on air pollution permits needed for approval of new plastics production facilities.
The legislation also directs the Environmental Protection Agency to issue new greenhouse gas and air pollution controls for these facilities within three years, including requiring plastics production plants to use zero-emissions power and improve emissions monitoring.
Buy into our green energy graft or we won’t let you do business.
The EPA regulations must also require any permit for a plastics production facility to be accompanied by an “environmental justice assessment,” which would include consulting with the people who live in the region where the facility would be located, according to the bill.
Pay off our social justice warriors or we won’t let you do business.
Several Republicans, during a legislative hearing on the bill Thursday, argued it would dampen the plastics industry at a time when the pandemic exposed a need for more plastic materials for personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves.
Rep. David McKinley, a West Virginia Republican, asked whether the Democrats’ bill would preclude the opening of new facilities such as an under-construction ethane cracker plant being built by Shell near Pittsburgh or a similar plant planned for eastern Ohio.
“Yes, I believe that language would jeopardize future investment into those types of facilities,” said Kevin Sunday, director of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, in response to McKinley’s question.
Sunday added that beyond PPE, plastics are also used to weatherize homes and can be found in automotive devices, recreational equipment, and even components used to transport and store the coronavirus vaccines.
Plastics are basically in every part of the American economy, from cars to medicine to semiconductors to clothing. As the biggest petrochemical producing state, Texas would be badly hurt by such regulation, but so would Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and Illinois (among many others).
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican, questioned whether the provisions targeting plastics production would have any measurable benefit on curbing emissions or reducing plastic waste in the oceans.
“I take that cotton bag to Whole Foods, I do, but I know it’s virtue-signaling,” Crenshaw said during the hearing. He suggested that the bulk of the plastics waste in the oceans can be traced back to Asian countries and that the United States isn’t as big a piece of the problem.
Of course, this bill wouldn’t stop anyone from opening plastics plants in China, where environmental regulations are far more lax. If this bill passes, opening a plastics plant in China may indeed require less money in bribes for communist party officials than opening one in America would require in crony capitalist payoffs to Democratic Party toadies. So the end result will be more global pollution and fewer American jobs.
This is yet another area where Democrats’ rent-seeker behavior will harm the American economy to ensure that their own palms are greased. One hopes there are still enough Democratic senators willing to listen to major employers in their states to vote down this naked attempt to tank a vital sector of the American economy.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Tags:China, CLEAN Future Act, Dan Crenshaw, David McKinley, Democrats, EPA, Green New Deal, green subsidies, Ohio, oil industry, Pennsylvania, Regulation, rent-seeking, Social Justice Warriors, Texas
Posted in Democrats, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 4 Comments »
Friday, April 6th, 2018
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Today’s LinkSwarm runs the gamut from Ann Althouse to Zsa Zsa Gabor. So dig in…
This New York Times piece on the Islamic State is must reading for its glimpse as to just how the murderous would-be caliphate was able to hold on to and rule significant swathes of territory for years at a time. In short: Bureaucrats and taxes.
Weeks after the militants seized the city, as fighters roamed the streets and religious extremists rewrote the laws, an order rang out from the loudspeakers of local mosques.
Public servants, the speakers blared, were to report to their former offices.
To make sure every government worker got the message, the militants followed up with phone calls to supervisors. When one tried to beg off, citing a back injury, he was told: “If you don’t show up, we’ll come and break your back ourselves.”
The phone call reached Muhammad Nasser Hamoud, a 19-year veteran of the Iraqi Directorate of Agriculture, behind the locked gate of his home, where he was hiding with his family. Terrified but unsure what else to do, he and his colleagues trudged back to their six-story office complex decorated with posters of seed hybrids.
They arrived to find chairs lined up in neat rows, as if for a lecture.
The commander who strode in sat facing the room, his leg splayed out so that everyone could see the pistol holstered to his thigh. For a moment, the only sounds were the hurried prayers of the civil servants mumbling under their breath.
Their fears proved unfounded. Though he spoke in a menacing tone, the commander had a surprisingly tame request: Resume your jobs immediately, he told them. A sign-in sheet would be placed at the entrance to each department. Those who failed to show up would be punished.
Meetings like this one occurred throughout the territory controlled by the Islamic State in 2014. Soon municipal employees were back fixing potholes, painting crosswalks, repairing power lines and overseeing payroll.
“We had no choice but to go back to work,” said Mr. Hamoud. “We did the same job as before. Except we were now serving a terrorist group.”
Snip.
After seizing huge tracts of Iraq and Syria, the militants tried a different tactic. They built their state on the back of the one that existed before, absorbing the administrative know-how of its hundreds of government cadres. An examination of how the group governed reveals a pattern of collaboration between the militants and the civilians under their yoke.
One of the keys to their success was their diversified revenue stream. The group drew its income from so many strands of the economy that airstrikes alone were not enough to cripple it.
Ledgers, receipt books and monthly budgets describe how the militants monetized every inch of territory they conquered, taxing every bushel of wheat, every liter of sheep’s milk and every watermelon sold at markets they controlled. From agriculture alone, they reaped hundreds of millions of dollars. Contrary to popular perception, the group was self-financed, not dependent on external donors.
More surprisingly, the documents provide further evidence that the tax revenue the Islamic State earned far outstripped income from oil sales. It was daily commerce and agriculture — not petroleum — that powered the economy of the caliphate.
They also seized land and goods from Shia, Christians, etc. and redistributed it to their followers as ‘war spoils.”
Also this: “Mr. Hamoud noticed something that filled him with shame: The streets were visibly cleaner than they had been when the Iraqi government was in charge.”
Read the whole thing.
Last week: Kevin D. Williamson leaves National Review for The Atlantic. This week: The Atlantic fires Kevin D. Williamson for wrongthink. Well, there goes my chance to snag the Sarcastic Texan Chair at National Review…
Black people should stop mindlessly voting for the Democratic Party says…Donna Brazile?
“We have to stop giving up our votes. I have done just about everything in the Democratic Party but run for office – everything that they have asked me to do. I have done it. I have registered millions of people in my lifetime. I have knocked on so many doors that I cannot even see the black of my own knuckles. I have carried their water,” Brazile said during her keynote address at the Stateswomen for Justice Luncheon last week, which was organized by Trice Edney Communications.
“I have put their platform within my heart to support. I have championed their issues. And when it came time for me to say what I believed was important, they said ‘shut up, Donna’ and I said ‘hell no, I am not shutting up,’” she added.
Forgive me if my enthusiasm for Brazile’s truthtelling is tempered by the suspicion it comes less from deep philosophical conviction than resentment at taking the fall for Hillary’s dishonest and incompetence.
“Study: 70% of Europeans see rapid population growth of Muslims as a serious threat.”
“Anti-Mass Migration Sweden Democrats Polling First Among Young Voters.” It’s almost like a party standing against rape is more popular than the party standing for “multiculturalism.”
Chicago suburb Deerfield, IL passes law allowing confiscation of modern sporting rifles if they have more than a ten shot magazine. (Gun owners have already filed a lawsuit, backed by the NRA-ILA.) So remember: When Democrats state they “don’t want to confiscate your guns,” they’re lying. (Hat tip: Director Blue)
EPA Director Scott Pruett ends “secret science” (i.e., regulating on the basis of unpublished, unverifiable studies), and the New York Time (naturally) goes crazy. And here’s the debunking of same. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
68% of India’s military equipment is “vintage” (i.e., old Soviet crap).
Apple to drop Intel? Maybe, but not until 2020. If so, does this mean Apple will build their own fab? That would be an expensive proposition, but one Apple would be one of the few companies in the world capable of affording. Or they could keep getting their chips fabbed by TSMC. (Or, the hybrid option, pay TSMC to open up a fab dedicated to producing the new chip at x number of years for y price, after which TSMC would own and run the fab, a technique Apple has used for other component manufacturers before.)
Man using the lady’s room at Target exposes himself to little girl. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Kurt Eichenwald pens a bold screed at the evil conspiracy to make him look foolish, mentioning Parkland kid Kyle Kover but oddly omitting a certain media figure whose initials are “K.E.”…
Republican Tim Pawlenty to run for Minnesota governor again, an office he held from 2003 to 2011.
If you view the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as Christ having “masochistic sexual relations with his own father,” then maybe you shouldn’t be teaching at Holy Cross.
Ann Althouse watches and annotates an episode of Roseanne so you don’t have to. However, one correction: I’m pretty sure that the Conners don’t think of themselves as “poor,” they think of themselves as “broke.”
Speaking of Roseanne Barr, never forget that she’s a nut case. Indeed, back in 2012 I got into a tiny Twitter spat with her over whether HAARP controlled the weather…
When it comes to basic technical facts about firearms, liberal gun grabbers are proudly ignorant.
ESPN’s revamped morning SportsCenter is losing to Peppa the Pig. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
If you ever wanted something from the Zsa Zsa Gabor estate, now’s your chance. Especially if you wanted a painting of Zsa Zsa or her sisters: she had plenty…
Tags:Ann Althouse, Apple Computer, Deerfield (IL), Democrats, Donna Brazile, EPA, ESPN, Europe, Guns, Holy Cross, India, Intel, Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Kevin D. Williamson, Kurt Eichenwald, Kyle Kover, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, Military, National Review, NRA, Roseanne Barr, Scott Pruett, Syria, Target, The Atlantic, Tim Pawlenty, Zsa Zsa Gabor
Posted in Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Saturday, December 23rd, 2017
If you’re still not feeling the Christmas spirit yet, the New York Times offers up this brimming chalice of Winning:
More than 700 people have left the Environmental Protection Agency since President Trump took office, a wave of departures that puts the administration nearly a quarter of the way toward its goal of shrinking the agency to levels last seen during the Reagan administration.
Yet the winning continues:
Of the employees who have quit, retired or taken a buyout package since the beginning of the year, more than 200 are scientists. An additional 96 are environmental protection specialists, a broad category that includes scientists as well as others experienced in investigating and analyzing pollution levels. Nine department directors have departed the agency as well as dozens of attorneys and program managers. Most of the employees who have left are not being replaced.
The departures reflect poor morale and a sense of grievance at the agency, which has been criticized by President Trump and top Republicans in Congress as bloated and guilty of regulatory overreach.
Conservatives were wary that a Trump presidency would actually implement conservative policies, but when it comes to reducing regulatory burdens and bringing rogue agencies to heel, President Trump has not only exceeded expectations, he’s easily exceeded the (admittedly low) deregulation standards of Bush41 and Bush43, and is even on track to eclipse Reagan’s record in this regard.
So enjoy a heaping plate of Winning with your eggnog this year.
Tags:Donald Trump, EPA, Regulation
Posted in Regulation | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, January 25th, 2017
President Trump is wasting no time in cleaning up Obama Administration messes where it’s possible to do so by executive order. One over the weekend started reigning in the EPA. “The Trump administration instituted a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding any new contracts or grants. Emails sent to EPA staff since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday and reviewed by The Associated Press, detailed the specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency’s social media accounts.”
Under Obama the EPA was a rogue agency perusing a radical environmental agenda at the expense of congressional intent. Texas alone has sued the EPA numerous times. A few of the lawsuits currently in progress over EPA overreach:
The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.
The “Endangerment Finding” over greenhouse gas emissions congress never authorized the EPA to regulate.
The unconstitutional Clean Power Plan to regulate coal power plant carbon dioxide emissions.
The “Waters of the U.S. Rule,” allowing the EPA to micromanage the way farmers run their own farms.
Pollution Control Permitting, where the EPA illegally disapproved of Texas’ permitting program.
The 2016 Regional Haze Plan Suit. “Once again, the Obama Administration is misinterpreting and misusing federal agencies to force through a radical agenda based more on the beliefs of his environmentalist base than on common sense.” There was also a lawuit over the 2012 Haze Plan.
A lawsuit over the EPA’s failure to analyze job losses from coal regulations.
The Qualified Facilities Program for oil and gas drilling.
The Flexible Permit Program.
The Mercury Rule.
Industrial Plant Regulation.
Two separate Sulfur Dioxide Rule lawsuits. one still pending.
Multiple Greenhouse Gas rule lawsuits.
A lawsuit over Freedom of Information Act requests over the EPA colluding with various environmental groups to issue laws.
There are probably a few I’ve forgotten.
U.S. District Judge John Preston Bailey has said that the agency “evidences the continued hostility on the part of the EPA to acceptance of the mission established by Congress.”
Says Powerline’s John Hindraker:
The EPA was created by Congress and owes its powers exclusively to Congressional enactment, but over time it has become contemptuous of its democratically-elected master, and has come to view itself as a superior and independent power, entitled to enforce those legal provisions that it likes, and ignore those that are inconvenient. Agencies like the EPA are the single greatest threat to the freedom of American citizens.
The EPA is a rogue agency long overdue for reining in.
Tags:Donald Trump, EPA, John Hinderaker, John Preston Bailey, Regulation, Supreme Court, Texas, West Virginia
Posted in Regulation, Supreme Court, Texas | 2 Comments »
Saturday, January 7th, 2017
U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson of the Texas Third Congressional district (northeast of Dallas, including Plano and McKinney) has announced that he’s retiring at the end of his term.
Like Sen. John McCain, Johnson served as a military pilot who was shot down, held prisoner and tortured during the Vietnam War. Unlike McCain, Johnson has been a fairly reliable conservative, earning an 89% ranking from the Heritage Action for America’s scorecard and 82% ranking from Conservative Review, earning particular liberal ire for a bill to reign in the abuses of the EPA.
At 86, Johnson is well into retirement age. As for replacements, State Senator Van Taylor’s Eighth District is right smack dab in the middle of the U.S. Third, and like Johnson, Taylor is ex-military, having served with the Marines in Iraq. He’s also a staunch conservative, pulling a 100% rating from the American Conservative union, all of which makes him a natural candidate.
I just sent Taylor a tweet asking if he’s running. I’ll let you know if I get a reply.
Tags:2018 Election, 3rd Congressional District, Elections, EPA, Military, Regulation, Republicans, Texas, Van Taylor, Vietnam War
Posted in Elections, Military, Regulation, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 26th, 2016
A number of lawsuits related to local or federal overreach in Texas are working their way through the court system. Here’s a quick roundup of developments in a few notable cases.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor reiterated that the injunction that stops Obama’s tranny bathroom mandate still applies nationwide. Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against the tranny bathroom mandate which has been joined by 13 other states.
Paxton has also joined a Texas Public Policy Foundation lawsuit against the City of Austin over their new short-term rental ordinance. “The Ordinance raises significant constitutional questions, because it functionally ousts homeowners and investors from real property without just compensation.”
Paxton also joined another TPPF lawsuit against the City of Brownsville over their $1 fee on plastic checkout bags, calling it an illegal sales tax, as bags are not taxable under state law.
Speaking of Paxton, in case you missed it, the SEC case against Paxton was thrown out by a federal judge:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won a sweeping victory in court Friday when Federal District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III dismissed a fraud case the Securities and Exchange Commission had brought against him.
Mazzant, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama, found that even if all the facts the SEC alleged were true, they didn’t amount to any violation of securities law by Paxton.
The SEC had dogpiled on Paxton after Collin County special prosecutors got a local grand jury to indict Paxton under state securities law in August 2015.
Now the question is whether Collin County will drop its own case against Paxton, and end payment of high dollar special prosecutor fees, now that the SEC has dropped the case.
Also note that Texas is still a co-plaintiff in State of West Virginia, et al. v. EPA, over the Obama Administration’s “Clean Power Plan,” which the Supreme Court ordered stayed February of last year.
Tags:Amos L. Mazzant III, Austin, Brownsville, Collin County, EPA, Ken Paxton, Reed O’Connor, SEC, Supreme Court, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Tranny Bathrooms
Posted in Austin, Supreme Court, Texas | 2 Comments »