Free Republic

Clean House at Justice Department Major New Lawsuit on Awan Brothers Democratic IT Scandal Judicial Watch Sues for Docs on Influence Peddling Scandal At Energy Department Government Warning: Narco-Terrorism will Worsen Under New Leftist Leader Clean House at Justice Department Attorney General Jeff Sessions has resigned , bringing an end to his controversial tenure as the nation’s top law enforcement officer. He advanced some significant policy advances for the rule of law, but made a terrible mistake in recusing himself needlessly from the so-called Russia investigation. This led to the abusive, unconstitutional Mueller special counsel investigation of President Trump....

Full Title: PathForward: US Dept. of Energy Awards $258M in Research Contracts To Develop Exascale Supercomputer Technology Even though the major US national laboratories are just now starting to take delivery of the supercomputers they ordered a few years back, due to the long and complex development process for these projects, the US Department of Energy(DOE) has already been focusing on the next round of supercomputers for the next decade. Under the Exascale Computing Project, the DOE expects to develop & order one (and in the end, likely several) exaFLOPS-capable supercomputers, 50 times more powerful than the generation of supercomputers...

Two reports on Thursday should send alarm bells clanging to beef up the government's cybersecurity. Whether anyone in the Obama administration will hear them is another question.

AIKEN, SC (WFXG) - According to Savannah River Site officials, a potential security event is in progress that has triggered emergency response activities at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site. Site barricades are currently closed to incoming traffic. There is no indication of a consequence beyond the Savannah River Site boundaries. WFXG has a reporter on the way and will update you as we learn

The Wall Street Journal ran an article recently exploring why the Peak Oil Predictions had not come true. Written by Russell Gold, the Journal’s senior energy reporter based in Austin, Texas, who himself released his first book called “The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World”, the article was an excellent walk through the ups and downs of the oil industry going back even to the late 1800’s. For example, did you know that John D. Rockefeller’s partner in Standard Oil, John Archbold, said, “I will drink every gallon (of oil) produced west of the...

I guess he really was multitasking out on the golf course. The President’s team has been hard at work behind the scenes, coming up with a strategy … well, maybe we should say plan, to address the nation’s many challenges. Spurred by President Obama’s climate action plan, the Department of Energy is pumping out new standards for refrigerators, dishwashers, air conditioners, ceiling fans, furnaces, boilers, water heaters, lamps and many more appliances.The administration says the standards will not only help the planet but also stimulate the economy by saving consumers money on their energy bills that they can spend...

New Jersey regulators rejected a Chinese-backed windmill project twice, but that didn’t stop the Department of Energy. The federal government has awarded $47 million to sweeten the deal for a $188 million project the Garden State has deemed too risky for ratepayers. ... The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities concluded in April that the Chinese company did not demonstrate financial integrity.

An audit by theDepartment of Energy’s Inspector General found that the persistent weak demand for electric vehicles harmed the deployment and timeliness of a $135 million-plus taxpayer funded charging network, which spun a cycle of excessive grants and project expansion, that led to an enormous waste of public money. The investigators, led by IG Gregory Friedman, determined that conditions for reimbursement to Ecotality, Inc. (and its subsidiaries) for the EV charging demonstration project were “very generous,” although not explicitly prohibited under federal regulations. “While we acknowledge that the Department had maintained and archived award documentation, an independent reviewer cannot understand...

This DOE project explores a variety of strategies designed to curb America’s greenhouse gas emissions up to 80 percent by about 2050. Arguably the most controversial of those reports covers the “effects of the built environment on transportation.” To put it plainly, the “built environment” report lays out strategies the federal government can use to force development away from suburbs and into cities, supposedly for the sake of reducing carbon dioxide emissions given off by all those suburban commuters. The Obama administration wants to force so-called smart growth policies on the country: get out of your car, stay out of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama announced his nominees to lead a new U.S. push to tackle climate change on Monday, choosing an air quality expert to run the Environmental Protection Agency and a nuclear physicist to head the Department of Energy. In a widely expected move, Obama selected agency veteran Gina McCarthy to replace Lisa Jackson as EPA administrator and scientist Ernest Moniz from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to take over for Steven Chu as Energy secretary. Obama also announced his choice to lead the White House budget office - Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the Walmart Foundation,...

Up to 40 percent of the cost of installing solar panels onto your home or business isn't related to hardware at all, but rather due to complications from "soft costs," like permitting, zoning, and hooking your system up to the power grid. In fact, according to a report released earlier this year by SunRun, local permitting and inspection processes alone add more than $2,500 per residential installation nationwide. To add to the problem, permitting and other processes are often complicated and vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In order to make solar energy competitive with other types of energy, it will be...

With Energy Secretary Steven Chu set to testify Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the government’s $573 million loan to failed solar panel maker Solyndra, an explosive new list of energy loan amounts to President Obama’s top fundraisers, bundlers, and supporters has been released by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out. As the list reveals, 80 percent of all $20.5 billion in Department of Energy loans went to President Obama’s top donors. Furthermore, some of those dwarf in size those given to Obama bundler George Kaiser, owner of the now defunct Solyndra. The...

Solyndra is being investigated by the FBI, but that may just be the tip of the shovel-ready iceberg. The Department of Energy is investigating more than 100 potential instances of criminal abuse of stimulus loan monies, according to the department’s Office of Inspector General. In prepared testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday, Energy Department Inspector General Gregory Friedman said his office has launched more than 100 probes into possible criminal activities related to the 2009 stimulus funds behind the loans.

The Energy Department (DOE) is not backing down in its efforts to support clean energy companies, despite a Republican push to pummel the Obama administration for approving a $535 million loan guarantee to a now-bankrupt solar firm. The department could approve as many as 15 renewable energy loan guarantees by the end of the month when a program launched under the stimulus law ends. The approvals could open up the Obama administration to more criticism from Republicans, who have raised broad concerns about the administration’s investments in clean energy in the aftermath of the bankruptcy of California-based Solyndra. The 2009...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, seeing increased domestic natural gas production as a linchpin in its long-term energy strategy, has named a panel of experts to find ways to make hydraulic fracturing, a fast-growing method of extracting natural gas, safer and cleaner. The administration hopes to avoid the safety and regulatory breakdowns that led to the Deepwater Horizon blowout a year ago as it oversees onshore drilling using hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has asked the panel’s seven experts, to be led by John Deutch, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and deputy...

A High-Risk Nuclear Stakeout The U.S. took too long to act, some experts say, letting a Pakistani scientist sell illicit technology well after it knew of his operation. By Douglas Frantz, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Nuclear warhead plans that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold to Libya were more complete and detailed than previously disclosed, raising new concerns about the cost of Washington's watch-and-wait policy before Khan and his global black market were shut down last year. Two Western nuclear weapons specialists who have examined the top-secret designs say the hundreds of pages of engineering drawings and handwritten notes...

Demonstrating the United States' intensifying interest in Russian fuel resources, a high-level U.S. Energy Department delegation on Tuesday visited Murmansk, the Barents Sea port from which Washington eventually hopes to import Russian crude. Headed by Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow, the delegation traveled to Murmansk after signing a protocol with Deputy Energy Minister Oleg Gordeyev in St. Petersburg on Monday aimed at strengthening investment ties and cooperation in oil field development. The visit is part of the groundwork being laid for the second annual U.S-Russia Energy Summit to be held in St. Petersburg Sept. 21 and 22. The first was...

WASHINGTON: The US Energy Department announced a $466 million deal to build two coal-burning power plants for Russia in return for a Russian promise to close three plutonium-producing reactors considered among the most dangerous in the world. Two American companies - Washington Group International and Raytheon Technical Services - will oversee construction of the two fossil fuel plants. Most of the actual work is expected to be done by Russian companies and workers. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Tuesday called it a major step in the US-Russia nuclear nonproliferation effort, although it will be five to eight years before the...

<p>Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said yesterday that the Bush administration's "quiet diplomacy" kept global oil prices from skyrocketing during the war with Iraq.</p> <p>"We have emerged from that period in really much more stable and strong condition than other energy crises in the last 30 years," Mr. Abraham said in an interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.</p>

The Department of Defense is preparing to implement the most sweeping restrictions yet on foreign information technology (IT) workers. This planned policy—which will cover one-third of civilian federal employees—will ban non-U.S. citizens from a wide range of computer projects. The Departments of Justice and Treasury have instituted similar restrictions on non-citizens working in certain areas. Those steps were taken prior to last September’s attacks. The DOD policy—slated for adoption within 60 to 90 days—extends restrictions on foreign nationals handling secret information to “sensitive but unclassified positions,” which include the growing number of contract workers who process paychecks, write software,...