Something Monstrous In The Senate This Way Comes
The forces who know best how you must live are at it again in the Senate.
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...beneath the glaze, there's a clot of overpowering government spending and social engineering.
For example, electric vehicles are pushed via the bill's "Promoting Electric Vehicles Act of 2010." No surprise here, particularly since the government has a 61% stake in General Motors and Chevy's electro-mobile, the Volt. Besides this Act allowing the feds to spend $25 million on new electric cars for their official fleet, there's an astounding electric car welfare program. Section 2116 explains that 400,000 such vehicles will be virtually given away at low cost -- or perhaps no cost -- to people living in "selected communities diverse in population" and "demographics."
Additionally, pages 264-265 require that any new construction or remodel of an existing structure must include the installation of proper hookups for charging an electric vehicle. So even if you have no intention of owning such a car, adding that extra bedroom will require you to spend additional money to install battery-charging infrastructure in your garage.
...And there's bait to entice truck owners to switch from traditional petroleum to natural gas. Section 2002 describes federal rebates, ranging from $8,000 for large pickups to $64,000 for heavy-duty Class 6 trucks weighing 26,000 pounds, available for those who install the equipment to make the fuel swap. And government grants (not loans) of up to $50,000 are available for gas stations to install natural gas refueling pumps... (
call this last one the Pickens Act for the gasman who has demanded it)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/...enate_ene.html
But wait, just as Pickens thought he was home free, the same forces that giveth can taketh away -
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Shale Gas has the potential to bring manifold benefits to Americans: cheap and plentiful, relatively green and clean burning, located in vast swaths underneath our feet (and not offshore or in foreign lands filled with people happy to take our money but who also hate us and who can who can turn the spigot off at will).
All good reasons in Majority Leader Harry Reid's mind to sabotage our tapping of this vast reserve of energy:
The fight over the Senate offshore drilling "spill bill" shifted Wednesday from the Gulf of Mexico to the mountains of western Pennsylvania, as Republicans slammed the last-minute inclusion of language to regulate a controversial technique to extract onshore natural gas.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) added the language last night requiring natural gas drillers to disclose the chemicals they pump into the ground as part of the hydraulic fracturing, or hydro-fracking, process.
...Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said the new requirements could effectively end onshore natural gas production.
Why does Reid have to pull these un-democratic stunts? Because he can? Because powerful Democratic donors (including the Democratic party Sugar Daddy George Soros) wants to kill off carbon and spend tens of billions of dollars on green schemes that reward their "clean" energy ventures . These ventures only "work" (i.e., become profitable for their investors) when carbon energy becomes very expensive (hence cap and tax); or when billions in taxpayer dollar subsidies are funneled to them; or when government-ordered mandates require utilities, companies and consumers to buy "renewable" energy...
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/...st_one_to.html
The kicker is that whatever may be passed on energy in the Senate will then be combined in reconciliation during the post-election lame duck period without any Republicans in the room.
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If the Senate bites on this legislation, an airsickness bag will be required. The bill will go to committee, be conjoined with the massive House plan, and be presented to a lame duck Congress who will ram the bad medicine down our throats.
As bad as the Senate bill is, it cannot compare to the previously squeaked through House energy bill which was variously described at the time of passage (passed before Health Care Reform) as the "worst," "most corrupt," "Ugliest bill ever passed," "worst House arm-twisting of all time," etc. The combination of two ghastly bills can only result in a more ghastly abomination.
The Senate bill may be voted on this week.
