!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> NewEnergyNews: ENERGY TAX CREDITS – COMPROMISE OR R.I.P. UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION?

NewEnergyNews

Gleanings from the web and the world, condensed for convenience, illustrated for enlightenment, arranged for impact...

WALL STREET JOURNAL'S Environmental Capital selected NewEnergyNews as one of the "Blogs We Are Reading" in March, April and May of 2007 and quoted NewEnergyNews on June 5, 2007

MOTHER EARTH NEWS' Energy Matters selected NewEnergyNews for its "What We're Reading" list in September 2008

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Anne B. Butterfield of DAILY CAMERA, a biweekly contributor to NewEnergyNews

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  • The big ka-ching in our health care wallet
  • Anne B. Butterfield
  • June 19, 2009 (NewEnergyNews)

    While Americans wonder with noisy drama what the Obama Administration will do to our current health care system, wouldn’t it be great if we could materially reduce the cost of health care in our country by tackling climate change?

    Virtually all of the power for our transportation and electric utilities comes from petroleum, coal, and natural gas, the combustion of which emits the toxins that are heavily involved in costly degenerative diseases such as cancer, heart disease, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), to name a few. Rural or urban, we are sitting in a faint bath of toxic chemicals that can exacerbate our symptoms or hasten acute suffering and death, and when that happens it is a big ka-ching in our health care wallet.

    The emissions and other by products of fossil fuel use are so ubiquitous, and often well hidden, that they slip from our awareness. Their presence and health effects have become “just the way life is.” Here are a few of our fossil fuel chemical friends:

    Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are precursors to smog, that brown smear of ozone and particulate matter that collects over cities under high air pressure conditions. Smog alerts are accompanied by higher than average hospital admissions and deaths.

    Particulate matter excerbates asthma, COPD, bronchitis, cardiac events as well as congestive heart failure. When smog mingles with very small particles (known as PM 2.5) the risk of mortality for men over 65 rises to 24 percent above average; for women of this age the death rate is 80 percent above average.

    Three hundred counties in the US are designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as clean air non-attainment areas, being perpetually outside of the recommended air quality standards. Pass the nebulizer!

    Coal fired power plants emit about a third of all human-caused release of mercury, a neurotoxin so widely spread that women and children are advised to limit their eating of fish. In Colorado one-fifth of waterways have mercury-based fishing advisories.

    Another health cost of using coal as heavily as we do is the ash waste. All over our country, ash waste is dumped in unlined pits in or near the water table. A 2007 report of the EPA found that poorly lined waste sites (60 percent of all) pose a cancer risk through ground water that is 900 times what is acceptable.

    Environmental groups have fought for national standards for the handling of coal ash waste, to keep state officials from competing in a “race to the bottom” for corporate clients’ sake. But rather than put coal waste under the EPA’s regulation, Obama’s Department of Homeland Security has just announced that the locations of 44 coal ash dumps cannot be disclosed; their toxicity and precarious engineering make them attractive terrorist targets. Meanwhile two senators are seeking support to make sure that coal ash waste is treated less rigorously than household trash.

    Ontario, Canada released a report finding that each kilowatt hour of coal-fired power creates 12.7 cents of health and environmental effects. The next time you get your electric bill, picture two-thirds of your kilowatt hours each causing 12 cents of medical and other costs. Utilities like to talk about delivering low-cost energy, but that sector’s emissions of known toxins, at 722 million pounds each year, dwarfs all other industrial competitors. A large part of our health care costs belong on our utility bill and other energy related costs.

    California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger put it best: “We pay for the fuel we burn but not for the pollution we emit. That pollution causes serious damage to our world, and in the long run, we all pay for it...Imagine if we decided to let everyone dump their garbage on their neighbors' lawns instead of being forced to pay for trash pickup. Sure, it would be cheaper, but it would be disastrous to public health.”

    The climate bill coming through Congress is guaranteed to be inadequate, so our path to the post-fossil fuel era will be long. We should keep up the support for local communities, like Coal River Valley in West Virginia, which is fighting to stop mountain top removal mining, and our own effort in Boulder to rapidly decarbonize our electric supply.

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    Anne's previous NewEnergyNews columns:

  • The big ka-ching in our health care wallet (June 19, 2009)
  • It takes a Governor (May 24, 2009)
  • Want a job? Think Wind. (May 10, 2009)
  • Just Say No to Xcess Energy (April 28, 2009)
  • NREL’s history of fickle funding (April 12, 2009)
  • Wagons firmly circled: Governance at REA’s and Tri-State (March 26, 2009)
  • A new migratory pattern: Colorado youth go to Washington (March 12, 2009)
  • Even coal is in for a revolution (February 22, 2009)
  • High Flyers and the Commons (February 11, 2009)
  • Come on Baby, Sit by Me (January 25, 2009)
  • A return on investment (January 3, 2009)
  • Mr. Secretary, we're watching you (December 28, 2008)
  • Canary in the Coal Mine (December 13, 2008)
  • Crash test dummies (November 16, 2008)
  • Needless markup (November 2, 2008)
  • The flap about 58 (October 19, 2008)
  • Hip towns and a clever measure (October 7, 2008)
  • Are we afraid of change? Still? (September 21, 2008)
  • Cheney in a chignon (September 7, 2008)
  • Don't tick off the blonde (August 10, 2008)
  • Buying us time on global warming (July 27, 2008)
  • Hint from Heloise - It's the pH, Stupid! (July 13, 2008)
  • Nukes: the position ridiculous and the expense damnable (June 29, 2008)

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    NOTEWORTHY IN THE MEDIA:

  • Young, Green Entrepreneurs Flock to Carbon Market, from NPR's Morning Edition: "...climate change and a billion-dollar carbon market that trades in carbon credits — as if they were pork bellies — have created a new career niche."

  • Ethical Markets TV: A remarkable TV series showcasing people who “…illustrate the triple bottom line, respecting people and the environment while earning a profit…” Part of Ethical Markets: “Your gateway to cleaner, greener 21st century economies.”

  • Energy Security and Global Warming, from Warren Olney's TO THE POINT at KCRW in Santa Monica: "US energy demands are rising as the price of oil goes through the roof...Canadian tar sands and domestic coal would provide energy security, but at the risk of increased global warming. Can renewables be developed in time?"

  • Designer Biofuels, from KQED Radio in San Francisco: "...making a gasoline alternative to run our cars has great promise but there are huge problems...The next answer [may come]...from a UC Berkeley lab, a Silicon Valley start up or...the jungles of Costa Rica."

  • HELEN’S WAR: Portrait of a Dissident, showing periodically on the Sundance Channel (click title for listings), profiles the medical doctor turned anti-nuclear activist as she continues her nearly 4-decade-old campaign to educate the public on the serious drawbacks to the development of nuclear energy.

  • A CRUDE AWAKENING: The Oil Crash, showing periodically on the Sundance Channel (click title for listings), studies the implications of world dependence on oil and declining availability of it.

  • Lee Iococa predicts the Plug-In Hybrid will be the next big thing in cars NPR’s Morning Edition: Thursday, April 26, 2007.

  • Robert Redford Presents "the GREEN": A weekly block of New Energy and Environmentally-Friendly programming. Check local listings.

  • John Rabe's OFFRAMP, Saturdays at noon (and podcasts) via NPR-affiliate KPCC-FM. A radio magazine show about Los Angeles, sometimes covering energy issues but frequently featuring John telling anybody he can about his vegetable oil-burning, converted Mercedes.

  • NOW: PBS's David Brancaccio talks with Laurie David, a producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and a major environmental activist.
    • Stream it at your convenience here.

  • Living with Ed, an HGTV tons-of-fun reality/comedy show about the trials, tribulations, hilarity and rewards in the marriage of environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr., and his appearance-oriented actress-wife Rachelle Carson. Click here for listings

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  • My Novels: OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades & OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction
  • Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades by Mark S. Friedman
  • OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades, the second volume of Herman K. Trabish’s retelling of oil’s history in fiction, picks up where the first book in the series, OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction, left off. The new book is an engrossing, informative and entertaining tale of the Roaring 20s, World War II and the Cold War. You don’t have to know anything about the first historical fiction’s adventures set between the Civil War, when oil became a major commodity, and World War I, when it became a vital commodity, to enjoy this new chronicle of the U.S. emergence as a world superpower and a world oil power.
  • As the new book opens, Lefash, a minor character in the first book, witnesses the role Big Oil played in designing the post-Great War world at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Unjustly implicated in a murder perpetrated by Big Oil agents, LeFash takes the name Livingstone and flees to the U.S. to clear himself. Livingstone’s quest leads him through Babe Ruth’s New York City and Al Capone’s Chicago into oil boom Oklahoma. Stymied by oil and circumstance, Livingstone marries, has a son and eventually, surprisingly, resolves his grievances with the murderer and with oil.
  • In the new novel’s second episode the oil-and-auto-industry dynasty from the first book re-emerges in the charismatic person of Victoria Wade Bridger, “the woman everybody loved.” Victoria meets Saudi dynasty founder Ibn Saud, spies for the State Department in the Vichy embassy in Washington, D.C., and – for profound and moving personal reasons – accepts a mission into the heart of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. Underlying all Victoria’s travels is the struggle between the allies and axis for control of the crucial oil resources that drove World War II.
  • As the Cold War begins, the novel’s third episode recounts the historic 1951 moment when Britain’s MI-6 handed off its operations in Iran to the CIA, marking the end to Britain’s dark manipulations and the beginning of the same work by the CIA. But in Trabish’s telling, the covert overthrow of Mossadeq in favor of the ill-fated Shah becomes a compelling romance and a melodramatic homage to the iconic “Casablanca” of Bogart and Bergman.
  • Monty Livingstone, veteran of an oil field youth, European WWII combat and a star-crossed post-war Berlin affair with a Russian female soldier, comes to 1951 Iran working for a U.S. oil company. He re-encounters his lost Russian love, now a Soviet agent helping prop up Mossadeq and extend Mother Russia’s Iranian oil ambitions. The reunited lovers are caught in a web of political, religious and Cold War forces until oil and power merge to restore the Shah to his future fate. The romance ends satisfyingly, America and the Soviet Union are the only forces left on the world stage and ambiguity is resolved with the answer so many of Trabish’s characters ultimately turn to: Oil.
  • Commenting on a recent National Petroleum Council report calling for government subsidies of the fossil fuels industries, a distinguished scholar said, “It appears that the whole report buys these dubious arguments that the consumer of energy is somehow stupid about energy…” Trabish’s great and important accomplishment is that you cannot read his emotionally engaging and informative tall tales and remain that stupid energy consumer. With our world rushing headlong toward Peak Oil and epic climate change, the OIL IN THEIR BLOOD series is a timely service as well as a consummate literary performance.
  • Oil history journal articles by Dr. Trabish: Oil Stories and Histories
  • Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction by Mark S. Friedman
  • "...ours is a culture of energy illiterates." (Paul Roberts, THE END OF OIL)
  • OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, a superb new historical fiction by Herman K. Trabish, addresses our energy illiteracy by putting the development of our addiction into a story about real people, giving readers a chance to think about how our addiction happened. Trabish's style is fine, straightforward storytelling and he tells his stories through his characters.
  • The book is the answer an oil family's matriarch gives to an interviewer who asks her to pass judgment on the industry. Like history itself, it is easier to tell stories about the oil industry than to judge it. She and Trabish let readers come to their own conclusions.
  • She begins by telling the story of her parents in post-Civil War western Pennsylvania, when oil became big business. This part of the story is like a John Ford western and its characters are classic American melodramatic heroes, heroines and villains.
  • In Part II, the matriarch tells the tragic story of the second generation and reveals how she came to be part of the tales. We see oil become an international commodity, traded on Wall Street and sought from London to Baku to Mesopotamia to Borneo. A baseball subplot compares the growth of the oil business to the growth of baseball, a fascinating reflection of our current president's personal career.
  • There is an unforgettable image near the center of the story: International oil entrepreneurs talk on a Baku street. This is Trabish at his best, portraying good men doing bad and bad men doing good, all laying plans for wealth and power in the muddy, oily alley of a tiny ancient town in the middle of everywhere. Because Part I was about triumphant American heroes, the tragedy here is entirely unexpected, despite Trabish's repeated allusions to other stories (Casey At The Bat, Hamlet) that do not end well.
  • In the final section, World War I looms. Baseball takes a back seat to early auto racing and oil-fueled modernity explodes. Love struggles with lust. A cavalry troop collides with an army truck. Here, Trabish has more than tragedy in mind. His lonely, confused young protagonist moves through the horrible destruction of the Romanian oilfields only to suffer worse and worse horrors, until--unexpectedly--he finds something, something a reviewer cannot reveal. Finally, the question of oil must be settled, so the oil industry comes back into the story in a way that is beyond good and bad, beyond melodrama and tragedy.
  • Along the way, Trabish gives readers a greater awareness of oil and how we became addicted to it. Awareness, Paul Roberts said in THE END OF OIL, "...may be the first tentative step toward building a more sustainable energy economy. Or it may simply mean that when our energy system does begin to fail, and we begin to lose everything that energy once supplied, we won't be so surprised."
  • Oil history journal articles by Dr. Trabish: Oil Stories and Histories

    • About Me

    Name: Herman K. Trabish
    Location: La Crescenta, CA

    *Doctor with my hands *Author of the "OIL IN THEIR BLOOD" series with my head *Student of New Energy with my heart

    View my complete profile

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    CONTACT: herman@newenergynews.net

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      A tip of the NewEnergyNews cap to Phillip Garcia for crucial assistance in the design implementation of this site. Thanks, Phillip.

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    Pay a visit to the HARRY BOYKOFF page at Basketball Reference, sponsored by NewEnergyNews and Oil In Their Blood.

  • -------------------

    • Monday, September 29, 2008

    ENERGY TAX CREDITS – COMPROMISE OR R.I.P. UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION?

    Refusal by Congress and the President to extend vital New Energy industries tax credits is looming.

    One place the story being followed closely is wind-rich West Texas, home to such disparate characters as President Lyndon B. Johnson and President George W. Bush.

    The House-amended version (H.R. 7060) of the Senate-approved bill (H.R. 6049) hit what one House leader called “the wall” in the Senate over the weekend. Though both bills extend the New Energy tax credits, differences about how to fund them make the bills irreconcilable.

    Max Baucus (D-Mont), Chairman, Senate Finance Committee: “This move in the House endangers tax relief that American businesses and families need right now…While I commend the House’s effort to fully offset the cost of this needed tax legislation, it is clear to me from discussions in the Senate that even this new package of bills will not pass in this body.”

    Though leaders are struggling to draft compromise legislation (H.R. 7201, H.R. 7202), differences do not yet appear near resolution.

    The cutoff of New Energy’s vital tax credits will hit hard in the President’s West Texas stomping grounds. Some around there are not feeling patient with the political leadership. Greg Wortham, executive director, West Texas Wind Consortium/Mayor, Sweetwater: "Support America or don't…Do their job or get out of office."

    The local Congressman is more optimistic than most. U.S. Congressman Mike Conaway (R-Midland): "But I think it will get done this year…"

    The fight for New Energy’s vital tax credits, chronicled in detail by NewEnergyNews since the summer of 2007 and especially during the last 2 weeks, is hanging in the balance.

    The traditional power-generating energy industries have long benefited from subsidies and incentives provided by the taxpayer through acts of Congress (as calculated in a study done at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration,     Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy Markets 2007). In recent years, New Energy has begun to get a share of support. There could easily be a debate over whether it deserves more. But to refuse to allow it even what it has been getting is just plain nonsensical.

    A GE Financial Services study shows investment in New Energy already pays for itself. Numerous other studies show New Energy will, in a carbon-constrained future, be the key to energy independence and world energy dominance.

    If Congress does not extend the credits, they will expire December 31. With them will go the boom in the New Energy industries, one of the few sectors in U.S. financial markets that has continued to expand through the sadness of the current financial failure.

    In West Texas, this is not a matter of stock market prices. Mayor Wortham: "There are plenty of projects that are being planned for 2009 that will step back...[People] want to have a good Christmas this year and buy toys for their kids...people that want to have a job in February..."

    Ironically, both the House and Senate have approved extension of the New Energy tax credits by large majorities. Extension is expected to fail in Congress, for the 9th time in 18 months, because the House and the Senate cannot agree on how to fund it in a way that will not force President Bush, who claims to want to approve extension, to veto.

    No, this is not the     NPR Sunday Puzzle, this is political reality in an election year or, as it is known in Washington, “the silly season.”

    The Senate passed the extensions 93-2, along with a general package of revenue “pay-fors” on September 23. The House Democratic majority altered the Senate bill, taking very specific tax breaks away from the oil industry and very specific tax-havens away from the financial sector to create additional pay-fors, passed the new version 226-166, and sent it back for Senate approval September 27.

    Fiscal conservatives in the House and Senate, members who coincidentally represent many in the oil industry and financial sector, call the House pay-fors “raising taxes.” Their opposition cannot stop a bill containing such pay-fors in the House. They have, though, used – and probably again this week will use – the threat of a filibuster in the Senate to block such a bill from being voted on.

    The irony: Everybody who wants to can now say they voted for extending the new Energy tax credits.

    Example: Charles Rangel (D-NY0 Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee, on the version of the bill he knows will produce rejection in the Senate: "With this bill, we can tell our kids and our grandkids that we encouraged energy production from wind and solar to make sure that future generations aren't hooked on foreign oil like we have been…"

    The cynicism: Handling the legislation like this gives both parties something substantive to run on. Democrats will tell their base to actively support their candidates if they want New Energy. Republicans will tell their base to actively support their candidates if they want New Energy but not new taxes.

    click to enlarge

    It’s a sorry state of affairs. Keith Johnson, energy blogger extraordinaire, Wall Street Journal: “The legislative stalemate will just prolong the agony for America’s clean-energy sector…The breakdown will also affect people who aren’t building massive wind farms, but just wanted to get solar power or a mini-wind turbine for their house…”

    The market had no doubt about the meaning of the situation. From MarketWatch: “Solar stocks fell Friday after the U.S. House of Representatives OK'd a measure to extend billions in tax credits for renewable energy, but the measure faces an uncertain future because it differs from the Senate version…”

    The NY Times’ Tom Friedman was his usual eloquent self on the situation and, as always, pointed in exactly the right direction: “Many things make me weep about the current economic crisis… I fear all it will leave behind are a bunch of empty Florida condos that never should have been built, used private jets that the wealthy can no longer afford and dead derivative contracts that no one can understand…

    “…[W]e don’t just need a bailout. We need a buildup. We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering not just financial engineering…The exciting thing about the energy technology revolution is that it spans the whole economy — from green-collar construction jobs to high-tech solar panel designing jobs. It could lift so many boats…”

    There are 3 possibilities left, 2 rather feathery (“Hope is the thing with feathers…”) and 1 that depends on the wisdom of the voters:

    (1) The House and Senate could get caught up in the emotion spilling over from bipartisan cooperation in developing the financial crisis legislation and work out a compromise this week. (A smart bettor wouldn’t even check the odds on this one.)

    (2) A lame duck session of Congress could be called after the election in which a compromise is forged. (So many things are up in the air right now, from the presidency to the economy to the war, that smart bookies probably wouldn’t give odds on this one.)

    (3) Next year’s Congress could retroactively extend the tax credits. (The smart bet.)

    In his despair, The Times’ Friedman turned to Van Jones, a longtime inspiration to NewEnergyNews     (see A GREEN NEW DEAL): “It’s time to stop borrowing and start building. America’s No. 1 resource is not oil or mortgages. Our No. 1 resource is our people. Let’s put people back to work — retrofitting and repowering America...You can’t base a national economy on credit cards. But you can base it on solar panels, wind turbines, smart biofuels and a massive program to weatherize every building and home in America.”

    Have a visit with Van Jones below. No feathers there. It’s the kind of substance they like in West Texas.

    Play it loud. From LCVheatison via YouTube.

    Wind energy tax credit facing vote; Conaway says he expects House to continue working through weekend on bill
    Trish Choate, September 26, 2008 (Abilene Reporter)
    and
    House OKs extending renewable enrgy tax credits
    Russell Blinch (w/Matthew Lewis), September 26, 2008 (Reuters)
    and
    Dept. of Futile Gestures: House Passes Energy Tax Credits, To No Avail
    Keith Johnson, September 26, 2008 (Wall Street Journal)
    and
    Solar stocks fall on uncertain outlook for tax credits
    September 26, 2008 (MarketWatch)
    and
    Green the Bailout
    Thomas L. Friedman, September 28, 2008 (NY Times)
    and
    House to Try Again Monday on Tax Extenders
    Richard Rubin, September 28, 2008 (CQ Politics)

    WHO
    The U.S. House of Representatives; The U.S. Senate

    WHAT

    H.R. 7060, The Renewable Energy and Job creation Tax Act of 2008     is unlikely to see the President's desk. H.R. 7201, The Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 and H.R. 7202, Temporary Tax relief Act of 2008 are compromise versions.

    This GE study proved the wind tax credits, like other New Energy incentives, create revenues in the long run. (click to enlarge)

    WHEN
    - One version passed in the Senate September 23.
    - Another version passed in the House September 27.
    - 7201 or 7202 to be debated, passed by the House?
    - Taken up again by the Senate?
    - December 31: Both houses of Congress must approve the measure or the existing tax credits expire on the last day of the year.
    - Any day now: Congress expected to adjourn for the election.

    WHERE
    In limbo in the House.

    WHY
    - Research from Navigant Consulting shows the 8-year tax credit extension means 440,000 new solar industry jobs and a doubling of new solar capacity to ~630 megawatts in 2009.
    - H.R. 7060:
    (1) extends the production tax credit (PTC) for wind 1 year,
    (2) extends the PTC for biomass, hydrokinetic and geothermal energies 2 years,
    (3) extends the investment tax credit (ITC) for solar systems and small wind turbines 8 years,
    (4) has an 8-year extension on energy efficiency building improvement tax credits,
    (5) has tax benefits for buying electric vehicles (EVs), has tax benefits for producing cellulosic ethanol and advanced biodiesel,
    (6) includes many of the same benefits (to veterans, teachers, Native Americans, hurricane victims, etc.) that were in the package passed by the Senate September 23,
    (7) includes tax credits for “clean” coal development,
    (8) extends major R&D tax credits,
    (9) excludes tax credits to oil shale producers and coal-to-liquid producers,
    (10) removes the controversial tax credit to New York City to help redevelop the World Trade Center zone.
    - H.R. 7060 pay-fors:
    (1) freezes an oil industry deduction on earnings (raising $4.9 billion over 10 years),
    (2) changes the way stock sales are accounted for (raising $6.7 billion/10 years),
    (3) extends existing taxes on unemployment income and the oil spill liability fund ($3.2 billion/10 years),
    (4) redefines foreign oil earnings and expenses ($2.2 billion/10 years),
    (5) postpones a cut in taxes on foreign interest earnings ($18.6 billion/10 years),
    (6) closes a loophole on deferred compensation from tax haven corporations ($24.8 billion/10 years).
    - H.R. 7201 and 7202 are reported to have (1) restored tax credits for coal-to-liquid. tar sands and oil shale development, (2) changed the credits to wind energy and plug-in vehicles and (3) reduced the pay-fors from oil tax breaks and financial tax havens.

    Money invested in New Energy pays itself back in jobs and revenues. (click to enlarge)

    QUOTES
    - Rhone Resch, President, Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), on what passage means: "You're going to see national markets open up for residential solar…"
    - Lyndon Rive, CEO, SolarCity: "Without [the ITC], we're not going to have scale that brings solar to grid parity, and investors aren't going to be interested…"
    - Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich): "It's about what is going to be enacted into law, and the shelf life on this bill is very, very short…"
    - Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Tx): "We've got a bill that has passed the Senate ... that is there for us to vote on and then get to the president…"
    - Keith Johnson, energy blogger extraordinaire, Wall Street Journal: “Both presidential campaigns are heavy on clean-energy rhetoric, and “green collar” jobs has become a mantra this election year. Will a lame-duck Congress be able to make that rhetoric a reality, after so many failures?”
    - K.R. Sridhar, the founder, Bloom Energy (quoted by Friedman): “Infants and the elderly who are disabled obsess about survival,” said Sridhar. “As a nation, if we just focus on survival, the demise of our leadership is imminent. We are thrivers. Thrivers are constantly looking for new opportunities to seize and lead and be No. 1.”
    - Bonus video: The Voice of Van Jones

    ”There’s nothing wrong with America that can’t be fixed by what’s right with America.” Bill Clinton. From VanJonesDotNet via YouTube.

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 6:34 AM

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