Thursday, January 20, 2011

Milking The Cash Cow Dry

A few days back, we reviewed the REINS bill, designed to rein in the federal administrative agencies and their czars and get control back into the hands of elected, accountable representatives. Now in case you're wondering, that's a stack of money equaling $10.6 million. And what is that? It's the amount of your hard-earned dollars that is spent every single day on "global warming/climate change/climate disruption."

Now I know that $10.6 million sounds like chump change, even when translated into $3.8 billion annually. At least next to our $14 trillion federal deficit. But it establishes the point of just how much Congress allows in merely one example to be frittered away be agencies whose only purpose is self-perpetuation. That money is being spent on "global warming research," not on anything that actually stops it. They're just spending it to prove their untenable position about anthropomorphic weather effects. Cap 'n Tax was supposed to be the solution, but without that crazy scheme, all that's left is to continue useless research.

First, they posit that climate is changing. Oh, you mean the thing that has been changing with or without human beings for 4 billion years? But the 2011 "Advancement of Science" budget item has a chapter 15, which requests even more "study" money based on its previous junk-science research which concludes that "humans are very likely responsible for most of the well-documented increase in global average surface temperatures over the last half century." And for the benefit of the profligate and arrogant EPA, "that further greenhouse gas emissions, particularly of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, will almost certainly contribute to additional widespread climate disruptions."

Now how's that for asking for gobs of money to research what you have already decided is a fact? A spurious fact, of course. There has been no global warming since 1998, so they changed to "climate change." The climate has remained somewhat stable, so to explain an occasional hurricane or tornado, they added "climate disruption." All of it based on debunked junk science, particularly the methodology for measuring ground surface temperatures. And there's always that beautiful hockey stick graph.

And on it goes: "This climate disruption poses considerable risk to society because it can be expected to cause major negative consequences for most nations and to a wide range of species." Talk about boot-strapping. Since they've already done all the studying of climate necessary, and decided that mankind is causing global climate disruption, why do we need to spend millions of dollars a day to research it further? It's like the fifty-year old grad student working on his sixth advanced degree in order to avoid actually having to do something with them.

The few solutions they have proposed answer that question. Solar power and wind power, which are wasteful and ineffective can survive only with big federal subsidies. Lighting your house with the entire roofline covered with solar panels that provide nearly enough power is not the same thing as providing power to major cities with millions of houses. Mo' money, mo' money.

So who are the big winners of federal largess? The National Science Foundation is requesting an additional $1.6 billion, including $766 million for their "Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability" project. That's a 15.9 percent increase over last year. And lest the mission be forgotten, they are asking for $370 million for the US Global Change Research Program. They also want another $955 million for the Geosciences Directorate, whatever that is.

Coming in a close second is the US Department of Energy. They want an additional $627 million for renewable energy (is hot air a renewable form of energy?). And joining hands with the EPA, the DOE wants to eliminate $2.7 billion in subsidies for industries that emit "large amounts of carbon dioxide." In order to put it into their own coffers, I assume.

The list of gummint farmers wanting to milk this cash cow goes on and on, including NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (the source of the debunked ground temperature increase studies), the Department of the Interior, and, of course, the EPA itself. If you want to know where to start gutting the outrageously bloated budget that produces the unsustainable deficits, this would be as good a place as any. How do you eat a whale? One bite at a time.

12 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

Hawk - I truly do hope the Republican Controlled House can make some real headway on de-funding this crap. It would be a rude awakening for these staffers to find real work in the private sector.

T_Rav said...

LawHawk, coming after yesterday's announcement that a significant climate change model had to be thrown out because of bad data, and the findings that the worldwide sea level had the biggest drop this past year since they started keeping records, and yet another cold winter not predicted at all by anyone, the House ought to use this to put the final nail in AGW's coffin. Whether they will or not is a different story.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, I'm actually writing about that this afternoon! It's a great story, made even better that they are still standing by it!


Lawhawk, Yep, it's time they cleaned up this whole regulatory mess!

Unknown said...

Tennessee: I'm with you. Government employment is just a program to hire people who couldn't make it in private industry. Those who could make it often leave and do exactly that. The rest stay with their job-for-life with no performance requirements and a big retirement.

Unknown said...

T_Rav: Andrew is going to address the specifics of the global warming/climate change/climate disruption. I wanted to point out how much money just one out-of-control segment of the government can spend on projects disproven by evidence and in opposition to the majority will.

Unknown said...

Andrew: I look forward to your article. Any heavily-funded federal project is going to do everything it can to perpetuate itself and its freeloading staff. Outright lying and denigration of hard evidence are among the tactics.

T_Rav said...

LawHawk, very rightly so. One of the biggest problems in debunking AGW, it seems to me, has been this reluctance to face the fact that scientists have feet of clay just like everyone else. Because we like to think they don't, when they say global warming is happening, we ignore the possibility of any ulterior motives and assume they're giving us the gospel truth. Pointing out what climatologists stand to gain from pushing this flawed theory is crucial in winning the battle.

T_Rav said...

Wait! Argument! I meant argument, not battle!! Darn it! #@*%?$^&! Sorry, gotta run. (sounds of door smashing) You'll never take me alive, coppers!

Unknown said...

T_Rav: The old admonition is to "follow the money." A huge percentage of the fellow-traveling global warming scientists would have to look for real jobs if their lies and coverups were recognized for what they really are. The amount of money in grants and funding for these clowns is nothing short of staggering. And their funding is to prove that there is global warming and that it's anthropomorphic. They don't get a dime to investigate whether it's anthropomorphic or not. The conclusion was made in advance, and all funding goes to proving it, by any means necessary.

Unknown said...

T_Rav: Too violent. It's neither a battle nor an argument. It's a discussion. LOL

StanH said...

Wow! Even a blind man could cut the budgets in Washington, apologies to blind men. These are the kind of things that I’m most keen to see, real sensible cuts to the behemoth federal government, a great place to start.

Unknown said...

Stan: A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about serious money. A simple 10% across-the-boards cut on everything would be a big bite out of the whale, and a good faith gesture to indicate they actually intend to take care of this deficit mess. Are you holding your breath for it?

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