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Former Commerce Secretary John Bryson tested positive for the sleeping aid Ambien, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office. Prosecutors announced Tuesday that they have decided not to file criminal charges against Bryson in connection with two alleged hit-and-run crashes in the San Gabriel Valley last month.(snip)His tests showed “low end of therapeutic levels” and a criminalist could not say if it was a factor in the collisions. Both treating doctors agree he was suffering confusion following a seizure and crashed as a result, according to the memo.

WASHINGTON -- Commerce Secretary John Bryson has resigned, saying the seizure that he suffered on June 9 that led to two San Gabriel Valley hit-and-run accidents could be a distraction in the job. "I have concluded that the seizure I suffered on June 9th could be a distraction from my performance as Secretary and that our country would be better served by a change in leadership of the Department," Bryson wrote to President Obama in a letter dated Wednesday.

Developing U.S Commerce Secretary John Bryson resigns - letter to commerce employees.

Commerce Secretary John Bryson said Monday night that he is taking an indefinite leave of absence to deal with health problems, after officials said the Cabinet member had a seizure while driving Saturday and was involved in three traffic collisions.

House Republicans are broadening their probe of the Department of Energy’s largest solar-loan guarantee. Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent letters to the White House and BrightSource Energy Inc., the loan-guarantee recipient, asking for e-mails and other documents related to the $1.6 billion deal. The Wall Street Journal viewed copies of the letters, which are dated June 7. SNIP Mr. Issa’s committee in March asked BrightSource and other loan guarantee recipients for communications with the Department of Energy prior to key announcement related to the deals. The June 7 letter...

White House press secretary Jay Carney declined Monday to say whether Commerce Secretary John Bryson was fit to continue serving after a weekend incident. "We're obviously concerned about the incident. We're obviously concerned about Sec. Bryson's health issues," Carney told reporters. Bryson was given a felony hit-and-run citation on Sunday, after striking a vehicle in the Los Angeles area and driving away. He was involved in a second accident a few minutes later, and first responders found him unconscious on the scene. Commerce Department officials said Monday that Bryson suffered a seizure and that no drugs or alcohol were involved....

Authorities are investigating a series of traffic collisions in the San Gabriel Valley involving U.S. Secretary of Commerce John Bryson, authorities said Saturday. Bryson was found unconscious in his vehicle and has been hospitalized, officials said. Bryson was driving a Lexus in the 400 block of South San Gabriel Boulevard shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday, when he allegedly rear-ended a Buick as it was waiting for a train to pass, according to a statement released by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and the San Gabriel Police Department. After briefly stopping to talk to the three men inside the Buick, Bryson...

Funny how some projects attract the EPA like flies to, well, you know and others? Meh. The LA Times reports: Construction cranes rise like storks 40 stories above the Mojave Desert. In their midst, the "power tower" emerges, wrapped in scaffolding and looking like a multistage rocket. Clustered nearby are hangar-sized assembly buildings, looming berms of sand and a chain mail of fencing that will enclose more than 3,500 acres of public land. Moorings for 173,500 mirrors — each the size of a garage door — are spiked into the desert floor. Before the end of the year, they will...

The newly appointed chief of President Obama's Social Innovation and Civic Participation Council is a member of a globalist organization whose activists can be found throughout the Obama administration. Jonathan Greenblatt was appointed the new head of Obama's Social Innovation Unit earlier this month.... WND reported last week that until his appointment to the Obama administration, Greenblatt served as the director of a social justice group funded by George Soros. ..Now it has emerged that Greenblatt is a member of the globalist group Pacific Council on International Policy, or PCIP. He previously chaired PCIP's energy and environment committee and served...

Should energy consumers pay extra taxes to fund government-mandated and subsidized renewable energy technologies? "Absolutely yes," says John Bryson, President Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary. He made the remark at a meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California in 2009 and went on to extol the virtues of hidden rates in California, a state encumbered with some of the nation's highest electricity and unemployment rates. Bryson, retired CEO of the electric utility Southern California Edison (SCE) and its parent company Edison International, excused the practice, saying, "That's been a part of the regulatory environment for the investor-owned utilities for as...

President Obama’s pick to replace Gary F. Locke as commerce secretary faces an uphill Senate confirmation battle. Even before the White House handed in the name of John Bryson for the job, Senate Republicans had vowed to block any nominee over administration foot-dragging on free-trade agreements. The selection of this particular leftist for a business-outreach post is rallying the opposition. “I find Mr Bryson unacceptable as secretary of commerce for the United States, and I will work in opposition to his conformation,” said Sen. John Barrasso, vice chairman of the Republican Conference, to The Washington Times. Mr. Bryson co-founded the...

A top Senate Republican said on Tuesday he would fight President Barack Obama's choice for commerce secretary, former energy executive John Bryson, whom he called an "environmental extremist." "The president has appointed someone who is going to make it harder and more expensive for the private sector to create jobs," said Senator John Barrasso, a member of the Senate Republican leadership. "Instead of appointing an economic leader, he has appointed an environmental extremist," Barrasso said. He cited Bryson's support for climate change legislation that failed to clear the Senate and his role in the founding of the National Resource Defense...

John Bryson sits on the board of troubled electric car manufacturer Coda, which is waist-deep in Chinese investment and debt.    John Bryson, President Barack Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary, may be best known as co-founder of the radical activist group Natural Resources Defense Council and as CEO of Edison International, parent company of giant electric utility Southern California Edison. But one of his biggest obstacles to Senate confirmation may be his relationship with troubled Chinese-backed electric car company Coda Automotive.Bryson has been a vocal advocate for Coda since 2008. He sits on the firm’s board of directors and is...

(CNSNews.com) – John Bryson, President Obama’s nominee to head the Commerce Department, told a University of California Berkeley audience in 2010 that a cap and trade system was a good way to hide a carbon tax from the public. Bryson, formerly the CEO of Edison International, said that a carbon tax was the new “third rail” of politics because politicians wouldn’t want to tax energy directly. “I think it’s still unlikely there’ll be a carbon tax bill because I think in the end a very high percentage of the members of Congress think it’s kind of the third rail to...

Post: The nominee for commerce secretary founded an anti-energy group and believes in redistribution of wealth to help poorer nations. At this rate, we'll be one of them. If personnel is policy, there can be no better choice to help implement President Obama's anti-growth energy policy and redistribution of wealth plans than his choice to be the next secretary of commerce, John Bryson. One would think that the former CEO of power company Edison International would have a more practical view of energy development and management. But he's earned Rep. Darrell Issa's description of him as a "green evangelist." Bryson...

On May 31, President Obama said he would nominate John E. Bryson for the position of United States Commerce Secretary. Bryson, who was the former Chairman and CEO of Edison International, spoke in front of the UN on September 1, 2009 at the International Energy Conference and praised California's regulatory system on energy, and called for the same to be applied to the United States as a whole. However, he didn't stop there. He went on to say they should place the same regulations globally: "The academic debate around this has often been should we send price signals, or should...

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama will nominate businessman John Bryson to lead the Commerce Department, a White House official said Tuesday. Bryson's appointment brings another private sector player into an administration that has been making a concerted effort to improve its relationship with the business community.

ROSEMEAD, CA, USA -- A Stirling engine is commonly referred to as an "external combustion engine" in contrast to the "internal combustion engines" found in most vehicles. Combine a Stirling engine with solar as the source of heat, and you have a highly efficient means of converting solar power into usable energy. That is what Stirling Energy Systems has been perfecting for the past 20 years. On Aug. 8, 2005, President Bush toured the DOE's National Solar Thermal Test Facility at the Sandia National Laboratories complex, situated on Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., where he signed the energy...

Former Gov. Gray Davis now admits he was unprepared for the 2000-01 energy crisis that sent electricity bills soaring, brought rolling blackouts and ultimately helped bring an early end to his political career. Davis, recalled by voters in an unprecedented move, was replaced by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in October 2003, a year after Davis had won a second term. The former Democratic governor said he erred by buying power at inflated rates during the height of the crisis, but said he acted because he "wasn't willing to risk" sustained blackouts. "Did it turn out to be a mistake? Yes," Davis...