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Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., on Tuesday sent a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm demanding answers and a classified briefing regarding the Energy Department's assessment that the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from an accidental lab leak in China. "I write to request that the Department of Energy provides expedited answers to questions regarding the department's release of an intelligence report concluding a lab leak was the most likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic," Barrasso wrote in a letter obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital. The Energy Department, which had been undecided on the origin of the pandemic, has now joined...

Left-Wing Media Monitor Aimed to Punish COVID Lab Leak Theory PublishersA State Department-supported "disinformation" tracking group pressured advertisers to punish websites promoting the COVID-19 "lab leak" theory, which a federal agency now says is the most likely origin of the virus, the Washington Examiner reported.The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which was focused on creating blacklists of conservative news outlets for advertising companies, applied pressure to those companies to cut ties with websites boosting the once alleged "conspiracy" that COVID-19 emerged from a lab in Wuhan, China.The Energy Department recently concluded that, based on intelligence, the lab leak was the probable...

The Department of Energy (DOE) invested $1.1 billion in carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, many of which were unsuccessful or canceled, over the last decade, according to a federal watchdog report.The DOE’s $684 million investment in coal CCS projects resulted in just one operational facility and seven canceled projects, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published in late December. One of three facilities that received a share of the department’s $438 million investment in industrial CCS projects was also nixed.The department ultimately failed to properly evaluate the projects — which use advanced technology to reduce emissions from...

New Mexico Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson will go before the U.S. Senate in coming weeks as Barack Obama’s nominee for secretary of Commerce. Will Democrats in that chamber remember his performance in 1999 and 2000 as Energy secretary, when secrets disappeared from nuclear laboratories, and one Democratic senator promised to oppose Richardson for any future nomination? In the January of 1999, the U.S. House Select Committee on Intelligence published ... the “Cox Report” -- which found that China had stolen and still was stealing nuclear weapons secrets from the U.S. The committee reported that “the primary focus of this long-term,...

As he tries to convince the Senate to put him in charge of the Energy Department, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry will tell lawmakers Thursday that he was wrong to recommend eliminating that same department. During his 2012 presidential campaign, Mr. Perry, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for energy secretary, advocated getting rid of the Energy Department, along with several other federal agencies. At one GOP primary debate he was unable to remember all of the departments he sought to scrap, leading to his infamous “Oops” moment. More than four years later, Mr. Perry now is a full-throated supporter of the...

Labor Secretary Tom Perez called presidential transition questions sent to government agencies like the Energy department, seeking to identify employees who worked on climate change, against the law. “Those questions have no place in a transition,” Perez said. “That is illegal.” Last week, President-Elect Trump’s transition team sent the State Department a memo requesting information on its “gender-related staffing, programming, and funding.” However, the document did not request specific names of employees working on those programs. “Will dedicated career people be targeted because they were doing the right work?” Perez said. He said he isn’t aware of any similar “blanket...

The Energy Department said Tuesday it won't provide the names of staffers who worked on climate policy or other issues to President-elect Donald Trump's transition team, even as it pledges to cooperate with the incoming administration.

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team circulated a questionnaire to the Department of Energy requesting information about specific employees who’ve worked on climate change policies, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. Several questions pertain to some of the agency’s procedural responsibilities, but it also asks for the identities of employees instrumental in developing climate policies. DOE employees provided The NYT with the list under the promise of anonymity. “Can you provide a list of all Department of Energy employees or contractors who have attended Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon meetings?” reads one of the...

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System located near the California-Nevada border, burst into flames when some of the thousands of mirrors that focus sunlight on water towers became misalinged and started an electrical cable fire. The plant was built with a $1.6 billion taxpayer guaranteed loan and is run by a consortium of companies that include BrightSource Energy, NRG Energy and Google. Associated Press: Firefighters had to climb some 300 feet up a boiler tower at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California after fire was reported on an upper level around 9:30 a.m., fire officials said. The plant...

How scary are your jack-o'-lanterns? Scarier than you think, according to the Energy Department, which claims the holiday squash is responsible for unleashing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Most of the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins produced in the U.S. end up in the trash, says the Energy Department's website, becoming part of the "more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in the United States every year."

“Ineptocracy” is a new Internet-popularized word in wide circulation, which came to my inbox with the following definition: “A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.” Clearly the word’s creation was inspired by the current presidential administration, where the ineptocrats abound. And as NLPC has documented for 4+ years, nowhere has that been more evident than in President Obama’sDepartment...

The top watchdog for the U.S. Energy Department has found repeated examples of the agency overpaying contractors at national labs – with the most recent being a decision to approve exorbitant executive salaries at a cost to taxpayers of up to $3.45 million. The March 22 Office of Inspector General report found the agency awarded the salaries to 10 executives as part of a $2.2 billion environmental cleanup contract in 2011 at the East Tennessee Technology Park, in the city of Oak Ridge. The investigation found a senior management official at the Oak Ridge Office approved the salaries -- which...

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Waltham-based electric car battery maker A123 Systems, which has received hundreds of millions in state and federal funding, expects to default today on certain debt payments and could be headed for bankruptcy, according to a document the company has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission."No assurance can be given that the company will be able to avoid restructuring, reorganization or a bankruptcy filing," the troubled firm said in a filing yesterday. A123 Systems said it expects to miss its October interest payment on $143,750,000 worth of 2016 corporate notes. The company said it also expects to miss a payment...

The Internal Revenue Service urged a bankruptcy judge to reject solar panel maker Solyndra LLC’s bankruptcy plan Wednesday, saying it amounts to little more than an avenue for owners of an empty corporate shell to avoid paying taxes. “The undeniable conclusion is that tax benefits drive this plan,” attorneys for the IRS wrote in a bankruptcy pleading. What’s more, government attorneys said that as far back as 2010, owners had “planned meticulously” to be able to use Solyndra’s net operating losses to offset future tax liabilities. “The only reason for the shell corporation to exist post-confirmation is to enable its...

The U.S. Commerce Department announced stiff tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels Thursday, a move critics said could raise costs for consumers and further inflame trade tensions with Beijing. The preliminary ruling came as a result of a finding that Chinese solar cell manufacturers are "dumping" their products on the American market below production costs. U.S. manufacturer Solyndra became the highest-profile victim of plunging panel prices last year, forced to file for bankruptcy despite receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees. The tariffs are two-tiered. The first includes a group of 61 exporters, with Yingli Green Energy and Trina Solar among...

Department of Energy invested millions to develop cutting-edge technology to power electric vehicles, but that know-how is now in foreign hands. "This is about the future. And the question is which nation is going to seize the future. Some nation is going to grab it by the throat. One of the nations of the world is going to lead the world in green energy and technology," Vice President Joe Biden said in January 2011 in a speech praising federal support for Ener1 at its facility in Indiana. That nation, it turns out, is Russia. A little more than a year...

BRUSSELS, Belgium — The vision of innovative, environmentally friendly European industries leading the continent out of its economic quagmire with a surge of green growth, has long been a favorite for Europe’s leaders. Lately however, Europe’s bright-green future has been looking a little pale. European renewable energy companies have seen profits dimmed by the crisis and face overcapacity, falling prices, cuts in government subsidies and increased international competition, especially from China. The announcement this week that Germany’s Q-Cells, at one time the world’s largest producer of photovoltaic cells for solar panels, was filing for insolvency is the latest in a...

Obama campaign adviser wanted Steven Chu out By: Patrick Reis November 11, 2011 06:10 PM EST Months before Solyndra’s collapse, a former high-ranking official in President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign called for Steven Chu’s ouster, saying the Energy secretary lacked the chops for turning green technology into green jobs. “Secretary Chu is a wonderful and brilliant man, but he is not perfect for the other critical DOE mission: deploying existing technologies at scale and creating jobs,” Dan Carol, the research director of the 2008 Obama campaign who now works as director of Multi-State Initiatives for Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, wrote...

The Energy Department announced Wednesday that is has finalized more than $1 billion in loan guarantees for two separate solar energy projects. The decision comes several weeks after Solyndra, a California-based solar manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration in 2009, filed for bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 workers, setting off a firestorm in Washington. DOE announced a $737 million loan guarantee to help finance construction of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a 110-megawatt solar-power-generating facility in Nye County, Nev. The project is sponsored by Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve. The Energy...