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The T. Boone Pickens Earmark Bill (Ron Paul Co-Sponsors Taxpayer Boondoggle)
Globalwarming.or ^
Posted on 05/14/2011 5:45:17 PM PDT by mnehring
![Post image for The T. Boone Pickens Earmark Bill](http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/t-boone-and-al1.jpg)
Republicans in the House of Representatives are flocking to support a bill to extend and create a number of taxpayer-funded subsidies for manufacturers and buyers of vehicles powered by natural gas. Nearly eighty House Republicans (and a hundred Democrats) have signed up as sponsors of H. R. 1380, the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act (or NAT GAS Act). Just call it the T. Boone Pickens Earmark Bill.
Many conservative Republicans in the House, particularly a number of new Members with Tea Party connections, have sworn that the fiscal and economic crisis confronting America requires a radical change in federal policies. Out-of-control spending must be stopped; spending earmarks must be abolished; crony capitalists on the prowl for corporate welfare must be sent packing; subsidies for special interests must be abolished; government must stop interfering in the economy and let free markets work.
That big talk doesnt seem to apply when the spending is being earmarked for a crony capitalist who is one of the biggest contributors to Republican candidates in historybillionaire T. Boone Pickens. Apparently, some subsidies are good if they benefit the right special interests. And government interference in the economy is wonderful if it is done in the name of reducing oil imports.
H. R. 1380 would extend the tax credit of 50 cents per gallon of liquid natural gas (or its equivalent of compressed natural gas) when used for fueling vehicles and provide purchasers of natural gas vehicles with credits ranging from $7,500 to $64,000. The lower end is for passenger cars and the upper end for big trucks. There are also credits for natural gas vehicle manufacturers and for installing natural gas fueling stations.
Why are billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded subsidies needed? According to T. Boone Pickenss web site, its because natural gas vehicles are cheaper to operate than gasoline or diesel vehicles: Even with higher initial costs (which will disappear as manufacturing ramps up) the life-cycle costs of NGVs [natural gas vehicles] are significantly lower. Fuel costs are at least 15 percent less using natural gas rather than gasoline or diesel.
So people need to be paid in order to make them want to buy vehicles that will save them money. Yes, that makes sense: I always prefer the more expensive product unless there is a government rebate for the cheaper one. Call it the Boonedoggle bill.
As for getting us off foreign oil, this claim is trotted out to support every payoff to special interests in the energy sector. Its a claim for which little evidence is ever produced. What will reduce our dependence on foreign oil is producing more of it in this country. What the bill will do is increase demand for natural gas, which will tend to increase prices for natural gas, which means a big payoff for T. Boone Pickens, who has invested heavily inyoull never guessnatural gas.
Its sad to look at the list of conservatives who claim to be principled who have signed up to support the Boonedoggle. Heres the complete list of Republican sponsors as of today. The chief sponsor is Rep. John Sullivan of Oklahoma. Most surprising and perhaps most disappointing is Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who claims that he votes against everything that isnt in the Constitution. I seemed to have missed the section of the Constitution that allows taking billions of dollars from taxpayers to give to fatcat billionaires and corporate welfare queens. Call it the Pickens-Your-Pocket bill.
This stampede by conservatives, including several freshmen who identify with the Tea Party, to support the T. Boone Pickens Earmark Bill makes a mockery of their claims to want to cut federal spending, eliminate subsidies to special interests, and get government out of peoples lives. Were very close to returning to business as usual in Washington.
TOPICS: Government; Miscellaneous; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: earmark; globalwarming; naturalgas; pickens; pork; ronpaul
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To: mriguy67
A glad there’s a couple of folks here that get it.
41
posted on
05/14/2011 6:53:00 PM PDT
by
meatloaf
To: sydneysider
Well, if you believe this is such a good idea here is what you should do. Take every single credit card offer you get in the mail, max out every single one with cash advances. Take out two or three mortgages on your home, and invest in it.
Why not, that is what this bill is having the government do to the American people.
If you aren’t willing to do this yourself, why do you think it is OK for the government to do this to everyone?
42
posted on
05/14/2011 6:54:11 PM PDT
by
mnehring
To: mnehring
43
posted on
05/14/2011 6:59:06 PM PDT
by
grundle
To: grundle
I guess he is fine using tax money for social engineering like this. The government telling people what is best for them to do by bribing them to do it.
At that, this pretty much covers his excuses for all his earmarks as well.
44
posted on
05/14/2011 7:00:46 PM PDT
by
mnehring
To: mnehring
45
posted on
05/14/2011 7:01:21 PM PDT
by
Brandonmark
(News Coverage)
To: mnehring
Having your picture taken with ManBearPig disqualifies you from everything.
To: mnehring
Natural gas fueling stations? Sounds awesome.
Energy independence.
To: mnehring
Yiipppeeee!! Ol’ T. Boone is going to get rich. Oh wait . . . .
48
posted on
05/14/2011 7:18:19 PM PDT
by
BipolarBob
(The Obama COLB was just a joke folks. The real one is in Kenya.)
To: JPG
Depends on how you look at it.
49
posted on
05/14/2011 7:19:38 PM PDT
by
meatloaf
To: mnehring
Ron Paul supports using the IRS for government programs.
50
posted on
05/14/2011 7:21:26 PM PDT
by
NoLibZone
(Unless Reagan rises from the dead, we can easily find at least one reason to skip a leading GOPer.)
To: grundle
Paul double speak.
He must then author many more tax credits ranging from grocery shopping to seeing movies.
51
posted on
05/14/2011 7:23:02 PM PDT
by
NoLibZone
(Unless Reagan rises from the dead, we can easily find at least one reason to skip a leading GOPer.)
To: EscondidoSurfer
100% on the money!
NG is easy to find and relatively easy to produce, its already piped dang near everywhere.
I’ll sure change to NG.
52
posted on
05/14/2011 7:25:49 PM PDT
by
dusttoyou
("Progressives" are wee-weeing all over themselves, Foc nobama)
To: sydneysider
It all sounds good. Questions—What is the present proven reserves for NG in the US? I know as of 2008 it was around 290 trillion cubic feet. I have read that the US uses around 20 trillion cubic feet of NG a year now. If all cars, trains and trucks are converted to NG could that not double the US’s present usage(to 37 trillion cu/ft/yr)given NG requires 126 cu/ft per gallon of gasoline energy equivalent, US consumes 370 million gallons of fuel per day which would be 48 billion cu/ft/day of NG or 17 trillion cu/ft/yr just for said cars,trains, and trucks, how long would our present known reserves last? Would we be able to drill for more given the present political climate? How long would today's ‘low ‘ price for NG remain and what could it ramp up to? NG futures were nearly triple in 2005/2006 of what they are today. Before we give any more taxpayer monies we should have some answers.
53
posted on
05/14/2011 7:26:26 PM PDT
by
yadent
To: mnehring
check out Mrs.Boone and her wild horse fantasies.
54
posted on
05/14/2011 7:27:43 PM PDT
by
pointsal
Finding some interesting stuff reading through the bill. Not only is it using taxpayer money for social engineering (by using credits to drive behavior) but it actually grants the EPA more power by having them certify these vehicles and even gives them the power to say how long a vehicle remains on the road. It also pretty much gives a blank check to the EPA to provide grants for R&D. Also, section 45S gives provision to fund foreign corporations for this. There goes the ‘Independence’ part.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.1380:
55
posted on
05/14/2011 8:13:07 PM PDT
by
mnehring
To: combat_boots
The elephant in the room is distribution, for whatever fuel is used.
Agreed, but in the Northeast not so much. Here we will be looking at serious transmission issues with the Marcellus wells. These are monster producers. The standard vertical wells (traditional non-shale) tend to be tied into the distribution system. I don't see this as an ongoing solution for the shale wells. They have been doing vertical shale drilling locally and are producing an average production rate of 300 - 500 Mcf per day. The horizontal wells have had far greater outputs.
The problem is going to be gathering and transmission. FERC has earned a reputation for being one of our major hurdles to energy independence because of their slow and heavy handed regulatory aproach to pipeline construction. We have the natural gas in Western PA to supply the country if we can just get rid of the government and luddite environmentalists. This is just one shale layer. There are more (not just Marcellus) and distributed over a far greater area.
Frankly, Id have bought one of the Honda LNG cars that were tested. The technology itself is exciting.
I think this is where the US needs to go. We have ample natural gas to take a NG and Gasoline hybrid approach to our energy needs. There are kits on the internet for about $3.5K that modify existing vehicles to a dual fuel, switch on the fly as necessary. One of the nice things about NG is it does not require refining and then distribution. NG can go strait to distribution with minimal processing. Home fill stations are available, but tend to be a bit pricey and require rebuilds after a couple years. This is something that should be left to the gas distribution companies as just another supplied and serviced appliance.
Service station retrofits will take time, but I see no resource or technical limitation to adopting NG as the nations primary source of transportation fuel over imported oil within the next decade. The problem is our government. Period. They are not just holding up oil production, they have and are in the process of throttling NG growth. Grassroots will have their work cut out for them to overcome this.
There are viable, seamless and economic alternatives to our energy problems right now here today. First we have to get rid of all the "hope and change" if we have any hope of getting out of this mess.
56
posted on
05/14/2011 8:17:05 PM PDT
by
PA Engineer
(Time to beat the swords of government tyranny into the plowshares of freedom.)
To: SharpRightTurn
This is a national security issue. We can be energy independent, or almost so, by using natural gas to power our vehicles. I would much rather have the money for our fuel spent here at home, creating jobs here and putting royalty payments in the hands of American landowners, rather than sending billions of petrodollars to middle eastern ragheads who recycle part of it to the terrorist network.
Ditto. Especially since most of the "new" gas is under the economically depressed "rust belt".
57
posted on
05/14/2011 8:23:23 PM PDT
by
PA Engineer
(Time to beat the swords of government tyranny into the plowshares of freedom.)
To: mnehring
Although I recognise the point of this post is to demonize one Rand Paul, did I read in the small print that this is just a effort to NOT RAISE taxes on NG?
To: nkycincinnatikid
This article has nothing to do with Rand and the point is that it uses tax credits(sic) as a social engineering tool to manipulate the market to move the way the government wants. It also provides a blank check for grants for R&D so it is a financial T-Boondogle.
59
posted on
05/14/2011 8:27:55 PM PDT
by
mnehring
To: JimmyMc
The goverment will drive up the cost of gasoline until we are begging for natural gas and hybrid cars.
You do know there are hybrids that are NG and gasoline? You can switch and run on either. You knew that, right? NG futures are running at about $.50 per equivalent gallon of gasoline. You knew that, right?
If there was an option for my next vehicle purchase to be a non-subsidized NG-Gasoline vehicle, I would buy it. The economic justification is readily apparent. You can keep your bridge. I already own it.
60
posted on
05/14/2011 8:29:59 PM PDT
by
PA Engineer
(Time to beat the swords of government tyranny into the plowshares of freedom.)
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