I wonder how any so-called "environmentalist" or self-anointed green energy supporter could ever justify this :br /br /div style="text-align: center;"a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/210477"The $2 Billion Question /a/divdiv id="deck" class="deck" p/p/divblockquotediv id="deck" class="deck"pWhy are environmentalists seeing red over an ostensibly green program like "cash for clunkers"?br //p /divpAt first blush, the success of the government's "a class="external-link" href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/209829"cash for clunkers/a" program appears like a win for both the auto industry and the environment, a shining example of the way the Obama administration wants to rev up the economy by encouraging consumers and businesses to go green. So why is expanding such an ostensibly green program making environmentalists and members of Congress see red?/p p /p pCash for clunkers is clearly popular, but it isn't exactly environmentally friendly, say critics. span style="font-weight: bold;"After the initial /spana style="font-weight: bold;" class="external-link" href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/209671"$1 billion was used up in less than a week/aspan style="font-weight: bold;", Congress is now proposing to /spana style="font-weight: bold;" class="external-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/business/05clunker.html?hp" target="_blank"extend the program/aspan style="font-weight: bold;" with an additional $2 billion.br //span/pp style="font-style: italic;"span style="font-size:130%;"span style="font-weight: bold;"That money would come out of the $6 billion that the Department of Energy received from the federal stimulus plan and has used to fund start-ups that build lightweight wind turbines, design new ways to store energy on electric grids, and create cheap solar panels for rooftops./span/span/p pIf the Senate approves the extension, the DOE would have not have the money to seed any new initiatives; $4 billion has already been allocated to specific programs.br //pp"If you're looking at it from the perspective of growing a green economy, spending money on innovative green technology is a better use," says Carol Lee Brown, senior manager for the Transportation Program at Ceres, a Boston-based environmental group./p pBrown and other environmental advocates say the program is more focused on helping the auto industry than putting fuel-efficient cars on the road. Under the clunkers program, consumers receive rebates of between $3,500 and $4,500 when they turn in cars that are less than 25 years old and that get 18 miles per gallon or less, and then buy a new car.br //ppspan style="font-weight: bold;"But consumers don't necessarily have to buy a particularly fuel-efficient car with the rebate. They could trade in a /spana style="font-weight: bold;" class="external-link" href="http://www.cars.gov/faq#category-07" target="_blank"gas-guzzling sport utility vehicle for, say, a new truck/aspan style="font-weight: bold;" that gets only slightly better gas mileage./span/ppspan style="font-weight: bold;" /span"You're putting money out there and allowing people to make bad decisions," says Ann Mesnikoff, the director of the Green Transportation Program for the Sierra Club. The way the plan is currently written, we "don't know if we're seeing a big trend in people buying more fuel-efficient vehicles" says Mesnikoff./p !--AD BEGIN--div class="ad" div class="mediumRectangle"script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" placeAd2(commercialNode,'bigbox',false,'') /scriptscript language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/nwswk.techbiz/biz/cashclunkers;dir=techbiz;dir=biz;dir=cashclunkers;ad=bb;del=js;ajax=n;heavy=n;pageId=nwswk-id-210477;poe=yes;undefinedfromrss=n;rss=n;front=n;pos=bigbox;sz=300x250;tile=3;ord=853597215267665000?"/script/div/div!--AD END-- pSo does anyone other than environmental groups have a problem with current funding strategy? Despite supporting the expansion of cash for clunkers...Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu have a class="external-link" href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?amp;entry_id=44857" target="_blank"said they wish the funding didn’t come from the renewable energy/a stimulus projects./p pspan style="font-weight: bold;"But so far, that concern hasn't translated into much action./span span style="font-weight: bold;"The Senate seems poised to pass the bill more or less as it is now, span style="font-style: italic;"with no additional strengthening of the MPG requirements./span/span "If I could write it, I would prefer it to say that people had to buy high fuel-economy vehicles," Mesnikoff says.br //ppUntil that happens, the economic and environmental benefits of the program may not truly be in sync./p/blockquotep/pbr /Oh, that's right...for some, their shallow environmentalist pretenses end at the edge of their partisan fealty to any scheme peddled by the Democrat/Obama ruling junta, no matter how perverse a misallocation of "green" project funding.br /br /Back to the ole Treasury printing press it is, I guess....'cause that's about as close to "green" as this program will ever be.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7893272060787897238-7869571299247811597?l=delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com'//div
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