In the Pipeline: 11/20/12

This doesn’t sound very good. Fox Business (11/16/12) reports: “The Obama administration provided struggling battery maker A123 Systems Inc with nearly $1 million on the day it filed for bankruptcy, the company told lawmakers investigating its government grant.”

Maybe Richard Windsor is also controlling EPA’s unmanned drones: “Is The Obama EPA Running Its Own Black-Ops Program?” Investors Business Daily (11/19/12) reports: “Federal law prohibits the government from using private emails for official communications unless they are appropriately stored and can be tracked. Because things look suspicious at the EPA, the House Science Committee is investigating the possibility that the agency has conducted business it doesn’t want the public to see.”

A little more Richard Windsor/Lisa Jackson/ most transparent Administration in history news. IER (11/19/12) reports: “The Institute for Energy Research (IER) renewed a request to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for documents related to the administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline earlier this year.  Recent reports indicate that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has used at least one alias email account to conduct official government business, and IER believes that the EPA’s non-responsiveness to the organization’s original March 15 request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) may owe, in part, to the administrator’s use of alias accounts that were not covered in the earlier letter.”

Doug Lamborn is right as rain.  Cory Gardner probably needs to rethink his position.  Allison Sherry remains the best reporter on the Denver Post staff. Denver Post (11/18/12) reports: “On the House side, the three Colorado Republicans who support it have written letters to congressional leadership trying to get a vote on some of the proposed measures that would extend the credit… Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, doesn’t support it because he says he doesn’t believe the federal government should pick winners and losers in energy development.”

Of course it’s the right thing to do to rob taxpayers and poor people with regressive spikes in the cost of energy to build an “oasis” of electricity with solar panels, and top it off with Chevy Volts for people who make $170,000 a year… This is a house of cards that will blow over with or without another hurricane.NYTimes (11/19/12) reports: “But a drawback is that residents have to figure out where to put the batteries — a particular quandary for those with homes vulnerable to flooding… So some are looking at electric vehicles as potential backup energy sources instead. In some cases, a car could fuel a house for days on a single charge.”

When the bureaucracy starts giving up on an idea, you know its time is starting to wind down. E&ENews (11/19/12) reports: “With the U.S. intelligence budget shrinking, the CIA has quietly shut down its Center on Climate Change and National Security — a project that was launched with the support of Leon Panetta when he led the agency, but that drew sharp criticism from some Republicans in Congress.”