Free Republic

The mystery of the trainload of biodiesel that crossed back and forth across the Sarnia-Port Huron border without ever unloading its cargo, as reported by CBC News, has been solved.

there was no grand celebration this month as Silicon Valley marked 25 years of light rail... The near-empty trolleys that often shuttle by at barely faster than jogging speeds serve as a constant reminder that the car is still king in Silicon Valley -- and that the Valley Transportation Authority's trains are among the least successful in the nation by any metric.

The radio show “Marketplace” wanted to chat this morning about the news that the Obama administration might extend its mortgage-refinancing programs to include borrowers whose mortgages aren’t backed by the government. It’s one thing for the Administration to pressure loan modifications (with Congress’ blessing) for the FHA insured mortgages. It is even a bigger stretch for the Administration to pressure Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHFA to perform loan modifications (specifically principal writedowns since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are private corporations … in conservatorship. But it quite another thing for the Administration to pressure non-government entities to make principal...

SolarCity US DOE loan approval fails According to news reports, US-based solar installation firm, SolarCity will not be able to complete and comply with documentation deadlines of September 30th to be considered for a US Department of Energy loan, previously announced. Earlier this month, the DOE had made a conditional commitment for a partial loan guarantee to SolarCity for PV system installations on residential and other buildings at US military bases. The US$344 million loan would go towards 371MW of new solar power generation capacity. The project, code named SolarStrong, will be led by SolarCity, with USRG Renewable Finance acting...

Solar panel installer SolarCity said on Friday it was the second company in as many days that will not get finalization of U.S. government loan aid by a September 30 deadline. The Department of Energy informed SolarCity of its inability to close the loan 48 hours ago, blaming increased paperwork resulting from a Congressional investigation into the Department of Energy's $535 million loan guarantee awarded to bankrupt solar company Solyndra, SolarCity said in a letter to the Republican lawmakers heading the probe.The DOE loan guarantee program, which is under fire for missing signs its first recipient of loan aid, Solyndra,...

Only 15 states have told HHS that they will develop their own online insurance exchanges. This means the government has to design 35 different sites, with 35 different criteria for coverage -- all by next year. From CNBC: Only 15 states have told the federal government they plan to operate health insurance exchanges under President Barack Obama's reform law, leaving Washington with the daunting task of creating online marketplaces for two-thirds of the country. On the eve of a federal deadline for states to say whether they will run their own exchanges, a top health care policy official told lawmakers...

Amtrak announced plans Thursday to replace its fleet of high-speed trains on the East Coast. The railroad said that early next year, it would begin the process of replacing its 20 existing Acela Express train sets, which run on the Northeast Corridor rail line between Boston and Washington, DC. … Amtrak said Thursday that it had scrapped a previous plan to add 40 new passenger cars to the existing fleet, deeming it too expensive and “insufficient to handle new ridership growth projections.” …

A United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has so far spent $12.8 billion, has been charged by critics with ineptitude and unwillingness to protect civilians from murder, rape and other atrocities. Skepticism about the 19,000-strong U.N. force, known since 2010 as MONUSCO, has swelled to the point that some critics are questioning the wisdom of using the U.N. to prop up Congo, which is engaged in a bloody struggle with a rebel group known as the March 23 Movement (M23). Meantime, the U.N. continues to spend roughly $1.4 billion a year on MONUSCO, with the...

Virginia, Massachusetts and Rhode Island will be the first three states to sell leases for the right to develop offshore wind farms, U.S. government officials said Friday. The leases will be auctioned online, probably in the first half of 2013, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior, the federal agency overseeing the sales. The auctions will determine which energy company, utility or entrepreneur gets to build huge wind turbines and reap clean electricity from them in designated areas in the Atlantic Ocean. Costs are expected to be in the billions.No offshore wind farms exist today in the United States,...

Just how many new riders would jump on a train to one of Silicon Valley's most desired destinations? About 200, it turns out -- and it would cost taxpayers up to $175 million to build the rail line to Los Gatos. The new projections come from the Valley Transportation Authority's updated forecast for a long-envisioned light-rail extension. Still years from reality, the Los Gatos line would be one of the least-used light-rail extensions planned in the nation -- and would reduce South Bay vehicle traffic by a mere 0.01 percent.

...Here are some other PTC tidbits that those smooth-talking AWEA hucksters won’t be mentioning… A one year extension of the PTC will cost taxpayers over $12 Billion — how is that a good idea? All that $12+ Billion will increase our deficit — how is that a good idea? Almost all of that $12+ Billion will be borrowed from China — how is that a good idea? A large part of that $12+ Billion will go to foreign conglomerates — how is that a good idea?

The California High-Speed Rail Authority said Thursday that it was adding 12 months to the construction schedule for 130 miles of track in the Central Valley, easing what some outside experts have contended was an overly aggressive and risky timeline. Construction industry experts have said that the job of building the $6 billion of track through the Central Valley would require spending $3.5 million per day, one of the fastest rates of transportation project spending in history.

Six newly refurbished, bi-level commuter rail cars made their first test run from Pontiac to Jackson and back Tuesday night, passing through Ann Arbor. Officials involved in the Ann Arbor-to-Detroit commuter rail initiative are hoping to hear back sometime next week whether the cars passed the test, which is required to be cleared for service. And if that happens, the public could be invited to ride demonstration trains starting next year. "Things seemed to go well," said Carmine Palombo, director of transportation programs for the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. Tuesday's train, led by an Amtrak locomotive, made stops in...

It’s been two weeks since Hurricane Sandy killed 113 people, wiped out portions of towns, and knocked out power to millions. It has also been two weeks since Barack Obama pledged, “No bureaucracy. No red tape.” However, according to multiple public and private sources, unions and union-related red tape are causing workers from out of state to be turned back, as well as workers contracted by FEMA, as well as tons of supplies, already in New York and New Jersey to sit idle—at a cost of millions to taxpayers. It has already been well publicized though the Daily Caller how...

If you were looking for that last-minute pre-poll pitch to that favorite undecided voter in your life, you are done shopping. If any fence sitters needed convincing that the liberal agenda is costly, and hypocritical, let them feast their eyes on the following. David Williams of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance has uncovered a history of abuse of your tax dollars to fund “environmentally responsible” projects across the globe that have done little but fatten wallets and in at lest one case has resulted in the destruction of a village. The TPA is calling it “The Environmental Shakedown of American Taxpayers”...

A new U.N. fund meant to manage billions of dollars to help developing nations combat climate change will be based in South Korea, leaders of the fund agreed on Saturday. The Green Climate Fund is to be sited in Songdo, Incheon City, South Korea, the board of the fund said. Germany, Mexico, Namibia, Poland and Switzerland had also sought to be the headquarters. Developed nations agreed in 2009 to raise climate aid, now about $10 billion a year, to an annual $100 billion from 2020 to help developing countries curb greenhouse gas emissions and cope with floods, droughts, heatwaves and...

It is no secret that President Obama’s and green-energy supporters’ (from both parties) foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case. The truth is that the problem is widespread. The government’s picking winners and losers in the energy market has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and the rate of failure, cronyism, and corruption at the companies receiving the subsidies is substantial. The fact that...

A solar company that got a multi-million-dollar grant from the Department of Energy earlier this year announced Wednesday that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, making it the second taxpayer-backed green energy company to file for bankruptcy this week. Satcon Technology Corp. announced the decision in a Wednesday news release. “This has been a difficult time for Satcon,” president and CEO Steve Rhoades said. “After careful consideration of available alternatives, the Company’s Board of Directors determined that the Chapter 11 filings were a necessary and prudent step, allowing the Company to continue to operate while giving us the...

The U.S. military is ending a massive nation-building experiment in Afghanistan, shutting down teams that have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into roads, schools and administrative buildings in the country’s hinterlands, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. As part of an effort to improve the reach and reputation of Afghanistan’s central government, the U.S. and its allies set up over two dozen Provincial Reconstruction Teams around the country to dispense development aid and advise local officials. At least five of these have closed in recent months, and most of the remainder will shut down over the next year, the...

WASHINGTON—A multibillion-dollar information-sharing program created in the aftermath of 9/11 has improperly collected information about innocent Americans and produced little valuable intelligence on terrorism, a Senate report concludes. It portrays an effort that ballooned far beyond anyone's ability to control. What began as an attempt to put local, state and federal officials in the same room analyzing the same intelligence has instead cost huge amounts of money for data-mining software, flat screen televisions and, in Arizona, two fully equipped Chevrolet Tahoes that are used for commuting, investigators found. The lengthy, bipartisan report is a scathing evaluation of what the Department...