PEBO Going Green!
By Pat Racimora on December 5, 2008 at 7:00 AM in Barack Obama, Current Affairs, Energy Policy, Environment, Nuclear Power, Nuclear weapons
Do you know what the Energy Department Does with most of its $24 billion annual budget?
Guess ….
1. Research on and development of renewable energy supplies
2. Research on building new nuclear power plants
3. Research on ways to achieve energy independence
4. Energy conservation measures
5. Greenhouse gas emission control
6. Maintaining nuclear stockpiles
7. Cleaning sites to maintain nuclear stockpiles
8. Dealing with nuclear nonproliferation issues
Well, if you picked 6, 7, or 8, you would be right. Turns out the Department of Energy doesn’t have much to do with energy at all. A CNN report report by Steve Hargreaves reports that research on renewables totals only $640 million, less than 3% of the annual budget.
But, President-Elect Barack Obama (or PEBO to avoid that mouthful) has other ideas.
“Under Obama you’re likely to see an energy secretary focus more on energy rather than nuclear weapons,” said Paul Bledsoe, strategy director for National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan research group.
Hargreaves reports that Obama will propose $15 billion a year to focus on such matters as researching and commercializing renewable energy technology, comprehensive urban planning, raising fuel efficiency standards, developing clean coal technologies, encouraging the production and use of conservation measures, and controlling carbon dioxide emissions.
This all sounds good. Long past due. Yipee!!
But will anyone still be watching those nukes?
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Maybe Obama will outsource the nuke watching job to the Palistinians or Chavez.
OT but worthy.
New book about Obama
http://www.globemagazine.com/story/271
He will contract the nuke watching to an outsource company in Dubai.
15 billion??? Is that before or after the bailout of Detroit?
I love this cartoon, Pat. This is a classic. One of your best!!!!!!!
Thank you Bert. I bought a new graphics program with an “image hose.” Kinda fun to play arund with.
I see the word “research” alot. I think we have done plenty of that. Start getting up wind and solar power. People are already doing it!! I seen a field of wind turbines in Ohio!
P.S.
Forgot to mention, I love your new name for the one -
PEBO. It is so fitting. Love it.
Hey Pat – Another Great cartoon! PEBO!! Too funny. You need a little symbol that goes next to the title of your post, so when its listed under recent post readers can quickly identify your work. Some days I only get a chance for a quick skim and I hate to think I’d miss one. As to your point about how our tax dollars have been working or not working over the last 8 years. We’ve all had our suspicions. But I hope we actually learn the gritty details, cause I’m thinking its scary. Real scary.
Bert – I’m with you. PEBO is a great name for Obama and his minions can be Peabots – short for peabrained Obots.
LOL!
Correction: NPEBOY (Not President Elect Barack Obama Yet)
He is President Elect. That can’t be in dispute.
Not only is it in dispute (see all the lawsuits) but he’s soooo NOT the President “Elect.” Try President “Select.”
why is he using that weird seal again.
He is NOT elected until the Electoral College meets and VOTES.
And correct he was SELECTED — not elected.
The Primary votes were just a big fricking waste of time and money — Howie Deanie and his friends like Donna BrazilNUT etc. selected him and then lots of money from who the hell knows from where???
My opinion only, as a pissed off participant of a caucus which was over run by Obot thugs.
PEBO is going to stop the space program, he is going to stop all the nuclear stockpiles business or anything that has to do with nuclear at all, and in the end we are going to end up last on the line in these areas.
India, China, and Iran are going to be way ahead of us after PEBO is done, just wait and see.
He and they will do none of that and the 15b would have to be new money. But because of this and that Congress will not allocate or appropriate 15b for such. Pat’s joyful cheer seems naive. OB will propose 40b for the Energy Dept. but Congress will appropriate 20b max. They could add a new Research program and appropriate the 15b they are proposing, but after much lobbying from those who are vying for a big ’stake’ in getting rich from them. Then they’ll spend 5b and the rest for covert spying activity on domestic surveillance programs – including surveillance of students and teachers and surveillance of home owner’s use of energy in their homes. Surveillance is much more fun than moving electrons.
Cute cartoon, Pat! I’m a little disappointed though. With all that green foliage, you couldn’t sneak in one little marijuana leaf, just for laffs?
Or maybe you’ve never seen one. That must be it.
My mother-in-law in northern Kansas had marijuana growing wild in her yard. It is very pretty, you know. She had no idea what it was. But she was constantly calling the police because “kids come and steal my shrubs.” We never had the heart to tell her.
Maybe it is arugula.
The Today Show was talking about BO birth eligibility as possibly not being a natural born citizen. The supreme court to translate natural born. But also mentioned that that they would not touch it, since the voters have already made that decision.
This made the Today Show!?!?
….would that be live voters or those pesky dead ones…??
Classic catch-22. The voters didn’t know when they voted, or they might have voted differently, but now that they’ve voted it doesn’t matter. Bamboozlement.
A good candidate
In the refocused DoE, given how he’s spent lots of his time in the last few years, Wes Clark would be a dynamite Secretary of Energy.
Stan Davis, Lakewood, CO
Agreed 100% Stan. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
200% Think he’d find a place for Yucca Mt. nuke junk?….maybe Alaska?????
He would be an excellent choice Stan.
This subject really gets me steamed-up! The DOE is the most bloated, self-congratulatory, arrogant, do nothing, tax-dollar eating – I could go on and on. HUGE HUGE SALARIES AND BENNIES, TONS OF TRAVEL EXPENSES, CONSTANTLY THROWING TAX DOLLARS AND CUSHY CONTRACTS AND INTERNSHIPS AND JOBS TOWARDS FRIENDS AND RELATIVES…There was a reason Newt singled DOE out and tried to shut them down in the 90’s. DOE is one huge party and it has only gotten worse since then. They are really good at making totally useless “busywork.” But most of their days are spent mapping out the best strategys for using up their massive benifit packages while still making it look like they actually did some work.
Wonderful cartoon, as always. Good article since I have received many emails talking about the energy department and people not knowing what it has to do with energy and yet it keeps growing. Perfect example of you can not tell a book by its cover or its name.
What sites are they cleaning and how much more nuclear stockpiles do we need?
Let’s have Obama change the name of the department to at least reflect what they do, instead of what they do not do.
Rich
I agree Rich. New name, and get rid of the “nuclear waste” in the current department as Sam implies.
Great cartoon and again, a timely topic.
Those concerned about the Department of energy might want to check out the website below which invites people to report fraud, etc. related to the DOE. Of course, this may just be the fox guarding the henhouse. Still, worth a look.
http://www.ig.energy.gov/hotline.htm
You may have to copy and paste the link in your browser to open.
Actually, that is an Inspector General url, so maybe something can be done if you know of actual issues that fit their reporting categories.
Love the green!
For the first thirty years of its existence, the DoE was the Atomic Energy Commission. It wasn’t until the mid 1970’s that AEC became DoE.
Even then, for many years, nuclear regulation dominated DoE. If you talk to career DoE staff, they will tell you that DoE is really the nuclear department.
Why, then, in the face of decades of bureaucratic inertia, should we be surprised that DoE isn’t “really” DoE?
It may be that Obama has the right stuff to transform DoE into DoE. But nothing that I have seen so far in his history of accomplishment leads me to believe that he will be “the One” to do this.
Pat: my guess would have been, and still is, “nothing.”
Nice cartoon – let’s see how far Obama goes with changing DOE to put the emphasis on E.