Free Republic

Summary Policy shift risks $373 billion in clean energy investments New tax credit rules could make even fewer projects eligible for incentives Solar manufacturers concerned about demand for U.S.-made products once credits expire July 24 (Reuters) - Singapore-based solar panel manufacturer Bila Solar is suspending plans to double capacity at its new factory in Indianapolis. Canadian rival Heliene’s plans for a solar cell facility in Minnesota are under review. Norwegian solar wafer maker NorSun is evaluating whether to move forward with a planned factory in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And two fully permitted offshore wind farms in the U.S. Northeast may never...

The climate alarmists regularly seize on weather events they believe will help them exploit their narrative. Naturally, they ignore contradictory information. So we see it as our duty to fill in the gaps from time to time. Following are a few examples that show why the global warming story is less scientific theory than conjecture in the service of a political agenda. - Let’s begin in the West Arctic, where the Northwest Passage is experiencing its third-highest level of sea ice extent in the last two decades. In 2009, Al Gore said, with his usual galling listen-to-me certainty, the Arctic...

How quickly things change. It was only two years ago, in 2023, that I was writing posts compiling long lists of quotes from climate activists warning that all assets used for production of coal, oil and gas were about to become obsolete and “stranded.” After all, wind and solar were (supposedly) cheaper and cleaner for generating electricity, which could then power anything and everything. Therefore anyone stupid enough to make further investments in producing fossil fuels would lose everything. Here is one such post from June 2023, and another from February 2023. If you look today, you can still find...

The kids are growing out of their Greta Thunberg era.. For years, the youth led the climate conversation — organizing school walkouts, sharing colorful infographics, and heckling Democratic lawmakers from the left. The tone was carried by urgency and moral judgement: “We have 12 years left.” Anything less than net zero emissions was seen as a betrayal. But now, as Gen Zers and younger millennials enter full-fledged adulthood — paying rent, dealing with utility bills, job-hunting and even starting families — they are souring on climate alarmism. Affordability concerns are giving way to a sense of realism about energy and...

"This boondoggle, led by the incompetent Governor of California, Gavin Newscum, has cost Taxpayers Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we have received NOTHING in return except Cost Overruns."

WASHINGTON — A Biden administration plan to create a “green” fleet of postal vehicles has churned out a mere 250 electric mail trucks in just over two years — after shelling out taxpayer funds meant to build thousands — leaving Republicans raging at the multibillion-dollar “boondoggle.” The nearly $10 billion project — which called for more than 35,000 battery-powered US Postal Service (USPS) vehicles to be completed by September 2028 — was funded in part by $3 billion in funding from former President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. As of this month, the project is well behind schedule despite...

The promise of a green manufacturing boom, fueled by generous subsidies and ambitious climate policies, is unraveling across the United States and beyond. So-called “ghost factories”—abandoned or stalled clean-energy projects—are becoming a stark symbol of the challenges facing the green energy sector. From Arizona to Massachusetts, once-celebrated plans for battery plants, wind turbine factories, and solar component facilities are being scrapped or delayed, raising serious questions about the sustainability of Net Zero ambitions, the risk of deindustrialization, and the potential for fiscal collapse in green markets.

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley announced Thursday that the Department of Energy (DOE) is canceling its Grain Belt Express project. Hawley’s X post announcing the DOE’s decision to cancel the project followed a conversation with President Donald Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The post also called the Grain Belt Express a “green scam” that is “costing taxpayers BILLIONS.” ... The Grain Belt Express was a $11 billion transmission line project designed to carry electricity from wind farms in Kansas across Missouri and Illinois to Indiana. “Energy demand is growing – our grid needs an upgrade,” the project’s website states,...

Even in green energy subsidised Britain, developing renewables does not make economic sense. Why wind farm developers are pulling out at the last minute.. The government aims to generate at least 43GW of offshore wind power (current capacity is 14.7GW) and 95% of all energy from renewable sources by 2030. These targets are now in jeopardy. The cancellation of Hornsea 4 follows a similar decision by Swedish developer Vattenfall, which stopped work on its 1.4GW Norfolk Boreas wind farm in 2023. … Building a wind turbine requires significant amounts of steel, copper and aluminium, all of which doubled or tripled...

When the world’s top climate diplomats gathered in Bonn earlier this year to prepare for COP29, one issue cut through the noise, not just the usual challenges of finance and emissions, but something more intangible and potentially more corrosive: the rise of targeted misinformation and disinformation in the climate space. In 2024, the World Economic Forum identified misinformation and disinformation as the world’s top short-term risk. Disinformation doesn’t just delay climate action; it destabilizes the institutions, policies, and coalitions needed to deliver it. Dr. Fredrik Bertley president and chief executive officer of COSI, the Center of Science and Industry (COSI)...

The Blue Book, the voter information booklet sent to voters prior to the narrow passage of Proposition 114, which began the release of gray wolves into western Colorado, indicated the wolf program would cost taxpayers $800,000 annually. Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis told legislators the cost of the program in FY 2024 is over $3 million, about $2.2 million over budget. In a hearing of the joint Water Resources and Agriculture Review Committee this week, Sen. Dylan Roberts, D–Frisco, who represents the areas most impacted by wolf releases, said he understands much of that figure represents prevention and...

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres wants to “turn the world around” but is lacking in one thing: other people’s money. On Monday the veteran Portuguese socialist acknowledged the financial shortfall and demanded the world step up and give to the globalist organization to fill the gap in aid donations. Guterres made his call at a meeting in Valencia, Spain, citing a “$4 trillion financing gap” as cause for immediate action. He noted “massive headwinds” exist since U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew USAID contributions to U.N. projects soon after he returned to the White House via the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)...

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright is slamming the Biden administration for what he calls an “absolutely infuriating” last-minute spending spree, revealing that more than $90 billion in green energy loans were pushed through by the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office in the weeks between President Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection and his January inauguration. In an interview with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matt Boyle, Wright detailed the results of a newly completed review of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, revealing that “more than $90 billion in loans were closed or committed in the 76 days between...

The EU cloaks supranational tax increases in green.On the hunt for fresh sources of cash, the European Commission has zeroed in on households and motorists. A planned expansion of the EU’s carbon pricing scheme to include home heating and transportation fuels is set to plug Brussels’ gaping budget deficit — at the expense of its citizens. What we are witnessing is a fiscal smash-and-grab dressed up in green. Starting in 2027, private homes, small businesses, and passenger vehicles will be folded into a second emissions trading system (ETS2), placing them under the strict control of EU-level cap-and-trade mechanisms. This bureaucratic...

The fire aid concert raised over a $100 Million, but where did all the money go? Jimmy Dore went to the the Annenberg Foundation who are in charge of the funds, to find out more. After repeated emails, phone calls, etc with no replies, they eventually heard from Barbara Chen of Annenberg. Turns out most of the money went into the pockets of NGO’s, etc with just 30% going to the actual victims of the fire. Anyone surprised? Nope. This is LA after all.

Issues & Insights "Carbon dioxide, we’ve been told over and again, is the enemy that must be subdued if we are to avoid catastrophic global warming. It is, however, a faulty premise. Physics, not politics, tells us that man’s CO2 emissions will not cause catastrophic climate change nor an increase in extreme weather. “The common belief that CO2 is the main driver of climate change and the EPA Endangerment Finding assertion that ‘elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated’ to endanger the public health and welfare are scientifically false,” conclude the authors of a new...

President Joe Biden’s USAID awarded an $800 million contract to a business operating out of a Virginia home even after it formally ruled that its key manager lacked “honesty or integrity” — a reference to the fact that, according to a May 12 guilty plea, he had secured USAID contracts through bribery for a decade. The contract was for addressing “issues affecting the root causes of irregular migration from Central America to the United States” — the work that Biden assigned to Vice President Kamala Harris, but which she never appeared to address, a Daily Wire investigation found. The Department...

The ink is dry. Hawaii has officially become the first state in the nation to impose a climate tax. It’s called the Green Fee. The name sounds harmless. The impact is anything but. Senate Bill 1396 is now law. It tacks on a 0.75% increase to the Transient Accommodations Tax. That means every hotel stay, every short-term rental, every cruise ship docking in the islands will now carry a new surcharge. The state expects this to rake in $100 million annually. This isn’t a symbolic gesture. It’s a full-scale revenue engine. The money will be funneled into climate resilience projects....

New Mexico’s program is just the tip of the iceberg.While experts have long dismissed large-scale Medicaid fraud as improbable, evidence from New Mexico tells a different story. This discovery presents an unprecedented opportunity to offset part of the $880 billion budget deficit without cutting healthcare services for enrollees.As the most powerful stakeholders, insurers frame fraud as an issue with hospitals, physicians, and enrollees while quietly escaping scrutiny themselves. A 2020 Health and Human Services report claimed that fraud in Medicaid fee-for-service stood at 12.3%, compared to just 0.3% in Medicaid managed care, reinforcing the industry’s message that managed care is...