President Obama’s so-called Economic Recovery Advisory Board held its first quarterly meeting today — it was a spectacle of the sort of self-dealing and corruption that we may rightly expect to become routine if cap-and-trade legislation passes.
After the meeting, CNBC’s Becky Quick interviewed ERAB board member John Doerr, head of the venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins — that’s right, the very same Kleiner Perkins that has invested more than $1 billion in 40 cap-and-trade-dependent business ventures and that has Al Gore as a partner.
Doerr said that ERAB talked about the need for:
- Green technologies;
- Cap-and-trade; and
- Rewarding electric utilities for selling less electricity.
Doerr also told Quick that an EPA analysis showed that cap-and-trade would cost Americans less than $100 per year. (LOL!)
But we have no reason to believe that Doerr wouldn’t say and do absolutely anything to help ram through cap-and-trade legislation that would enable his firm to steal billions of dollars from consumers and taxpayers through bogus Al Gore-endorsed “green technologies.”
If you’re thinking that Doerr is only one voice on the ERAB and that less-biased heads will prevail, think again. Here are the other ERAB members and their interests/positions on cap-and-trade:
- Austan Goolsbee as staff director and chief economist (Obama administration);
- William H. Donaldson, SEC Chair, 2003-05 (Obama supporter who has spoken in support of climate legislation);
- Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., president and CEO, TIAA-CREF (TIAA-CREF promotes climate change legislation through shareholder activism and possibly stands to benefit from “green” investments);
- Robert Wolf, chairman and CEO, UBS (sells climate change-related financial products);
- David F. Swensen, CIO, Yale University (Yale supports climate change legislation);
- Mark T. Gallogly, founder and managing partner, Centerbridge Partners L.P. (early Obama supporter);
- Penny Pritzker, chairwoman, Pritzker Realty Group (Obama campaign finance chairman);
- Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO, GE (parent company of NBC News) (lobbying for climate legislation through USCAP);
- John Doerr, partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (lobbying for climate legislation through Al Gore);
- Jim Owens, chairman and CEO, Caterpillar Inc. (lobbying for climate change legislation through USCAP);
- Monica C. Lozano, publisher & chief executive officer, La Opinion (her newspaper endorsed Obama);
- Charles E. Phillips, Jr., president, Oracle (wants to use Oracle technology to ration electricity to consumers through a “smart grid”);
- Anna Burger, chairwoman, Change to Win (union group that supports green jobs);
- Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasurer, AFL-CIO (the union has joined with greens to lobby for climate legislation);
- Laura D’Andrea Tyson, dean, Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley (Obama supporter who has advocated climate change legislation);
- Martin Feldstein, professor of Economics, Harvard (opposes cap-and-trade)
So of the 16 members of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, only one (Feldstein) opposes cap-and-trade. At least six (Immelt, Owens, Doerr, Ferguson, Wolf, Phillips) expect direct financial benefits from cap-and-trade. The remaining members are either Obama supporters/employees or union representatives. Taxpayers, consumers and non-rent-seeking businesses have been left out in the cold.
Click here for the Quick-Doerr interview. Don’t miss Green Hell endorser Larry Kudlow’s anti-green fusillade at the end.
Gas will be $7 a gallon BEFORE this shit even kicks in. When it does there will be riots–everywhere. Not long after the real shit will hit the fan. Everyone on that board will be a legitimate target. Go to Texas and join the secession.
I hope you will and I urge all to tell Congress to vote NO on Waxman-Markey. I sent the following to my Congressperson, Donna Edwards, D-Md 4th, today. Needless to say, I don’t have very high hopes.
Dear Rep. Edwards:
I urge you in the strongest possible terms to vote NO when and if HR-2454, American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, comes up for a vote in the House of Representatives.
HR-2454 will yield negligible environmental gain at too great a cost to the economy, to our fellow Americans, and to your constituents.
Electric rates and gasoline costs will skyrocket forcing all Americans to markedly reduce their energy use. This approach, taken by HR-2454, amounts to a hidden mandate, one that will force my family and others, like it or not, to change our way of life dramatically. We’ll end up with shorter and fewer family vacations, smaller homes and cars, constricted commutes and fewer job opportunities, fewer consumer purchases, etc.
In other words, the only way my family, my children and my yet unborn grandchildren can satisfy this harsh regime is to do without things that matter to them and their families. I do not believe it is a good idea that the American people be forced to forgo the sort of mobility, both literally and figuratively, that has defined our nation for more than two centuries.
Again, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to vote NO on HR-2454 when and if it comes to a vote.
Sincerely,
As the decisions this unelected bunch of profiteers and green zealots concoct to their own adavantage, will ultimately be rammed down the throats of the rest of us, non US residents included, I have but obe question.
Why are they not being prosecuted for racketeering and fraud?
Anthropological activity creating climate change is pure science fiction, and our politicians know it. But, hell if their BIG LIE produces legislation to keep us in line and makes them billions of dollars in the process are they going to rock the gravy train?
Anyone who claims to have proof that man’s activities cause climate change is a liar, a charlaton and a thief.
Snake oil salesmen looking for the next sucker, and right now Obama’s looking at you.
Larry Kudlow is a HERO!! They (the ‘bama crew) will probably assassinate him. I know it is polite to say “with all due respect” when objecting strenuously to the argument of another but lying fools like Doerr do not deserve respect.
All you have to do is ask Doerr what the AGT was last year and the conversation will end very abruptly. He will NOT know.
If you are expecting Obama to be transparent it is a futile effort to even think in those terms he will hide any way he can what is going down and look for him to create a diversion to take our minds off of cap an trade so he can ram it down America’s throat. We live in a different world right now ,there is no common sense in Washington it has left the building and you or any ones else can want this or that and you will not get it .I would not be surprised if the diversion comes in the form of an attack on our wonderful contry and then I may go with the conspiracy people on that one.
Pardon me for not being too concerned, but what we are talking about here is a group of progressives debating progressive ideas. And if history has told us anything its that the last thing that progressives do is actually make progress.
This board’s mission is not to sit around and blame everything on George Bush all day. This board, at the risk of great embarassment, has to actually find a way to stimulate the economy. And be it Climate Change legislation, a litany of taxes on the rich, or outright theft and lying, nothing in the progressive playbook is up to the task.
So I want it to be high profile. I want these people to bring their best ideas to the table in full view of the public. I want a grand dog and pony show when their proposed legislations go into effect, and I want regular reports on their progress. And why? So there is no revisionist history when it all fails AND IT WILL. How many of you live near a big city and wonder what those diamonds in the leftmost highway lane mean? How many of you dutifully separate your trash from recyclables, despite never seeing any tangible benefit? How many of you barf when you see those old wood and plastic geodesic dome houses? Yes the artifacts of small minded progressive ideals are all around us, and share one common trait USELESSNESS. And while maybe the odd random person gets a sense of pride carpooling to work or from living in their hideous house, the fact remains that for all the flashy language and big name players, the progressive movement has failed miserably and to bring us anything remotely resembling the progress, results and utopia that were promised. So if anyone now believes that they are going to now fix the worst global recession ever, they’re smoking crack.
So I’m all for this effort, which will surely end in humiliation, being made as public as possible. And while it may put the squeeze on people in the short term, in the long run, the next Bill Gates will come along with the next big paradigm shifting technology, create a new prosperity, and all this bankrupt hooey will be kicked to the curb. Again. Then we’ll all be back to driving Escalades.
And with any luck the failed policies of progressivism will be forced back underground for another 30-40 years. I promise. Remember, the more things “Change” the more they’ll stay the same.
What a pity we hear so little from the Larry Kudlows out there. Could there be a teeny media bias perhaps?