Companies supplying motor fuel will have to pay approximately $6.8 million in fines to the Treasury because they failed to “mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel,” writes Matthew L. Wald of the New York Times.
However, the fine isn’t the worst part. The worst part is the fact that the refiners could have tried everything in their power to remain in compliance with standards set by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, and it might not have mattered.
Why? Because there is not enough of this “special type of biofuel” to go around. In fact, with the exception of some scattered workshops and laboratories, “the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist,” according to the Times report.
And the penalties go up next year. Remember that when you're paying over $4/gallon at the pump because the companies are going to have to come up with the cash for the penalties to pay those fines.
I ran into this type of situation with the EPA about 20 years ago with my old oil company. We had a customer with an underground storage tank that was old and leaking. We worked out a deal with the owner for a long term no interest loan to replace the tank as she only owned one well that produced about 3 bbls. per day.
It may be hard to remember, but the price of oil back then was around $8/bbl. and our crappy oil only got around $6/bbl.
This is where the EPA stepped in. In order for up to get the permits to replace the tank, we had to install some monitoring technology they wanted...problem was the technology did not exist.
So for another 15 years, when the company finally folded, the tank continued to weep.
12,000 people lost their jobs because of some "creative" editing of the report on the Gulf spill, but hey, that's no big thing over protecting the environment.
The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.
In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report obtained by POLITICO.
“The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,” the IG report states, without judgment on whether the change was an intentional attempt to mislead the public.
And let's not forget the 1.8 Billion dollars lost to the economy. The drilling rigs that went away rather than sit idle during the moratorium that ain't coming back...particularly any that went to Brazil, paid for with US taxpayer money to do DEEP WATER DRILLING!
The WH is claiming it was a misunderstanding...there was nothing to misunderstand! The Eco-Nazis in this administration rewrote the report so it would be interpreted to back up their desire to stop oil exploration on our coasts.
Jobs lost, houses foreclosed on all over not letting a crisis go to waste. Effing socialists.
Under Cap and Trade Crap and Tax and/or the EPA diktat on reduction of Green house gases along with whatever BS they come up with in Copenhagen, would I get credit for sending my son to a different country and reducing the amount of energy used in the U.S.? Or could I get hit with an tariff from South Korea for exporting a pollutant to their country?
Could the tax credit offset the tariff, or will one be significantly higher than the other and it will cost me anyway?
If CO2 (breathing) is a greenhouse gas, am I going to have to pay a C&T tax/EPA fee on my animals? Food, water and license for them I understand and pay for willingly, but if I have to pay $100/year because they exhale...well, the dog can stay, but the cat goes...the bird...we'll see.
We are still dealing with the Station Fire here. The weather in my valley has cleared, but the fire has just moved on down the mountains and the fire crews are getting a handle on it.
The fire was arson and I don't think Linda Sanchez was talking about what caused the fire itself, but what caused it to grow so big, so fast.
Well, California is in a drought, and it was hotter than hell when the fire started, so it must be AGW that caused this to happen...right?
Aahh, No!
Turns out that Global Cooling causes droughts in California, but never let a crisis go to waste and don't bother with facts asd they just muddle up the message. Besides, I'm sure that Global Cooling is caused by Global Warming somehow.
I was sooo!!!looking forward to getting home this morning. Last day of work for four days, and last night was busy. We added another well into our overloaded system and trying to re-balance all the vessels,tanks and pumps is labor intensive, a lot of walking in circles and trying to read gauges and site glasses in the dark.
This is what I came home to in my beautiful little valley.
This is 7:30 in the morning. There is a rather large fire burning in the mountains above me and there is no wind. You should see large mountains in this picture, but hell, I can barely see across the street. It kind of reminded me of we I was growing up here in the early '60's, only then it was smog.
My house in is no danger down in the slums of La Crescenta, but I think I'll just hang indoors until this dissipates.
Chris went to the "Blue House" (the Korean version of the White House) today on a "field trip", but I haven't heard from him to find out how it went, but it's Saturday there, so I think I'll jump on AIM and see if he's around.
Before I get started some good news. Chris is finally at his base in Korea. He's a little miffed because he's on standby status, which means he isn't doing what he was trained for and he gets to occupy his time mopping a lot of floors. He hated being in Alabama because of the weather, so he goes half way round the planet and it turns out Korea in July is just like Alabama. Temps in the high 80's with 60 to 100% humidity and Thunderstorms every couple of days.
The reason I know this is although he doesn't have a phone he can get on the internet with a Wifi signal so we can IM over AIM. Even though he's 16 hours ahead of me, being I'm up most nights, we can communicate regularly.
I knew you were dying to know what is up with him, so I wanted to get that out of the way. (mheh)
Now, important stuff.
Have you bought any of those florescent light bulbs they are foisting on us? My local DWP sends me one every 6 months to get me going on being green.
I'll admit, they work fine, using less energy and they last longer that incandescent bulbs, we use them at work and even with vibration we've only had one or two out of about 35 go out over the last year and a half. But like all mandated "green" laws there is something they forgot to mention.
The congressional authors of the law understood they were, in essence, phasing out incandescent bulbs.
They did this, they said, to help save the planet from overheating. But the light-bulb left did not weigh -- or care about -- the unintended consequences of their crusade.
One of these consequences is the potential for an environment disaster in your family room.
You see, fluorescent bulbs contain mercury -- a bad, bad pollutant and health hazard that the Environmental Protection Agency has been sounding alarms about for years.
Well, isn't that special.
The first section is titled: "What Never to Do With a Mercury Spill."
It says: "Never use a vacuum cleaner to clean up mercury (but see the 'What to Do if a Fluorescent Light Bulb Breaks' section below for more specific instructions about vacuuming broken fluorescent light bulbs). The vacuum will put mercury into the air and increase exposure."
To vacuum, or not to vacuum? That is the question.
Idiots! Energy has to be produced somewhere to power the damn things. I guess they just thought that electricity is created at that thingy you put the plug in.
For the last few days I've been listening to this story of some black kids getting kicked out of a swimming pool.
I hope the SOB's running the pool are ashamed, embarrassed and even their dogs won't talk to them. If they want to do right, they should let these kids have their swim day for free for the rest of this summer and offer them a 75% discount to come back next year.
But there are some racist things going on out there that aren't getting any national coverage.
Akron police say they aren't ready to call it a hate crime or a gang initiation.
But to Marty Marshall, his wife and two kids, it seems pretty clear.
It came after a family night of celebrating America and freedom with a fireworks show at Firestone Stadium. Marshall, his family and two friends were gathered outside a friend's home in South Akron.
Out of nowhere, the six were attacked by dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ''This is our world'' and ''This is a black world'' as they confronted Marshall and his family.
I don't believe in "Hate Crimes". It a stupid concept. The idea that it can be proven exactly what a persons thoughts were while committing a crime is ludicrous. I've had some things pop out of my mouth that amazed myself when I've been nervous, scared or mad, but if the crime is agaist some minority group, it is always the first thing they say, "We are investigating this as a "hate crime", yet when it's a "minority group" committing the crime and racial things are said...well, "We don't want to jump to conclusions and get anyone upset". Bullshiite!!
They are going to have figure out how to level these laws if they want them to work.
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Obambi has broken another campaign promise. (Bet you're surprised)
Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A “Planetary Regime” with the power of life and death over American citizens.
The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?
These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology — informally known as the United States’ Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:
• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.
Impossible, you say? That must be an exaggeration or a hoax. No one in their right mind would say such things.
Well, I hate to break the news to you, but it is no hoax, no exaggeration. John Holdren really did say those things, and this report contains the proof. Below you will find photographs, scans, and transcriptions of pages in the book Ecoscience, co-authored in 1977 by John Holdren and his close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich. The scans and photos are provided to supply conclusive evidence that the words attributed to Holdren are unaltered and accurately transcribed.
This man is adviser to the pResident on health and science? Things like the "The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births" was just a fantasy back when he wrote this, now the product exists. Good thing huh girls, otherwise you'd have to report to a gov't sanctioned station and take your pill under supervision every 24 hours.
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Now that I'm in a bad mood, and I hope these thing worried you too, I'll put something that while it's another little degradation that we are forced to deal with, but this guy got his revenge.
Good PR United!!! A few hundred to fix or replace the guitar or 2 million people laughing at you and booking on Delta or American, because you admit you don't care whether possessions entrusted to you get there in one piece or not...if they get there at all.
I wasn't going to post this morning...not enough sleep yesterday and a long boring night at work, but I found this over at Hot Air. It appears to be some unknown life form found in a North Carolina sewer.
I can't say I'm surprised. With the interesting cocktail of drugs and ...the normal stuff that pass through a sewer, it only seems natural that some of these things would get together and find a nice moist temperature consistent crevice to hang out in.
As I've mentioned before I really am an easygoing guy. I can take a lot of grief without getting ruffled. I have my values and beliefs and if you don't agree with me, I may think you're wrong, but mostly I'll turn the other cheek. If they want to be an idiot, that's their right.
However, over the last month I've HAD to listen to this ad:
Sounds great, doesn't it? Can-do Americanism!
Any time this comes on I scare my animals and the neighbors ask themselves "What the hell keeps happening over at that house?", because most people just don't remember this:
This is the real message. "You will do as we say or we're going to hit you with taxes and fees so hard you can't survive, Damn the consequences."
It doesn't matter whether the technology exists, or even if it can be developed. Doesn't matter if this "change" can be met on the bureaucrats schedule or not..we'll just punish you and reduce your income so that your R&D funds are gone. Most likely in taxes that will subsidize the "poor" (all of us after paying our utility bills) that can't afford $3/Kwh bills.
Don't consider that 70% of our electrical needs come from coal.
If you still believe that the eco-nazi's or "workers of the world" really want (or care) about "green power" read this:
A chance to go to one of their chosen power sources that will save the world...but there ain't no where they will allow it to be built.
The first problem was the squirrel, or more specifically, the Mohave ground squirrel, which is considered to be threatened. While the squirrel has never been found at the project site, nor was there any evidence it had ever lived there, it could decide sometime in the future to live there.
I may, at any moment, decide to live in Texas. Maybe I should start paying taxes and registering my car there.
Since the price of gasoline crossed $4.00, I have been getting an increasing number of phone calls that are just annoying the hell out of me!
Phone Rings...Most likely this occurs when I'm at the farthest point in the yard, so I walk quickly (no more running for me, that ended about 3 years ago when I tripped over my own feet and went down. Took me two weeks to work all the pains out) hoping whoever is calling will let it ring more than 6 times.
[Note: I am polite throughout the conversation, just getting a little exasperated as it progresses]
ME: [answering phone] "Name of Company" Oil.
CALLER: Who's is this?
ME: "Name of Company" Oil, may I help you?
CALLER: Do you sell used cooking oil?
ME: No. This is a crude oil facility.
CALLER: You don't sell used cooking oil?
ME: No, sorry.
CALLER: Do you sell new cooking oil?
ME: NO, as I said this is a CRUDE OIL facility.
CALLER: So, you don't selling any cooking oil?
ME: No.
CALLER: Do you know someone that sells used cooking oil?
ME: No, sorry.
CALLER: You don't know anyone?
ME: NO! I told you this is a CRUDE OIL FACILITY. What makes you think I'd know where to buy cooking oil, used or new, outside of a supermarket? [then being helpful] Maybe you can try "restaurant supply" or "recycling services" in the Yellow Pages.
CALLER: Do they sell used cooking oil?
ME: I haven't a clue, perhaps you should call them and ask.
CALLER: So, you don't sell used cooking oil?
ME: [AAARRGGHHH!!!] No! I hope you find what you're looking for, good luck.
CALLER: [click]
I admit, to a certain degree, I milk it. Most of the callers seem to be in their late 60's+, but they made me drop what I was doing and scurry across the yard, so I'm willing to sit for two minutes and go through the routine...again.
For most of these guys I'd be willing to bet that if they converted their vehicle over to running on used cooking oil, the cost of conversion added to the price of used cooking oil these days (nobody gives it away anymore), they wouldn't outlive the the investment costs.
Some citizen sat down and thought about what's going on in the world and came up with an actual plan to help save this country, something the people running for President can't seem to come up with.
It's 9 minutes long, but worth it and you won't even notice because you'll be going yeah, of course that's what I had in the back of my mind.
Is it to late to get this guy on the ballot for November?
I was watching the Big Oil execs testifying before Congress. That was my first mistake. If memory serves, there was lesbian mud wrestling over on Channel 137, and on the whole that's less rigged. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz knew the routine: "I can't say that there is evidence that you are manipulating the price, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not."
Had I been in the hapless oil man's expensive shoes, I'd have answered, "Hey, you first. I can't say that there is evidence that you're sleeping with barnyard animals, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not. Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence and prima facie evidence, lady? Do I have to file a U.N. complaint in Geneva that the House of Representatives is in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?"
Another waste of taxpayer money going over the same thing they went over a few years ago. Libtard thinking, every time the price of gas goes up, it must be BIG OIL causing it,with their 8% profit margin.
Once the show with Oil Execs is going nowhere and is over, they come up with the brilliant idea of suing OPEC members (sovereign nations) over the use of their own commodity...because we want it.
and then they went off and passed 324-82 the so-called NOPEC bill. The NOPEC bill is, in effect, a suit against OPEC, which, if I recall correctly, stands for the Oil Price-Exploiting Club. "No War For Oil!," as the bumper stickers say. But a massive suit for oil – now that's the American way.
"It shall be illegal and a violation of this Act," declared the House of Representatives, "to limit the production or distribution of oil, natural gas, or any other petroleum product ... or to otherwise take any action in restraint of trade for oil, natural gas or any petroleum product when such action, combination, or collective action has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply, price or distribution of oil, natural gas or other petroleum product in the United States."
I would assume that this law with penumbras and such, could be used to sue Fwance for limiting the import of Brie to the U.S. causing action, combination, or collective action has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply, price or distribution of Brie, or other cheezy stuff in the United States."
After all Nancy Pelosi may have a fund raiser for re-election and she wouldn't want to have to serve any of that nasty California cheese.
Er, OK. But, before we start suing distant sheikhs in exotic lands for violating the NOPEC act, why don't we start by suing Congress? After all, who "limits the production or distribution of oil" right here in the United States by declaring that there'll be no drilling in the Gulf of Florida or the Arctic National Mosquito Refuge? As Rep. Wasserman Schultz herself told Neil Cavuto on Fox News, "We can't drill our way out of this problem."
No, we can't...but:
Well, maybe not. But maybe we could drill our way back to $3.25 a gallon. More to the point, if the House of Representatives has now declared it "illegal" for the government of Saudi Arabia to restrict oil production, why is it still legal for the government of the United States to restrict oil production? In fact, the government of the United States restricts pretty much every form of energy production other than the bizarre fetish du jour of federally mandated ethanol production.
But we're protecting "our" environment, and you guys live in a sandbox.
Nuclear energy?
Whoa, no, remember Three Mile Island? (OK, nobody does, but kids and anyone under late middle age, you can look it up in your grandparents' school books.)
We have been operating a nuclear navy for decades now without mishap. I have a brother-in-law who would have loved to come out of the Navy, after running the reactor for 10 years and gone into a civilian job doint the same thing.
Coal?
Whoa, no, man, there go our carbon credits.
OK, how about if we all go back to the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, and start criss-crossing the country on wood-fired trains?
Are you nuts? Think of the clear-cutting. We can't have logging in environmentally sensitive areas such as forests.
Coal has progressed to where the technology is much, much cleaner than the old smoke belching stacks of the '50's, but future advances are limited when using it for a fuel source is just ruled out.
Rep. Wasserman Schultz believes in "alternative energy," which means not nuclear (like the French) but solar and wind power. At the moment, solar energy accounts for approximately 0.1 percent of U.S. electricity production, most of which is for devices that heat swimming pools. So if there was a tenfold increase in swimming pool construction you might be able to get it up to 1 percent, but the only way all those homeowners would be able to afford to build their new swimming pools is through the kinds of economic activity that depend on oil, gas and other forms of federally prohibited energy.
Concentrating solar rays in an area enough to produce meaningful energy, gee, I duuno, might cause an unnatural increase in the temperature in the surrounding area, thereby making it to hot for the two-tongued horny-toad to survive. (No one has seen a two-tongued horny-toad in over 60 years, but they could be out there and we wouldn't want to kill one.)
So, instead, Congress hauls Big Oil execs in for the dinner-theatre version of a Soviet show trial and then passes irrelevant poseur legislation like the NOPEC bill. The NOPEC bill is really the NO PECS bill – a waste of photocopier paper passed by what C.S. Lewis called "men without chests."
But, they did something, right?
The New Yorker ran a big piece the other day called "The Fall Of Conservatism." Indeed. This November isn't going to be pleasant for those of us of a right-wing bent. Many conservative voices in the media say: This is the way it is, get used to it. Voters want the government to "fix" health care and "fix" gas prices and "fix" the environment and, if all you're offering is the virtues of small government, you too sound small – and mean and uncaring about the real issues in real people's real lives. Standing athwart history yelling "Stop!" was a cute line from William F. Buckley, but it's not a practical position for a political party that wishes to stay in business. "The fact of change is the great fact of human life," writes my National Review colleague David Frum in "Comeback," his thoughtful critique of the conservative movement.
Frum is right. Change is a constant. You're a big railroad baron,and things are going swell, and then someone invents the horseless carriage and a big metal bird that holds hundreds of people and you never saw it coming – because you thought you were in the train business rather than in the transportation business. That kind of change is the great exhilarating rhythm of American life. [emp. mine]
Our countries past ability to glimpse around the next corner, that seem to be missing today.
But government "change," Obama change, NOPEC change is nothing to do with that. In fact, it obstructs real dynamic change. On energy, on environmentalism, on health care, government "change" generally does nothing more than set in motion the next crisis that the next change-peddling pol has to pledge to address.
So we complain about $4-a-gallon gas, and our leaders respond with showboating legislation like NOPEC and feel-good environmental regulatory overkill like putting the polar bear on the endangered-species list, while ensuring that we'll continue to bankroll every radical mosque and madrassah on the planet. In Britain, new "green taxes" do nothing to "save" the planet, but they are estimated to cost the average family about $6,000 a year. That's change you can believe in.
We refuse to recognize what needs to be done, try to push the blame off on others (NOPEC, the hearings) and continue to dig ourselves in deeper.
One final note: The Big Oil companies are not setting the price of a barrel of crude, they are having to pay that price, because if they don't, some other country will and we lose.
Got an hour and 15 minutes? Go see the other side of the story that is "indisputable" . Believe me, it will go by quick. When you see what gets left out (suppressed) by the Envroloons you can make a decision, but to just state that "X" number of "scientists" support this position, and the guys they've got listed as authors of the report are telling you that what they really reported wasn't even in the document. you have to wonder who is telling the truth here.
I'm not against making the air cleaner, or turning off the light when I leave the room, but let's all be sure we are using facts that are relevant before shuting down civilization.
The last five minutes are the most poignant, as they deal with how this craze is affecting the developing nations.
