Obama’s Green Economy Bag Men: Chief of Staff Bill Daley and GE CEO Jeff Immelt

The recent White House personnel shifts signal the kickoff of President Obama’s 2012 re-election bid. Of the many changes, the selection of Bill Daley as White House chief of staff and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt as the head of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness are the most important because they will play a key fundraising role in the upcoming presidential campaign.

Choosing Daley and Immelt are not signs of political moderation by President Obama, as some have suggested, but is the stone cold political realization that the president needs big-business cash to fuel his 2012 campaign.

It’s been reported that Obama’s 2012 re-election bid will shatter the record $750 million in contributions collected during the 2008 campaign by reaching the billion dollar mark.

To raise that staggering amount of cash, Obama is going to need substantial support from corporate deep pockets. Big-business donors, such as CEOs, hedge fund managers and law firm partners typically are not ideologues seeking to advance a political philosophy but are pragmatists wanting to know how Obama’s policies can increase their influence, business strategies and wealth.

Translating Obama’s policy into business returns and campaign dollars will be job one for Daley. As a political and Wall Street insider, Daley has the contacts to make the sale but Obama’s rhetoric and policies has not endeared the president to the animal instincts of many big-business leaders.

There is, however, one policy that can galvanize the president’s fundraising base: Obama’s war on fossil fuels and his unyielding promotion of renewable energy and a green economy.

Billions of dollars invested in renewable energy are now in jeopardy because Congress did not pass Obama’s cap-and-trade plan, which would make energy derived from the burning of fossil fuels more expensive – or, as the president said, “skyrocket.” Because renewable energy can’t compete with the price and reliability of fossil fuels, the financial viability of these investments is dependent on government action to raise the cost of carbon-based energy.

At a recent policy forum at the Brookings Institution, GE CEO Jeff Immelt emphasized the importance of a government policy that would raise energy prices to spur renewable energy. According to Reuters, “On energy, Immelt said a clear U.S. policy making fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gasses more expensive is needed ‘to move the needle’ on accelerating advanced technology investments. ‘There has to be a price on carbon,’ he said.”

Daley and Immelt are the perfect team to appeal to other corporations that gambled on climate change fears and merge these interests with progressive activists, and the social and media elites to unleash the political donating frenzy for Obama’s re-election.

Before joining team Obama, Daley was the head of JPMorgan Chase's corporate social responsibility department, which developed a climate change policy that is hostile to carbon-based energy - coal, oil and natural gas. JPMorgan’s policy is “to advocate that the US government adopt a market-based national policy on greenhouse gas emissions, which includes all sources of emissions and is fair. Options include either a cap-and-trade or tax policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the lowest possible cost.”

JPMorgan, like many other financial institutions, is banking on making money by trading carbon credits and by investing in renewable energy projects. GE and JPMorgan are not the only companies that have a business interest in seeking higher energy prices. Exelon, the Chicago-based utility, has taken a lead role in attacking coal-based electricity generation.

Exelon is a member of the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a cap-and-trade lobbying organization, and the company was a recipient of a $200 million grant from Obama's economic stimulus plan.

Daley also has ties to Exelon – he advised the company on its failed effort to buy Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. in 2004.

The failure of California Proposition 23 last November shows the fundraising potential behind the war on fossil fuels. A collection of left-wing philanthropists, activist groups and business interests contributed over $30 million to defeat the measure, which would have delayed implementation of a state law mandating a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions until unemployment rates drop to a specific level.

Green technology venture capitalists John Doerr and Vinod Khosla gave $2,100,000 and $1,037,267, respectively, and PG&E, a California utility and USCAP member, kicked in another $500,000.

Doerr’s involvement deserves special attention. Along with Immelt, Doerr is a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He also is Al Gore’s business partner.

The campaign to defeat Prop 23 reveals the money behind the war on fossil fuels. With billions of dollars invested in a green economy, we can expect huge sums of special interest money to back Obama.

As the 2012 presidential election draws closer, we can expect to see Daley and Immelt playing a major role in selling Obama’s green economy to those dependent on legislative fixes to their business plans.

Let’s hope the fossil fuel industry recognizes Obama’s new team is not going to be a moderating voice in the White House. Rather, Daley and Immelt will be green economy bag men collecting cash to put them out of business.

“They can’t do anything until they get Cap and Trade passed or can they...?” ~ bronxville

First they have to stop the investigation into “Climategate”.

ClimateGate: UVA’Getting its Nixon On’
Big Government ^ by Christopher C. Horner
http://biggovernment.com/chorner/2011/01/18/climategate-uvagetting-its-nixon-on/

Obama goal: ‘Putting the economy into overdrive’ [Head Fake]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_economy?utm_source=MemberBriefing&utm_content=20110121&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2011

AP:

“...the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which brings together manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union, dismissed Immelt as “an outsourcing CEO” whose appointment would “alienate working class voters.”

Indeed, GE has increasingly relied on foreign workers, a point Immelt alluded to Friday.

“I know that despite the fact that 60 percent of GE revenues are outside the United States,” he said, “I personally and this country share responsibility and accountability to make sure this is the most competitive and productive country in the world

Tom Buffenbarger, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, blamed Immelt for GE’s decision to close plants in Virginia, Massachusetts and Ohio. Noting that two plants made incandescent bulbs, Buffenbarger said: “We are rewarding the guy who is turning off America’s lights, literally.”

RUSH: The Regime-Immelt Deal Smells I’m sure you saw it by now — Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric (who now they’re saying is a big Republican, lifelong Republican), has been appointed to replace somebody on the Council of Economic Advisers.

Now, folks, I’m gonna tell you something. This really smells. Congress needs to really look into this. We have another advisory board created by executive order to tell the government what it needs to do to help create jobs. They have a deficit-reduction board. Did you know that? How good a job has that bumbling done? Diddly-squat. A giant failure. Now we’ve got this, and who is it made up of? The new Congress and a lot of people saying that this really needs to be investigated. General Electric and Obama are in bed with each other. General Electric got gobs of TARP money.

They got stimulus money. They don’t need it. General Electric didn’t need any of that money. General Electric has been in bed with Obama on this green energy garbage. MSNBC, the NBC networks, “go green” many weeks a year with their graphics and all this other stuff — and they’ve used government money to create this green energy division that they have, and they’re behind these compact fluorescent lightbulbs. They run NBC and MSNBC at a steep loss in order to give Obama his own cheerleading news network, and this CEO ends up on an advisory board now.

[snip]

OBAMA: Our job is to do everything we can to ensure that businesses can take root and folks can find good jobs and America is leading the global competition that will determine our success in the twenty-first century.

RUSH: The people at Whirlpool are saying, “How the hell can we expect to sell microwave ovens and dishwashers compared to GE when they’re in bed with you?” Now, again, you heard him here, in his own words. The great thing is the economy is growing, but it’s not growing fast enough yet to make up for the damage done by the recession. That means it’s not growing. Folks, this was bad. This recession was bad. Any growth would be a reversal. Let me put it this way. Recession, depression: lose jobs. Economy growing: create jobs. I don’t care if you create one job against all the jobs that were lost you’ve got growth. But we don’t have that. Growth equaling one job would be growth outpacing the recession. This is nonsensical. Think of it this way. It’s like a bald guy saying, “My hair’s growing, but not fast enough to replace all the hair that’s falling out.” You can spot those guys. They’re the ones with the comb-overs. They’re still living in Fantasyland. Just like Obama is. This is the next one. Now, again, Obama stepped in it, doesn’t even know it.

OBAMA: We’re going back to Thomas Edison’s principles. We’re gonna build stuff and invent stuff. Now, nobody understands this better than Jeff Immelt. He understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy.

RUSH: Jeff Immelt doesn’t have to compete. Jeff Immelt has the power of the US government. The US government saw to it that GE would be reclassified as a bank so it could get TARP bailout money while it was showing a profit. Jeff Immelt does not have to compete. But that’s not the main point of the sound bite. I wonder how many of you caught this. Play this again. Snerdley, anybody in there, this is huge. This is the biggest laugher of the day. Play this sound bite again.

OBAMA: We’re going back to Thomas Edison’s principles. We’re gonna build stuff and invent stuff.

RUSH: Stop the tape. We’re going back to Thomas Edison’s principles. We are banning Edison’s lightbulb! We are erasing Edison. This is comical. We’re going back to Thomas Edison principles, and at the same time we’re gonna get rid of that hacker lightbulb. Thomas Edison is an enemy of the environment, folks, by definition. These guys are banning his lightbulbs. Those lightbulbs have contributed to dead polar bears, drowning sea lions, skyrocketing temperatures around the world, record snowfall, whatever has gone out of whack, those lightbulbs are a leading contributor to our planet’s demise. And here is our grim leader, “We’re gonna go back to Edison’s principles,” while we’re getting rid of Edison. Lord help us. And this is what passes for unparalleled, unprecedented, never-before-seen intelligence and rhetoric, and the ability to articulate among the ranking members of the ruling class.

RUSH: Obama keeps saying, folks, that he brought the country back from the brink, and this is now being treated as fact. So exactly how did Obama bring us back from the brink? What brought us back from the brink? Stimulus? Obamacare? TARP? Which was Bush’s, by the way. What brought us back from the brink? Somebody please tell me.

Excerpted from:

The Regime-Immelt Deal Smells
RushLimbaugh.com ^ | January 21, 2011 | Rush Limbaugh
Posted on Saturday, January 22, 2011 9:46:51 AM by iowamark
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2661453/posts

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’m sure you saw it by now — Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric (who now they’re saying is a big Republican, lifelong Republican), has been appointed to replace somebody on the Council of Economic Advisers.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I am holding here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers a story (shuffling papers) from the Washington Post June 29th of 2009. Let me summarize this story for you: TARP was expanded by Obama for GE, which did not qualify as a bank. Remember, now, TARP was to bail out banks. TARP was expanded by Obama for GE, which didn’t qualify as a bank. GE’s “bank” became the top beneficiary of TARP funds. Jeffrey Immelt is involved here. The story from the Washington Post is Monday, June 29th, 2009: “How a Loophole Benefits GE in Bank Rescue — Industrial Giant Becomes Top Recipient in Debt-Guarantee Program.”

You need anymore? I’ll give you more. It’s astounding here. There needs to be a stop right now and an investigation of all of this. “General Electric, the world’s largest industrial company, has quietly become the biggest beneficiary of one of the government’s key rescue programs for banks. At the same time, GE has avoided many of the restrictions facing other financial giants getting help from the government. The company did not initially qualify for the [TARP] program, under which the government sought to unfreeze credit markets by guaranteeing debt sold by banking firms. “But regulators soon loosened the eligibility requirements, in part because of behind-the-scenes appeals from GE.” So the outfit that makes your jet engines (for those of you that have them), your refrigerators, your microwaves, your washers and dryers, all this stuff, is a bank. They were qualified as a bank so they could get TARP bailout money. “As a result, GE has joined major banks collectively saving billions of dollars by raising money for their operations at lower interest rates” via TARP. “Public records show that GE Capital, the company’s massive financing arm, has issued nearly a quarter of the $340 billion in debt backed by the program, which is known as the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, or TLGP.

“The government’s actions have been ‘powerful and helpful’ to the company, GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt acknowledged in December. GE’s finance arm is not classified as a bank. Rather, it worked its way into the rescue program by owning two relatively small Utah banking institutions, illustrating how the loopholes in the U.S. regulatory system are manifest in the government’s historic intervention in the financial crisis. ... Unlike other major lenders participating in the debt guarantee program, including Bank of America, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, GE has never been subject to the Fed’s stress tests or its rules for limiting risk.

“Also unlike firms that have received bailout money in the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, GE is not subject to restrictions such as limits on executive compensation.” So GE — unlike AIG and Goldman Sachs — can bonus their execs whatever they want. They can pay their execs whatever amount they want. They were recategorized as a bank so as to get bank bailout money, and now yesterday GE’s chairman ends up on a new advisory committee on jobs and the economy set up by executive order. And the Washington Post is totally unfazed as they report this. Ho-hum! It’s just more Obama structural brilliance as far as they are concerned.

Now, this seems to call for an investigation. I mean, this is serious insider dealing here between this company and this president. Now, it’s obvious, it’s been clear to everybody, Obama has a plan in place (and, again, as I say, it’s a very obvious plan) to use the bureaucracy, not legislation. Use the bureaucracy to advance the most radical agenda possible in health and environment (which is what this GE stuff is all about) while creating a PR perception in the opposite direction, that of the cool headed, moderate, open-to-ideas, civil president. It’s a complete ruse. It’s a complete attempt to deceive the people: Say one thing but act another way.

Now, on the PR front, the president talks about growing jobs when he destroys them. He talks about free markets when he attacks them. He talks about civility when he refuses to denounce the haters among his friends — and notice, too, now how he rewards huge corporations who toe the line like all the finance houses that were at the state dinner with China. He attacks corporations that actually create things or build things, like oil, steel, coal, et cetera. I’ve got a story; I gotta print it out. It prints out to about 25 pages, so it’s gonna take me couple hours to go through this and get you the salient aspects of it.

But back during... I think it was 2007, 2008. Don’t hold me to these dates; I gotta figure this out in just a second. During the campaign when Obama’s out there ripping Walmart to shreds. His wife shows up there the other day and has somehow bullied or pressured Walmart, which already sells things for low prices, into selling healthy food at lower prices during the winter. Michelle Obama shows up and she and her husband are now partners with Walmart when in 2000 and 2008 this guy joined the unions in trying to put ‘em out of business.

Moochelle Obama, the first lady, is now in charge what you eat at Walmart and what it costs! She just shows up. Last I looked, Walmart’s a private sector company. First lady can go in there all she wants. She could even call a press conference. But she does so, and why do you think Walmart’s listening to this? Look, don’t get mad at Walmart. That’s not the point here. What would you do if this bunch strolls in your front door? This bunch, this regime has a representative high up, strolls in your front door; demands a microphone, press conference; demands you lower your prices? What are you gonna do?

Most people are gonna cave. It’s not worth the trouble. And this on top of this General Electric stuff. That state dinner was filled with leftist Wall Street welfare recipients. Very few people were there from real industry, which are the subject of the EPA’s job killing and growth killing agenda. BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Golf Channel, two episodes have aired, five to go. No, six to go. Two more to complete. We have six episodes in the can; there are two more episodes. I gotta film, tape one episode two days next week, and then over a weekend in February, and then we’ll be done. But guess who owns the Golf Channel? NBC. Comcast, NBC. Don’t be surprised if the series is canceled (laughing), particularly after today.

Here’s Jeffrey Immelt.... (interruption) Well, I’ve been pretty hard on them. This is a joke, all this insider stuff with Obama and NBC and Immelt? Did you hear that... I don’t know that one reading of this is sufficient. I want to go back to this. June 29th, 2009, from an unfazed Washington Post. “General Electric, the world’s largest industrial company, has quietly become the biggest beneficiary of one of the government’s key rescue programs for banks.” They recategorized General Electric as a bank to get it TARP money, and then subjected it to no regulations like all the other banks were subjected to. Then there is this never-ending association between the regime and GE on “green energy” projects and lightbulbs and stuff — and then yesterday Obama names the CEO of GE to his new commission on jobs? And this company gives Obama two TV news networks to further his agenda: NBC and MSNBC? And it’s just, “No, Rush, that’s just coincidental.”

So Obama’s up there in Schenectady, New York, touring a GE turbine engine manufacturing plant. Jeffrey Immelt is up there, too, and introduces Obama and says some other stuff.

IMMELT: High-tech company, and that’s very much the story. We’re the number one wind player in... Right here in this facility, we have 4,000 employees that work on power generation and water, renewable energy. But in the Capital region, we are really big in the Capital region with 7,000 employees. (applause) We innovative with the Global Research Center; we — we build things here. It really is an honor to welcome you here today and introduce, uhhh, President Obama. I’m now honored to lead your Council on Competitiveness and Jobs (sic). It’s a — it’s a great honor.

RUSH: (sigh) Oh, gosh, why do I have this job? Why is it left to me to say this stuff? I could be on the golf course with no cameras. I could be out there just enjoying myself. Somebody has to say this stuff. Where is the competitiveness here? You have a one-way street. Well, it’s two ways: From GE to Obama, back and forth. Who can compete with GE when you got this kind of a relationship with the government that they have? Competitiveness? Sorry, Mr. Immelt, if I don’t get it. Just on what appears plain as day here, where have you had to compete? You... (sigh) Oh, jeez. They called GE a bank, they’re not a bank. Give ‘em TARP money that only goes to banks. They’re not a bank, so GE’s a bank all of a sudden. Now, all the rest of this.

Anyway, Obama did a photo-op up there. He just said that the economy is growing, ladies and gentlemen. It’s growing, “but not fast enough to make up for the damage done by the recession,” which, to my mind — to my fertile mind — means the economy is not growing. If the economy is growing but not fast enough to make up for the damage done by the recession, how the hell can it be said to be growing? Within the notions of simple logic? In fact, if you have a terribly deep recession, any growth should be that much more dramatic, shouldn’t it? We had a terribly deep recession. We were told it was near a depression.

Now the economy’s growing, but it’s not fast enough to overcome...? What the hell, folks! All of this is just gobbledygook, PR, blasphemy, BS, and it’s all part of a reelection campaign. I haven’t heard anything more ridiculous in my life: “The economy is growing! Jobs are coming! BUT...not fast enough to make up for the damage done by the recession.” Then we got Jeffrey Immelt talking about “competitiveness” when he hasn’t had to compete. (interruption) I know. I know. Snerdley is really worried in there that aim really cruising for it. You people may want to record this program. If I’m here Monday it might be a miracle. If this program is here Monday, it might be a miracle. If the next episode of The Haney Project airs (chuckles), it might be a miracle. BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Couple of audio sound bites in Schenectady, New York, which, by the way, is the birthplace of General Electric. Here is Obama, another portion of his inspiring and uplifting remarks.

OBAMA: It’s a great thing that the economy is growing, but it’s not growing fast enough yet to make up for the damage that was done by the recession.

RUSH: That’s crazy.

OBAMA: The past two years were about pulling our economy back from the brink.

RUSH: Yep.

OBAMA: The next two years, our job now is putting our economy into overdrive.

RUSH: Good.

OBAMA: We’re going back to Thomas Edison’s principles. We’re gonna build stuff and invent stuff.

END TRANSCRIPT

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