That government is best that governs least.
Thomas Jefferson
The Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977, which President Carter signed on August 4, 1977, created the Department of Energy, which assumed the responsibilities of the Federal Energy Administration, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Power Commission, and programs of various other agencies including the Nuclear Commission The department employs 16,000 and has an additional 93,094 people under contract. The budget for 2010 submitted by Obama was $26.4 billion and an additional amount of $38.3 billion was allocated to the Department from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for the years 2009-2010.
“half of that money is spent dealing with the Cold War‟s environmental legacy”
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material. Its responsibilities include the nation's nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy conservation, energy-related research, radioactive waste disposal, and domestic energy production. DOE also sponsors more basic and applied scientific research than any other US federal agency; most of this is funded through its system of United States Department of Energy National Laboratories. The agency is administered by the United States Secretary of Energy, The original purpose for the Department of Energy was to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It has failed miserably for we are now more dependent than when it was organized. In fact, it seems that it really is not seeking that goal at all. The 2009 Agency Financial Report says it is “Working to Save the Planet” which is a much different objective than reducing our oil dependence. We only occupy about 5% of the planet so how are we going to save it? Probably by spending money.
The Department received a “gift” from the 2008 stimulus program. That $38.3 billion “gift” was really used to dispense money to others – Ford received $5.9 billion to reengineer plants in five states and Nissan received $1.6 billion for a factory in Tennessee. The stated mission of the stimulus funds was to help deal with “economic uncertainty, U. S. dependence on oil and the threat of a changing climate.” In other words they were to try to figure out what to do with the money. We know they are doing nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. How are they going to help us deal with “economic uncertainty”? And, exactly what is the threat of a “changing climate”?
The Doe also runs a $300 million appliance rebate program and has a $5 billion “Weatherization Assistance Program for weatherizing homes and creating green jobs The Environmental Protection Agency is the main problem in our not having nuclear power plants, oil refineries and drilling for oil but the Department of Energy has the responsibility of developing plans and objectives for energy production in our country. Since we have stopped building nuclear power plants and oil refineries and curtailed oil drilling this department is partially responsible. When the gulf oil spill occurred the Interior Department was involved in stopping the drilling so it is also involved.
And when you consider the lack of action in constructing power plants and oil drilling, it seems logical than the Department of Energy is not doing anything that helps us. Therefore, let us transfer the nuclear power functions to the Interior Department and close the Department of Energy and save a bunch of money. Since their total budget is $26.4 billion it would seem likely that we could save half of that and remove an obstacle to energy production.
The DOE was formed to provide direction to our energy needs with the goal of reducing our dependency on foreign countries. (That is indicative of what bureaucrats accomplish). We have been blessed with material resources but our main problem in developing and using them has been our government.
The Federal Bureau of Land Management has just released its inventory of oil and natural gas deposits on federal land. That report indicates we have onshore holdings of an astounding 187trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 21 billion barrels of oil. In addition, another federal study calculates that an additional 83 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 19.1 billion barrels of oil lie beneath federally controlled territorial waters. That does not count the oil that is in shale for we do not have an accurate means to determine that. In other words we have enough oil and gas to handle our own needs for many, many years. Since exploration is not taking place on federal land the amounts available may be much higher.
The Federal Energy Information Administration expects world oil demand to grow significantly over the next 30 years, from 80 million barrels per day in 2003 to 98 million barrels per day in 2015 and then to 118 million barrels per day by 2030. With that information the logical action would be to do those things that would develop our own oil and reduce our dependence on foreign countries.
Especially should that be considered a problem when we evaluate the countries that have that oil. Would Iran be a threat today if the price of oil was cut in half? Or Russia or Venezuela? ( Hugo Chavez has just issued another threat that he will stop supplying oil to us). When we see China working with Cuba to develop oil wells just 50 miles off our coast shouldn‟t that lead us to question our own policies? China has secured oil supply deals totaling $41 billion with Russia, Brazil and Venezuela and are preparing for their future oil supply for the next ten years. We may be left out of the future oil supply and are not taking steps to develop our own supply. We really, really need the Congress to be responsible for this and not for some incompetent agency that seems to have forgotten its purpose. Our government has a long history of stopping energy development.
A bill was passed by the Republican Congress in 1995 to permit drilling for oil and gas but President Clinton vetoed it. One of President Clinton‟s executive orders has stopped mining for coal in Utah and there are 660 million acres of government owned land in the west and on military installations which are off limits to oil and gas leasing. Less than 29% of government owned land is available for exploration and development.
In 1981 there were 325 oil refineries in the US with a capacity of 18.6 million barrels a day. Today there are 148 refineries with a capacity of about 17 million barrels though demand has increased by over 20%.
Refineries have had to spend some $37 billion to meet the demands of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Oil Pollution Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the National Environmentally Policy Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. That has led to the reduction in the number of refineries and our present condition. Congress could help considerably by waiving all of these environmental rules and regulations as they pertain to oil refineries, oil drilling or nuclear power plants. They could but it is unlikely that they will do so. It would seem that we could use the DOE to fix some of that but they have not tried.
Meeting the requirements of the above environmental regulations is bad enough but in addition we have the lawsuits instituted by the environmental groups. There are good reasons why there have been no new refineries built and once again it is the government. One of the major hurdles to overcome is the lawsuits instituted by environmental groups that are designed to stop production of new plants. Those who would build are faced with long delays and large legal fees and this could be solved by having Congress pass laws preventing law suits that are instituted to stop construction or exempting the oil companies from complying with the environmental rules and regulations. With the present regulations oil companies are not going to build any new refineries. While they can predict their costs for construction they can not estimate the legal costs they will incur from law suits from environmental groups trying to stop construction. They also can not predict the actions that the EPA may take to stop them nor do they know what the Congress might do next. Those legal costs have and could mount to millions of dollars and the oil companies are not going to build in the face of that possible cost. IF we really want new refineries the Congress will have to exempt the oil companies from those rules, regulations and laws or in some manner pass laws preventing law suits designed to stop them from constructions.
One of the most ridiculous requirements is the one for getting approval to build before construction begins. These Environmental Impact Studies take lots of time and costs lots of money to produce and then some bureaucrat has to review and approve them. When they are complete and finally receive bureaucrat approval and permits issued nothing has been accomplished. When the project is completed there are still tests to be performed to insure compliance with all laws but the project has been delayed for years in some cases. The reason for the Impact study was not to insure compliance – it was solely to add to the cost and delay the project.
Presidential executive orders issued by the President George Bush (41) exist to stop offshore drilling on our Outer Continental Shelf until 2012. (President Bush -43- has finally rescinded that) A recent House bill would allow us to drill for natural gas off the US coast but that hasn‟t received final approval. We can not get a bill through the Senate that permits drilling for oil in Alaska.
In 2008 the Democratic Congress passed a bill permitting drilling for oil and claimed they had solved the problem. However, that bill permitted drilling 100 miles off the coast or between 50 and 100 miles if adjacent states permitted. Thus, drilling within 50 miles of the coast was prohibited and that is where the oil companies have explored. A Bush plan for drilling was to begin in 2010 but Ken Salazar stopped that after taking office in 2009 and has not yet issued permits to allow for leasing.
Onshore, Salazar canceled leases on 77 parcels of federal land in Utah and also stopped eight parcels that were to have been leased in Wyoming. That effectively stops any drilling for another several years.
The reason we have had gas prices up to $4.00 per gallon is our government. The reason we are dependent upon foreign countries for oil is because of our government. It seems that a Department of Energy would have helped us overcome this dependency but in fact they and the Congress are the cause of the problem.
Just 3% of onshore federal oil and 13% of onshore federal gas are accessible under standard leasing terms. Restrictions such as a ban on surface occupancy tie up 46% of the onshore federal oil and 60% of the onshore federal gas. The rest – 51% of the oil and 27% of the gas – are completely off-limits to development. Off limits because of government laws or regulations.
We should open up the barren wasteland of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and our own offshore waters to oil and natural gas drilling. This might best be done by transferring ownership of property held by the federal government to the states and permitting them to determine the use of the land. For example, it is very unlikely that Alaska would be concerned about applying the restrictions in the Clean Air Act to ANWAR which is located in the frozen north part of Alaska.
It is hard to understand why our government is unwilling to drill for oil. Denmark, Great Britain, and Norway are supposedly very friendly to the environment and yet they have oil wells in the North Sea off of their coasts. Australia has had oil wells in their coastal waters for over thirty years. Brazil has a very large oil field in the ocean and has just announced the discovery of another large oil field in the Atlantic Ocean. Cuba and China have formed a joint venture to drill for oil just 50 miles off the coast of Florida.
Everyone else has off shore mining and our decisions to not drill do not have much effect on the mining and use of oil. It only affects us and keeps us dependent on others for our oil.
Our new Interior czar Ken Salazar has just announced (January 2010) that he will issue new rules that will require oil and natural gas companies to clear more regulatory hurdles before they will be allowed to drill on federal lands. That will probably prevent any fast-track action on obtaining drilling permits.
The New Source Review program was created to govern the permitting process for new or rebuilt plants, including refineries. According to the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association the NSR
program “has become a maze of confusing and often contradictory guidance that, on average, requires 18 months to two years to get an NSR permit.” The NSR bureaucracy has contributed substantially to the difficulties faced by the industry when trying to improve existing refineries or when trying to build new refineries. Congress could help by reducing the licensing and permits required by various levels of government that stop production. As former President Ronald Reagan said, “The government is not the solution, it is the problem.”
There have been no new nuclear power plants built in the last 30 years nor have any refineries been constructed. The reason for the lack of constructions is that the government dictated that the nuclear plant to be constructed had to be reviewed and approved before construction could start and then a separate approval was required to operate the plant.
In 1970 the 660 MW Millstone 1 nuclear power station was licensed and began operating in January, 1971. The cost was about $65 million. The Shoreham reactor was a near twin sister to it and was to be built on Long Island. Between the county, the city, the state and the federal government honoring all of the complaints of the environmentalists the cost of the Shoreham rose to over $6 billion plus $186
million for decommissioning it. It never did operate.
Naturally, no company would spend several billions of dollars to construct a plant and then face the problem of obtaining approval from a government agency to permit them to operate the plant. Much of the above problems are due to our government‟s obedience to environmental groups and abolishing the EPA will also benefit this area.
The Department of Energy has contributed to the problems by their issuance of rules and regulations concerning the construction of nuclear plants and refineries. It is obvious that the rules that existed 30
years ago were excellent for the record for operation of the nuclear power plants is excellent. Obama has indicated that he supports the construction of nuclear power plants and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has adopted a streamlining process but key rules have not been issued enabling construction. President Obama has just issued an order that will stop the disposal of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and so there is no place to dispose of the waste. The logical conclusion is that we are not proceeding with the development of nuclear power. We are falling behind the rest of the world in nuclear power. France now obtains 80% of their power from nuclear and the rest of Europe is far ahead of us in the use of nuclear power. We have 103 nuclear power plants producing 20% of our power.
Nuclear power is the cleanest, the cheapest, the most efficient and the most environmental friendly form of power and we are woefully behind the rest of the world in our use of it.
The interference with the construction of nuclear power plants has come from the environmentalists and exposes their real purposes. They wish to impede all progress and return us to the “horse and buggy days‟ for if they really were for clean, safe energy they would be promoting the use of nuclear energy.
The best example of this is their objection to the construction of electric transmission lines.
The environmentalists claim that they are in favor of wind generation and solar power but they oppose the construction of the transmission lines necessary to bring the power generated to where it can be used.
They are lobbying in California to stop a 150 mile link between San Diego and solar panels. Hundreds turned out to protest a connection between the solar and geothermal fields of the Imperial Valley and Orange County. Duke Energy and American Electric Power have planned that the construction of 240
miles of transmission lines in Indiana which will require 6 years to complete because of the time necessary to obtain government permits and finish the law suits that environmentalists will bring against that. They really should not be assigned all of the blame for even though they are woefully wrong there is no reason for our Congress and government to support them. You would think our elected representatives would be smarter than this. Or maybe they are smarter but just like the campaign contributions and wish to get elected.
Everyone talks about alternative fuels and means of producing energy and that is fine. We can certainly do that but we now know that solar energy and power from the wind is neither efficient nor practical and will only make a small contribution to our energy problem. According to the Energy Information Administration renewable resources produced 2.3% of the U.S. electrical supply in 2005. Biomass was responsible for 1.5%, wind for 0.44% and solar power for only 0.1%. In contrast, coal fired generation produced 49.7% of the U.S. electrical supplies in 2005, followed by nuclear power at 19.3%, natural gas at 19.1%, hydro power at 6.5% and oil-fired generation at 3%. We have coal, oil, natural gas and the ability to develop nuclear power and refine oil and are not doing it because of the government. For example, it takes around seven years to receive all of the approvals required to start a new mine. In Australia that same process takes about two years. Much of the reason for that length of time is due to environmental groups and law suits from them always citing laws passed by Congress. We either need to change the laws or grant exemptions from them. We have a DOE that should be helping us to overcome all of these impediments but they are much of the problem.
However, in encouraging the development of alternative energy we should stop subsidizing that development. It might be proper to encourage research but it is ridiculous to give tax credits and mandates for ethanol, wind or solar energy as well as loan guarantees and other politically favored energy projects. In Brazil ethanol is produced from Brazilian sugar cane for $.95 per gallon. We produce ethanol from corn for $1.44 per gallon. The logical conclusion is that we should be telling our farmers to grow more sugar cane. But we do not. Instead we subsidize and protect our ethanol producers and encourage our farmers to grow more corn.
That has caused the price of corn to increase and so now all of our meat products cost more. Each gallon of ethanol blended with gasoline receives a 51 cent tax credit and still remains more expensive than gasoline. To protect that industry we place a tariff of 54 cents per gallon on foreign imported ethanol as well as a 2.5% duty. That means that we do not import foreign made ethanol. If we really wanted to reduce the price of the ethanol in our country we could eliminate the 54 cent gallon tariff and that would really help our citizens. In spite of all the subsidies there were 26 ethanol producers that declared bankruptcy in 2009.
So, we promote a more expensive substitute for oil and discourage other countries from trying to sell us a less expensive product. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas recently petitioned the EPA (why does a governor of a state have to ask an agency of the government for permission to do anything?) to reduce the amount of ethanol to be produced in his state because of the effect in his state of the price of corn but the EPA turned down his request. The cost of corn was hurting the beef and chicken farmers. We are able to produce a synthetic gasoline (which is now being used by our air force) for about $60 per gallon but no company is willing to spend the money to develop that because they afraid of our government. That synthetic gasoline is produced from coal and also produces CO2 and the environmentalists would holler, scream and yell and the Congress might pass a law restricting emissions. So, no company will build and produce that synthetic fuel even though it would help tremendously and we have plenty of coal.
Sometimes you wonder if those bureaucrats and Congressman are on our side. Laws have been passed in requiring blending ethanol with gasoline to enable it to sell.-
It is enlightening to view the Department of Energy web site. Nuclear power is mentioned once as is fossil fuels. Most of the site is devoted to clean energy and green energy. The 80 billion dollars that President Obama has identified that he would like to spend on energy is detailed. However, we know that the clean – green energy will not produce the energy that we need to run our country in the future and so this bunch is not going to solve our problem. The budget is not detailed on their web site so the amount that would be saved can not be calculated but there will be no harm done to our country by abolishing this department and allowing the states to solve our energy problems. Obviously, the federal government is not going to do it.
It is proper to complain about the environmental groups that are leading the fight to stop this development but our politicians are not forced to follow these nuts. We need to elect a Congress that will take responsibility for these actions or turn this responsibility over to the states.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration should be abolished. It was supposedly required to keep the big, bad businesses from having facilities and equipment that caused accidents. If that was the case and if the OSHA was doing their job then accidents should have decreased over the years. If so, why hasn‟t OSHA publicized their good results?
The reason is that the whole premise for their existence is a farce. Businesses were already responsible for accidents to their employees and thus do everything they can to prevent them. Accidents cost money to any company - costs to fix whatever went wrong, costs to restore the health of employees, costs to replace the injured employee and the loss of production from the accident. Each state jumped on this bandwagon and has a state OSHA and my personal experience with them is that they are a joke. Their inspectors are never as well qualified as the people running the operation and their real function seems to be to find enough minor infractions to justify assessing enough in fines to pay for the state OSHA operation. This is an operation that should be disbanded and left with the local states. Even though they are not that competent we would at least have a chance of fixing that at the local level. It would help to remove the federal government and the federal costs from this.
OSHA has just announced that they have eliminated redundant reporting requirements on employers that will eliminate over 1.9 million hours , saving tens of millions of dollars to businesses. We don‟t know how many hours that still leaves but it would obviously be better if OSHA were completely eliminated and more hours saved. That also leads us to wonder how many more hours could be saved by eliminating many, many more agencies.
We have departments in our government that do not perform useful acts but function by receiving and transferring money. The framers of our Constitution probably anticipated something like this based on their statements in the Federalist Papers. They probably would not have believed that we would actually have agencies that would only transfer money but they did know that we might have bureaucrats who would like the expansion of our federal government.
The Department of Education has a history of spending lots of money without accomplishing anyt hing.
One would assume that it exists in order to lead our educational establishment in educating our children.
Based on the international test scores it is a complete, total failure. Recent test results of the International Mathematics and Science Study ranked the United States 19th out of 21 when comparing high school seniors in mathematics. We ranked last and second to last in both calculus and overall math skills respectively and last in physics. Seventy eight percent of our colleges offer remedial courses in reading, writing and mathematics because our high school graduates are unprepared for college.
It seems logical that the Department of Education would be funding studies and recommending solutions to our educational problems. We spend more money per student than any country in the world but we do not educate our youth. I served seven years on a local school board and we never received anything from the Dept. of Education to assist our educators in fulfilling their duties. We received information on how to fill out forms in order to receive money from them but that seemed to be their only function. They did not advise us on whether or not to use phonics nor on class sizes, nor on teaching methods, or the use of video and other advanced techniques.
Probably their worst fault was something they did not do. They did not develop vocational training to teach those students who did not attend college and that covers the majority of our students. The student drop-out figures are terrible and much of the reason is that our schools are designed to teach those who plan to go to college. We make no attempt to teach vocational classes which would very likely help those who do no want to go to college but who would like to find employment. Vocational education would very likely help many of our drop-outs to remain in school and receive a useful education. This is not a new concept for vocational education is a part of the education throughout Europe.
It was not the Department of Education that instituted the use of tests to determine if high school students should graduate. Those tests were started by individual states. We now know that Head Start functions as a baby sitting operation for the tests show that Head Start has no educational value but the Department of Education never told us that. It is difficult to determine if the department serves a useful function.
Each state has a department of Education and by this time our federal department should have communicated everything they know that should have been communicated to the states and so it is logical to abolish it. In 1996 the Republican platform recommended that the Department be abolished by declaring,” Our formula is as simple as it is sweeping. The federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the work place. That is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning.” However, as with most politicians that was only verbiage. The Republicans were elected but did nothing to carry out their recommendation. The budget for the department for 2007 is $57.7 billion and that would be a nice savings so let‟s do it.
The Department of Agriculture is relatively unknown except to farmers who receive subsidies. The Department did receive some publicity in 2006 when it was revealed that the employees of the Department diverted at least $5.8 million to personal purchases through their government issued credit cards. The records do not indicate that any of the bureaucrats were fired for their thefts.
Agricultural subsidies have now risen in 2005 to over $20 billion even though 60% of the farmers get nothing. 75% of that amount went to farmers involved with corn and soybeans. 70 % of the subsidies go to the top 10% of the producers. From 1995 to 2005, billionaire Ted Turner raked in $590,823. TV host Sam Donaldson received $88,308 and Jay Rockefeller pulled in $553,728 for two farms in New York.
Based on the zip codes of where subsidy checks are mailed we can tell where the farmers are located.
These farmers live in some surprisingly urban areas. 136 subsidized farmers live in Beverly Hills, CA.
Washington, DC is the home of 62 farmers and 80 subsidized farmers live on the lower East side of Manhattan, NY. That leads to the conclusion that the removal of subsidies would not really hurt the small farmer who lives in a rural area. So, let‟s stop taking money from the working people and giving it to the wealthy, city farmers.
The Department does not do research on seeds. The seed manufacturers do that. The pesticide makers develop new pesticides and the fertilizer manufacturers invent and provide fertilizers. Equipment manufacturers make and sell the big farm machinery. That leaves the Department of Agriculture with the main function of administering and distributing subsidies and sending money to the states to distribute to those on welfare. If we eliminated subsidies we should be able to abolish the Department of Agriculture. The 2007 budget for the Department is around $89 billion and most of that is because of the billions of dollars it transfers to others. Once again, the states with agriculture have state departments for that. So, let‟s abolish farm subsidies and the federal Department of Agriculture and save a bunch of money.
The National Labor Relations Board should be abolished. It does not fit in with our form of government for it combines the legislative and the judicial functions. It writes the rules and regulations that control labor relations and then determines if the laws it has written are being followed. To make matters worse the people appointed to serve are not impartial. They favor business or labor. Democrat presidents appoint those who are pro-labor and Republican presidents usually appoint those who favor business.
The most recent appointment of President Obama was so partisan that even his Democrat Senate would not approve the appointment. Craig Becker had previously been a labor lawyer. Obama waited until Congress was in recess and appointed him anyway. With that majority we can expect decisions to favor labor. A good example has been the recent decision by the NLRB to try to force Boeing to stop the development of a facility in South Carolina to assemble their products. NLRB claims th