by Aaron Klein
Glauthier, meanwhile, came under some fire in the conservative blogosphere after Fox News reported the U.S. Navy has purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuel for about $16 a gallon, or about four times the price of its standard marine fuel, JP-5, which has been going for under $4 a gallon. HotAir reported Glauthier is a “strategic advisor” to Solazyme, the California company that is selling a portion of the biofuel to the Navy.31 HotAir noted Solazyme received a $21.8 million grant from the 2009 stimulus package. Also, writing at BigGovernment, Whitney Pitcher found that prior to serving as advisor to Solazyme and after his time as part of Obama’s transition team, Glauthier served on the advisory board of SunRun, a solar financing company. In October of 2010, just a few short months after Glauthier joined SunRun’s advisory board, SunRun secured a $6.73 million grant from this Treasury Department stimulus program.32 The company was the ninth largest recipient of such programs through December 2010.
We’ve mentioned John Podesta and his CAP several times in this chapter. It bears noting that Podesta’s sister-in-law served as the lobbyist for a wind power firm recently awarded a $135.8 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. The company is Brookfield Asset Management. It has a board of nine directors, including New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s longtime girlfriend.33 The grant was finalized to build the 99-megawatt Granite Reliable wind project in New Hampshire’s Coos County, making it the state’s largest wind plant. Seventy-five percent of the new wind project is owned by BAIF Granite Holdings, which was created earlier this year by Brookfield Renewable Power, a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management of New York.34
Since 2009, Brookfield has been represented by the lobbying firm of Heather Podesta and Partners, LLC. 35 Podesta, a top financial bundler for Democrat politicians, is wife of lobbyist and art collector Tony Podesta, who is John’s brother. Heather Podesta and her husband, in July 2011, topped the FEC’s lobbyist bundler database, raising more money by far in the six prior months than any other lobbyists. Their fundraising was largely for Democrats.36 According to White House visitor logs, Heather Podesta visited the White House eight times in Obama’s first six months alone.37 Brookfield, meanwhile, is a Toronto-based asset management company that manages a global portfolio of assets valued at over $120 billion. The firm’s assets boast not only renewable power generation but also real state, including some of Manhattan’s most famous skyline buildings. Brookfield also happens to own Zuccotti Park, the park “occupied” by Wall Street protesters in the fall of 2011.38
BIG ENERGY’S SELF-SERVING ENERGY BLUEPRINTS
A coalition of some of America’s largest corporations, and a handful of “environmental” groups, issued the Blueprint for Legislative Action in January 2009 to “provide decision makers in the Administration and Congress with a framework for legislation.” The Blueprint, according to USCAP, was to serve as a guide for “the development of legislation in the 111th Congress that can become law.”39
In summary, the Blueprint blandly called for: an “increase [in] the overall energy efficiency of our Economy”; to “utilize responsibly our domestic supplies of coal, oil and natural gas”; to “develop and export the transportation technologies and fuels of the future”; and to “ensure the nation has an adequate supply of electricity produced from low-carbon resources, including wind, solar, next generation nuclear technology, and coal with carbon capture and sequestration.”40
Two years earlier, in January 2007, USCAP called for “prompt enactment of national legislation in the United States to slow, stop and reverse the growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the shortest time reasonably achievable.”41 GHG may have been the cover story, but history has shown us that some USCAP members—AIG, BP, Caterpiller Inc., Conoco-Phillips, Exelon, Duke Energy, Ford Motor Company, GM, and GE—had or still have a very different, less-earth-friendly agenda.
In fall 2008, in the waning days of the Bush presidency, insurance giant AIG received the largest corporate bailout in history—$182 billion in government funds. The leftist Nation magazine later observed that this should have been seen as “the Rosetta Stone for understanding the financial crisis and its costly aftermath.” Why? While the financial dealings were “monstrously complicated,” William Greider wrote, the “larger catastrophe” was because AIG’s “collapse and subsequent rescue involved nearly all the critical elements, including delusion and deception.”42 Hold that thought.
Next on the list is Exelon, well connected to both Barack Obama and his first chief of staff, and current Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel. In late 1998, when Emanuel left the Clinton White House, he joined the boutique investment banking firm Wasserstein Perella & Company. The following year, Emanuel “landed an advisory role for Wasserstein in the $8.2 billion merger of two utility companies, Unicom, the parent company of Commonwealth Edison, [once headed by Tom Ayers, father of Weatherman Bill Ayers,] and Peco Energy, to create Exelon, now one of the nation’s largest power companies.” John W. Rowe, then Unicom CEO, assumed the same position at Exelon. Rowe is one of Obama’s longest and most generous bundler backers.43
During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, said, “Barack has one of his biggest supporters in terms of funding, the Exelon Corporation, which has spent millions of dollars trying to make Yucca Mountain the waste depository.” PolitiFact.com confirmed the veracity of her statement.44 According to the company’s website, Exelon Nuclear “represents approximately 20% of the U.S. nuclear industry’s power capacity with 10 power plants and 17 reactors—located in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey—and produces enough electricity to power 17 million average American homes annually. Approximately 93% of Exelon’s total electricity generation is nuclear power.”45 That’s a lot of power and “investment” to protect.
Besides three nuclear power plants, two in South Carolina and one in North Carolina, Duke Energy operates fourteen coal-fired energy plants, as well as several traditional hydro plants, oil- and gas-fired plants, and pumped-storage hydro plants.46 Duke has already stepped up in this election cycle to subsidize the Democratic National Convention to the tune of a $10 million line of credit. Duke’s CEO, Jim Rogers, has given more than $30,000 towards Obama’s reelection and has contributed more than $210,000 to Democrats since 2008. Duke “pocketed $230 million in taxpayer money from Obama’s stimulus” for so-called “green energy” projects and has “lobbied for and stands to profit from the sort of cap-and-trade policies President Obama supports, as well as other Obama green-energy subsidies.”47
General Electric’s influence in the “green” marketplace of ideas—or in the Obama White House—cannot be understated. In January 2011, President Obama chose GE chairman and CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt to replace former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker as head of the Economic Advisory Panel. The “move,” a Huffington Post writer observed, was the “latest salvo in the White House’s continued aggressive and very public outreach to corporate America.”48
BP, Caterpillar Inc., Conoco-Phillips, Ford Motor Company, and GM have all dropped out. The most recent withdrawal was Ford, which left in January 2012 following pressure from the National Center for Public Policy Research.49
The Free Enterprise Education Institute (FEEI) issued a press release challenging USCAP members—described as a “lobbying group supporting global warming regulation and cap-and-trade schemes”—to report their involvement with USCAP to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Of the twenty-one members, only five had “disclosed in their annual SEC filings that limits on greenhouse gas emissions pose[d] a business risk.”50
NCPPR’s national chairman, Amy Ridenour explained further: “The U.S. Climate Action Partnership was invented by environmentalists to try to get big businesses to come in [and] give them money to lobby for things like cap and trade and other limitations on greenhouse gases … And what the liberals do is they promise the corporations that they can maybe mitigate some of the damage to their own businesses.51
MORE BLUEPRINTS FOR ENERGY
SECURITY
At the same time USCAP was formulating its blueprint, in June 2007, the Business Roundtable’s CEOs came up with a Blueprint for the U.S. Energy Future.52 (Members of the Business Roundtable include former and current USCAP members Caterpiller, Conoco-Phillips, Duke Energy, GE, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Johnson and Johnson, Xerox, and more.53)
Recommendations included: expanded use of bio-fuels “such as biobutanol and cellulosic ethanol as warranted by technology advances in the vehicles and fuels sectors”; developing and deploying energy efficient vehicle technologies to the maximum extent feasible”; “reducing energy intensity outside the transportation sector by at least 25 percent above the anticipated business-as-usual rate of improvement, which would mean an overall reduction in energy intensity of 40 percent by 2025 (energy intensity is energy consumed per unit of economic output)”; “expanded access to oil and natural gas supplies in the Rocky Mountains, along the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico regions, and in Alaska”; “maintaining a viable and growing nuclear power sector”; and “increased use of coal-to-liquids and coal gasification processes to produce transportation fuels, and syngas for electricity production use in manufacturing feedstock.”
A few months later, a reality check must have awakened some members, as the Roundtable walked back its “wish list” somewhat. The Roundtable explained that, although it supported actions to address global warming, not all members were in agreement. For example, it stated, there was a “range of views and preferences about the policy tools that will best achieve that objective.” While some companies supported “mandatory approaches,” others did not. Therefore, the Business Roundtable revised its position somewhat, now stating that it “supports an open and constructive dialogue about the principles that should shape climate policy and the pros and cons of various options.”54
In May 2009, the Union of Concerned Scientists released its 239-page National Blueprint for a Clean Energy Economy, which included many of the same requests in great detail, all predicated upon the perceived threat of global warming.55
The Union of Concerned Scientists, according to Discover the Networks, other than expressing environmental concerns, consistently “denounces American military campaigns” and “opposes U.S. development of [a] missile defense system.” UCS “circulated a petition that drew the signatures of some 1,600 scientific experts demanding that the United States ratify the Kyoto Protocol.” In a declaration entitled “Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making,” USC charged that the Bush administration “[had] continued to distort and suppress science in pursuit of its political goals—despite a plea from top U.S. scientists to restore scientific integrity to the policy-making process.” However, as DTN exposes, while the petition’s signers “portrayed themselves as objective scientists with no political agenda,” in reality “over half of them were financial contributors to the Democratic Party, Democratic candidates, or a variety of leftist causes.”56
OBAMA’S ALL-OF-THE-ABOVE ENERGY STRATEGY
A Friday the 13th of April executive order signed by President Obama—“Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources”—states:
“While natural gas production is carried out by private firms, and States are the primary regulators of onshore oil and gas activities, the Federal Government has an important role to play by regulating oil and gas activities on public and Indian trust lands, encouraging greater use of natural gas in transportation, supporting research and development aimed at improving the safety of natural gas development and transportation activities, and setting sensible, cost-effective public health and environmental standards to implement Federal law and augment State safeguards.”
In short, in 2011, natural gas produced 25 percent of our energy. The federal government “must control this source of energy in order to deliver on the promise of making gasoline prices rise to $10 per gallon, bankrupt the coal industry, and cause energy prices to skyrocket,” Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, a freelance writer at the Canada Free Press, commented on April 14.57
This is not at all surprising. At the end of March 2011, Obama’s newly-released energy blueprint pushed natural gas to forefront.58 By July, conservative websites reported that Texas hedge-fund operator and natural gasmagnate T. Boone Pickens, and George Soros, stood to gain from legislation that “would create very generous tax credits to manufacturers who retrofit existing work vehicles to run on natural gas rather than on that terrifying global menace known as oil.”59
Also, Soros had been observed making “some intriguing investments into alternative fuel companies of late, specifically those at the forefront of natural gas.” Soros has a track record of “accurately predict[ing] both economic bubbles and quickly growing industries. As a result, Soros’s funds have turned out a 30% return on investments since their inception.”60 Likewise not surprising.
The truth of the matter is that no one can be sure what the president intends.
Robert Bradley Jr. explained why a few days earlier at Forbes magazine online:
President Obama just can’t seem to make up his mind on Keystone XL. Earlier this year, he denied federal approval for the project, which would have unleashed construction of a 2,600-mile pipeline to transport crude oil from Canadian shales to refineries in the American south.
Yet just a few days ago, at a campaign stop in Cushing, Oklahoma, the Energy-Impresario-in-Chief said that he actually did support the pipeline—well, part of it at least. He announced a plan to fast-track construction of Keystone’s southern leg, a 484-mile track running from Cushing to the Gulf Coast, representing about 29 percent of the overall route.61
Bradley continued: “A White House that high-handedly rejects a major energy project one day, then boldly demands fast-track approval for that same project the next day, hasn’t exactly established a coherent energy policy.”62
As Bradley pointed out, this is what Obama calls “an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy.” His administration “will support any project that promises to ramp up overall supply, bring down prices, and reduce national dependence on foreign energy sources—including the oil and gas sector Democrats have been so hostile [to] in the past.”63
The only problem is, Bradley concluded, Obama’s “‘all of the above’ approach is heavily biased toward ‘green tech’ and does not even include coal, which accounts for more domestic electricity generation than any other energy source.”64
Another indication that Obama’s energy plans are not carved in stone is the one-year progress report on his Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future. The heretofore all-important GHG (greenhouse gas) goal was no longer mentioned.65
On March 12, 2012, Brad Johnson took the president to task at Think Progress, the Center for American Progress’s online propaganda site.
“Few challenges facing America, and the world, are more urgent than combating climate change,” President-elect Barack Obama said on November 19, 2008. “My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process,” he promised.66
“Obama reiterated the pledge he made on the campaign trail and in his transition-team energy and environment agenda,” Johnson wrote. Obama said: “We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80 percent by 2050.”67
“The blueprint does make several mentions of programs that reduce greenhouse pollution in individual sectors, but the Environmental Protection Agency’s work to regulate carbon pollution from power plants is not one of them,” Johnson continued. The “abandonment of the goal of cutting carbon pollution in line with international obligations and scientific reality is a sad reflection of the power of the fossil fuel industry over American politics.”68
Speaking to Obama’s possible political motivation, Johnson offered a caveat: “It may also reflect the m
istaken political calculation that Americans won’t support a leader who is willing to publicly fight the urgent challenge of climate change.”69
One thing we do know for certain is that investors like T. Boone Pickens and George Soros will not lose one dime—nor will Big Energy.
3
OPEN BORDERS, AMNESTY FOR ILLEGALS
DURING HIS 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama pledged amnesty for over 13 million illegal immigrants. Having failed to fulfill that pledge in his first term, but running for reelection, the savvy politician responded to a challenge over his failure in a February 2012 interview with Hispanic market Univision Radio: “My presidency is not over. I’ve got another five years coming up. We’re going to get this done,” Obama pledged yet again.1
President Obama first described his plan for amnesty during a December 4, 2007, campaign debate with Hillary Clinton:
As president of the United States, I will make sure that the federal government does what it’s supposed to do, which is to do a better job of closing our borders and preventing hundreds of thousands of people to pour in, have much tougher enforcement standards when it comes to employers, and create a pathway of citizenship for the 12 million people who are already here.2
Later in that debate, Obama elaborated:
After illegal aliens pay their fine and get on his “pathway,” they can then stay here and they can have the ability to enforce a minimum wage that they’re paid, make sure the worker safety laws are available, make sure that they can join a union.3
Since becoming president, Obama has made abundantly clear that amnesty for illegal immigrants (or undocumented workers, as progressives love to call them) is a main policy goal. For more than two years, he has waged a high-profile political war over this issue with the State of Arizona and its governor, Jan Brewer. But Obama also understands that a solid majority of Americans remains opposed to mass amnesty for illegals. Despite repeated pledges to oversee such “comprehensive” immigration reform, it would be difficult for Obama to get any amnesty bill passed in Congress, even if Democrats should retake the House during a second Obama term.