Obama’s Latest Executive Order:

Accelerating Investment in Industrial Energy Efficiency

- Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh Sunday, September 2, 2012

As the GOP convention was winding down in Tampa and the preparations were in full swing for the DNC to meet in North Carolina, the President issued another Executive Order on August 30, 2012, Accelerating Investment in Industrial Energy Efficiency.

The timing is important since nobody on the GOP side is paying attention; the MSM is preoccupied with criticizing Republican attendees and praising the upcoming DNC event.

The release of this executive order days before the national Democrat convention and before the final relay of the presidential election points in the direction of a President who wants to claim, in the last leg of the race, that he is going to create those manufacturing jobs he failed to create so far and protect nature, the pet issue of the environmental left, his most ardent supporters.

The executive order addresses the fact that the” industrial sector accounts for over 30 percent of all energy consumed in the United States.” Manufacturing should use energy more efficiently through combined heat and power (CHP).

“Instead of burning fuel in an onsite boiler to produce thermal energy and also purchasing electricity from the grid, a manufacturing facility can use a CHP system to provide both types of energy in one energy efficient step. Accelerating these investments in our Nation’s factories can improve the competitiveness of United States manufacturing, lower energy costs, free up future capital for businesses to invest, reduce air pollution, and create jobs.”

The President directs federal interagency coordination with States to “convene national and regional stakeholders to identify, develop, and encourage the adoption of investment models and State best practice policies for industrial energy efficiency and CHP.”

The Departments of Energy, Commerce, and Agriculture, the EPA, the National Economic Council, the Domestic Policy Council, the Council on Environmental Quality, and the Office of Science and Technology will:

1. Coordinate and strongly encourage a national goal of 40 gigawatts of new, cost effective industrial CHP in the U.S. by 2020
2. Convene stakeholders in industrial efficiency and CHP
3. Encourage investment in industrial efficiency and CHP by
   • Assistance to States for potential emission reduction benefits of CHP when developing State Implementation Plans (SIPs) to “achieve national ambient air quality standards”
   • “Providing incentives for the deployment of CHP and other types of clean energy, such as set asides under emissions allowance trading program state implementation plans, grants, and loans.”
   • Output based compliance options in power and industrial sector regulations
   • Expand Better Buildings, Better Plants program at the Department of Energy, seeking to” reduce energy intensity by 25 percent over 10 years”

Agencies must consult with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in order to accelerate investment in industrial energy efficiency and CHP.

According to Dr. David Sponseller, since the Arab oil embargo of 1973, industrial executives have been working to cut energy costs as much as possible without compromising the manufacturing process. “The remaining opportunities for energy saving are so dispersed and fragmented that it would essentially be more trouble than it is worth to achieve the energy saving sought, and to do so in a way that would satisfy the EPA and other environmentalists.”

The “low hanging fruit,” the easy, less-expensive, and manageable energy savings have already been made and further savings would be more trouble. A good analogy would be, “hanging” an inefficient mini power plant on every industrial process that uses a significant amount of energy. This would turn out to be a fiasco not unlike Chairman Mao ordering the installation of inefficient mini blast furnaces in people’s back yards all over China during the Great Leap Forward.

In metallurgy, a huge consumer of energy, savings were attained in refining, steelmaking, melting, and heat-treating by the use of larger, more-efficiently insulated furnaces, and simpler heat-treating procedures.

Utilities use higher temperature and pressure systems to produce more kilowatt-hours from fossil fuels. Utilities “have already built many combined cycle plants that maximize the energy recovery sought by the CHP method.” Although more energy could be saved, “every industry has already achieved major reductions in energy consumption, at the urging of the U.S Department of Energy.”

From the economic stand point, any capital investment to a manufacturing plant to comply with the CHP and clean energy requirements would have to be sunk over time and part of the cost passed on to the consumer.

The federal government should not insinuate itself into the business management of the American industry. “I am from the government and I am here to help you” is a cliché, but it fits like a glove.

The EPA is a classic example of an entity that chokes American business and increases the use of energy needlessly. For example, billions of barrels of crude have been wasted by EPA forcing engineers to recycle some of the exhaust gases back through the engine, thus reducing its efficiency. “The lower compression ratios required to meet the stringent emissions requirements on autos have lowered the miles per gallon of cars significantly.” The constant reduction of emissions requirements is not necessary since engines are now small and efficient. The low sulfur limits on diesel wastes so much crude oil in refining, that it nearly doubles the price at the pump. Power plants consume more energy in order to meet absurd limits on smokestack emissions.

The army of agencies, national and regional stakeholders, state groups, industry groups would have to plan, monitor, and coordinate in order to achieve the planned energy savings. It would be a distraction to managers and engineers, preoccupied with running their companies.

Analyzing every stage of the production process, equipment, fertilizer, petrochemicals, oil-refining, electricity generation, manufacturing industry for potential energy savings would be counterproductive. Additional spending to satisfy bureaucrats and environmentalists would reduce the overall industrial efficiency. Government regulation would stifle industries in general and small businesses in particular, costing billions of dollars a year.

This executive order would work well in a centralized economy where everything is micromanaged by the “omniscient” and often bumbling state. There is a reason why 40 percent of manufacturing plants were closed in the former East Germany when East Germany became part of West Germany again. The industrial base was very weak. Factories were centrally planned and managed by the Communist Party and were very inefficient, seldom turning a profit, constantly subsidized by the state.

The author wishes to thank Dr. David Sponseller, President of OMNI Metals Laboratory, Inc. in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for his professional insight and contribution to this article.


Late-night executive order authorizes pay raises for Biden, members of Congress, federal workers

Daniel Halper is reporting that Barack Obama issued a late-night executive order to end the pay freeze on federal employees, in effect giving federal workers a raise.

Cost?  $1 billion-plus per year.

According to disclosure forms, Biden made a cool $225,521 last year. After the pay increase, he'll now make $231,900 per year.

Members of Congress, from the House and Senate, also will receive a little bump, as their annual salary will go from $174,000 to 174,900. Leadership in Congress, including the speaker of the House, will likewise get an increase.

Here's the list of new wages, as attached to President Obama's executive order:

"A new executive order has been issued providing for a new pay schedule beginning 'on the first day of the first applicable pay period beginning after March 27, 2013,'" reports FedSmith.com. "The pay raise will generally be about 1/2 of 1%."

Jeryl Bier points to an example of the pay increase for average government executives:

"Not much of an increase, but an increase all the same," Bier notes.

And the timing isn't great either: Just as President Obama and Congress try to avert going over the "fiscal cliff," he doles out pay increases to federal workers.

UPDATE: According to a senior Republican congressional aide who has reviewed the executive order and consulted with the Congressional Budget Office, Obama's pay raise will cost $11 billion. "The CBO told us that the President’s pay raise for federal workers will cost $11 billion over ten years," says the aide.

The aide explains, "On the cost-estimate, CBO says the (discretionary) cost of the .5% pay-hike the President is calling for in the Exec Order – relative to a freeze – is about $500m in FY 2013 and $11 billion over the ten years from FY 13 - FY 22. The reason why the FY ’13 savings is only $500 million is because the pay hike as proposed by the President’s Exec Order would not go into effect until April 1^st, 2013 - when the current CR expires. So it only covers half the fiscal year. The annualized cost of the pay hike is about $1 billion/year."

Obama officials issued $216 billion in regulations last year
 
Megan R. Wilson is reporting that the Obama administration issued $236 billion worth of new regulations last year, according to a report from a conservative think tank.
 
The analysis from the American Action Forum, led by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, found that the administration added $216 billion in rules and more than $20 billion in regulatory proposals in 2012. Complying with those rules will require an additional 87 million hours of paperwork, the report said.
 
The group put the total price tag from regulations during Obama’s first term at more than $518 billion.
 
American Action Forum credited the administration for erasing $2.5 billion in regulatory costs last year, but said that paled in comparison to $34 billion in regulatory compliance costs reported by top companies since 2009.

The Environmental Protection Agency racked up the most in regulatory costs last year, according to the report, issuing $172 billion worth of rules. Regulations from the healthcare reform law tacked an additional $20.1 billion in costs onto the economy.
 
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, several EPA clean air rules and the Affordable Care Act were the most notable regulatory expenses last year. But prison reform standards and conflict minerals regulation also cost a total of $10 billion in 2012, the report found.
 
Though the study lists the costs of regulations, it does not calculate any benefits that might have resulted from them.
 
The American Action Forum is the policy-focused sister organization of the American Action Network.

Team Obama issues 160-page edict on healthy school snacks

Erika Johnsen says yes! Because even more top-down control is exactly what we need to fix this problem. The Hill reports:

The Obama administration proposed regulations Friday that would prohibit U.S. schools from selling unhealthy snacks.

The 160-page regulation from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) would enact nutrition standards for “competitive” foods not included in the official school meal.

In practice, the proposed rules would replace traditional potato chips with baked versions and candy with granola. Regular soda is out, though high-schoolers may have access to diet versions.

“Although nutrition standards for foods sold at school alone may not be a determining factor in children’s overall diets, they are critical to providing children with healthy food options throughout the entire school day,” the proposed rule states.

Again, I really have no problems with the Michelle Obama making childhood obesity her signature issue. It is a widespread and serious problem, and more advocacy and awareness is far from a bad thing. The real problem comes in when big government decides that it is going to Accomplish Something, and their proposed solution is always -- surprise! -- more big government. Top-down, one-size-fits-all, big-government, bureaucratic regulations are rarely efficient, innovative, or creative problem solvers, and they all too often induce a whole host of negatively-impact unintended consequences in the meantime.

Just imposing regulations onto schools requiring them to put (more expensive) healthier foods into their vending machines does not mean that they can afford to do so, nor that the kids will necessarily eat them. Via the National School Lunch Program, the federal government has been pushing those disgusting, utilitarian meals on kids for decades, out of which they only eat the fries, nuggets, and pizza, and the taxpayer-assisted nature of the program meant that there was little incentive for outside competition.

School lunches are just not something that the federal government needs to be spending our time and money doing. States and even just school districts are perfectly capable of finding entrepreneurial and -- quelle horreur -- private-sector solutions to the issue of school lunches. Case in point, via the WSJ:

Workers wearing hair nets are scattered at about 30 prep stations, mixing pasta with marinara sauce, hand-rolling sushi and creating homemade corn dogs. Tubs of fresh broccoli, baby carrots and green beans wait to be doled out into child-size portions. On this day, Kid Chow will deliver about 5,000 customized bagged lunches for about $4.25 to $6.50 each to elementary and middle schools in the Bay Area.

Kid Chow, which husband-and-wife team Rob and Jamie Feuerman, both 48 years old, launched in 2003, started by serving these lunches to one private school in San Francisco. Today, the company has 85 employees and serves 52 schools, takes in annual revenue of about $5 million and is profitable, Ms. Feuerman says. …

Outside providers that aim to serve up fresh local fare have become a “national phenomenon” in the past five years, says Ms. Feuerman. “The Bay Area is where you have the greatest concentration of these lunch providers.” …

“At Kid Chow we say it really is about the bean in the burrito,” says Ms. Feuerman, noting that kids are often labeled as picky eaters when they simply want choice.

True, some of the impetus from these new ventures is coming from the FLOTUS’s and USDA’s campaign, and like I said, there’s nothing wrong with advocacy that can raise awareness and get states and counties to start competing for students with the added metric of healthy school lunches -- but government mandates are not an effective solution for problems that can easily be addressed on a much smaller scale.

Obama is "beyond the breaking point" with executive action

Fred Lucas is reporting that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) says Barack Obama’s plan to take executive action on climate change worries him.

"This president has already, in my opinion, pushed the envelope beyond the breaking point on executive orders, unilateral actions, actions that Congress has specifically, openly rejected," Sessions told CNSNews.com shortly after Obama delivered the State of the Union address.
 
"He then puts his bureaucrats to work to figure out every way possible through their regulations, through their enforcement policies, to place the country under the direction he wants it to go under his rule. That’s not consistent with American history and democracy. I think it’s dangerous and we need to work at it."
 
During his speech Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress, Obama brought up climate change.

"For the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change. Now, it’s true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods -- all are now more frequent and more intense. We can choose to believe that superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science -- and act before it’s too late."

Related:  Senate moves quickly to introduce climate change bill

Barackalypse Now: The story of one man’s destruction of the American Dream

Vince says that by now you have figured out that Armageddon did not occur on Friday and the dire warnings from the White House that the nation would essentially collapse were, shall we say, somewhat overstated.
 
That doesn’t mean however that the nation and American prosperity is in any less danger. Barackalypse Now is indeed upon us, and it has nothing to do with the Sequester. It has everything to do with the deranged economic policies of the Obama administration.

Virtually every American would like to be a little better off tomorrow than he or she is today. It makes no difference whether they are rich or poor, or whether they are happy with their current circumstances. Most of us would simply like to be a little better off next year and the years after than we are today.  Most of us don’t mind working to make that a reality, but the question is, how we can accomplish it.
 
One way many people have chosen to pursue the American Dream has been to start their own businesses. The goal of entrepreneurs is often a mix of trying to become wealthy and doing something about which they are passionate. Every single company you know the name of or have interacted with started out at some point as just an idea that someone sought to do something with. Two such companies are Subway, the largest sub sandwich restaurant chain in the world and Home Depot, America’s largest home improvement chain. Both have thousands of locations, do billions of dollars a year in revenue and employ hundreds of thousands of people. Both companies started out with one unit each and grew into the 800 lb gorillas they are today. Interestingly, the founders of both companies say that if they started their companies today they could never have succeeded. And it has nothing to do with the recession, indeed Home Depot was founded in 1978 in the midst of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.

Both founders cite government regulations for the reason that they could not succeed. Fred Deluca, the founder of Subway says:

It’s continuously gotten worse because there’s more and more regulations and it’s tougher for people to get into business, especially a small business. I tell you, if I started Subway today, Subway would not exist, because I had an easy time of it in the ’60s when I started and I just see a continuous increase in regulation.

Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot says this when asked why more businesses don’t complain about the regulatory burdens:

They are frightened to death — frightened that they will have the IRS or SEC on them. In my 50 years in business, I have never seen executives of major companies who were more intimidated by an administration.

Although overregulation has been getting worse for decades, the Obama administration has put the regulatory apparatus on steroids and uses the coercive power of government to intimidate businesses into submission. The result is that large companies like Home Depot, Subway, Google, Wal-Mart and others can hire armies of lawyers to bring them into compliance or find loopholes through which they can maneuver. Small businesses however, the fount of jobs, with their limited resources and bandwidth simply can’t compete. The result is that big companies get bigger and fewer competitors emerge as success as an entrepreneur becomes less possible. It’s ironic that the administration that was so quick to embrace Occupy Wall Street’s disdain for big business has actually helped big business by suppressing potential competitors.

Another way Americans seek to improve their lives is to find a good paying job. Here too the Obama administration has punched the average American in the solar plexus. Perhaps no single regulation has had more negative impact on jobs in the economy than has Obamacare. The regulations are not yet fully implemented but they are already causing a disaster in job creation. Across the country employers are shifting employees from full time (defined as 30 hours or more a week) to part time status so that they can avoid the taxes associated with Obamacare. The result is that fewer people will have full time jobs and must take two or three part time jobs to make what they would have at one full time job. That is the definition of inefficiency. From a quality of life perspective Obamacare is going to result in parents spending more time out of the house as they work their two six hour jobs with two hours in between or they work seven days to earn a full time  equivalent paycheck. Even without families, everyone is going to have less leisure time to do everything from go to restaurants, the movies, the beach, play sports, read books or whatever it is they love to do. The small businesses lose out as well. While they may avoid paying the Obamacare taxes for a while, they now have to provide the training, scheduling, management and administration support for more employees than they would if they could fill their jobs with full time employees. Obamacare is a job killing machine, and with it goes the dreams of millions of Americans who were hoping that a job would help them achieve their life’s goals.

With a flawed government focused mindset, his administration has already accomplished what Barack Obama suggested it would take two terms to finish: “Fundamentally transforming the United States of America”. Unfortunately for those seeking to pursue the American Dream, the Barackalypse he has created has little resemblance to the dynamic America whose engine drove our own and the world’s prosperity for a century. At some point in the future when anthropologists discover the ruins of what was once America they will wonder what kind of Apocalypse could have destroyed such a great and powerful nation. One wonders what curious artifacts will remain that indicate the damage was self inflicted when the citizens twice elevated to their presidency a self aggrandizing man with no understanding of how the world actually works beyond the chimerical fantasy created in his mind and perpetuated by a cabal of empowering sycophants. Perhaps the story the write will be “Barackalypse Now: The story of one man’s destruction of the American Dream”.

New federal rules for school food will cost ten of millions

Shannon Bream is reporting that newly proposed federal regulations aimed at the snack foods and drinks served in the nation's schools could come with a hefty price tag.
 
The American Action Forum estimates the regulations, which include caps on serving sizes and calorie counts, will cost schools $127 million and require more than 926,000 hours of paperwork.
 
Sam Batkins, director of regulatory policy at the institute, says the proposals amount to yet another unfunded federal mandate for state and local governments, "at a time when many of their budgets are still struggling."
 
The Food and Nutrition Service regulations would be administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which says schools in at least 39 states already have some kind of snack food standards in place. Thousands of schools "have already taken voluntary steps towards meeting the proposed standards," the department said, adding that many of the schools have started making the changes with little or no impact to their revenue.
 
The new proposals come as a part of a second wave of regulations stemming from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. Administrators are still working to comply with a number of other mandates that have significantly changed school food options in recent years. They include a requirement that each student take a serving of fruit or vegetable as part of their lunch or the federal government may not reimburse the cost -- driving up prices for both students and school districts.
 
But getting the healthier fare onto kids’ lunch trays doesn't necessarily mean that they'll actually consume the food. One West Philadelphia High School student told a local reporter that kids use the servings to play "food basketball," simply tossing away the fruit placed on their tray.
 
"Like, if you have an orange or an apple, you take it, and you have a trash can, shoot it in the trash can and see if you can make it," the student said.
 
That's the very thing Michelle Obama urged kids not to do Monday, speaking in a Google Fireside Hangout marking the third anniversary of the creation of her Let's Move! initiative. Obama urged kids to give fruits and veggies a try, saying, "I want every kid to commit to not throwing out anything."
 
The USDA will be taking public comments on the newest school food and drink proposals through April 9 at http://www.regulations.gov.

$127 Million and 926,000 hours -- just for the paperwork -- that's nuts!

Oh! And the "public comments" on the proposal will be ignored on April 10th.

Obama's latest executive order establishes panel to form "best practices" election guide for states

Cheryl K. Chumley is reporting that Barack Obama is issuing a new executive order on Thursday aimed at cracking down on election problems -- but specifics are still scarce.

Read between the lines of the group's mission statement, and it seems the group will be overseeing state election laws, to at least some degree.

Politico reports Obama's order creates a new presidential commission on election body, co-chaired by two lawyers, Bob Bauer and Ben Ginsburg. Mr. Bauer served as Obama's eligibility lawyer on the 2008 and 2012 campaigns. Mr. Ginsburg served on Mitt Romney's campaign, Politico says.

Obama first announced the creation of this administrative body during his State of the Union speech. But the White House has yet to detail how exactly the commission will act. The terms of the executive order require members to create and present a report directly to Obama every six months. One of its considerations: How to "shorten lines and promote the efficient conduct of elections," Politico reports.

The commission, in general, has an overall mission to "serve as a best practices guide for state and local election officials to improve voters' experience at the polls under their existing election laws," Politico says.

Obama accused of nationalizing U.S. elections with new executive order

Marv Dumon is reporting that on Saturday, Barack Obama was accused of nationalizing U.S. elections for Democratic partisan advantage through the president's issuance of a new executive order on the electoral process.

A March 30 Breitbart report cites several critics of the "Presidential Commission of Election Administration" in which Obama will have the unilateral authority to appoint up to nine commission members with the "knowledge about or experience in the administration of State or local elections, as well as representatives of successful customer service-oriented businesses, and any other individuals with knowledge or experience determined by the President to be of value to the Commission."

On Thursday, the White House issued to the general public details of Obama's executive order.

Opponents argue that due to Obama's unchecked power to appoint electoral overseers, the commission will be composed of progressives, union bosses, and academics with a bias towards Democratic and liberal candidates, particularly at the state and local level.

Here is Section 2 of Obama's order:

Sec. 2. Membership. (a) The Commission shall be composed of not more than nine members appointed by the President.

Some opponents are criticizing the president for prioritizing local elections over the economy with the latter featuring 8 percent unemployment and nearly 50 million Americans relying on food stamps. In January 2013, Barack Obama decided to permanently shut down his jobs council after its charter had expired.

Thursday's executive order was announced a year before what is expected to be a highly contentious 2014 mid-term elections. Next year, conservatives are likely to contest Democrats for multitudes of congressional and gubernatorial seats. The new commission's emphasis on local elections are creating suspicions on Obama's intentions.

Continue reading here . . .

Overreach? 81,000 Rules were issued by Team Obama in 2012

Christopher Santarelli is reporting that the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released its annual “Ten Thousand Commandments” report this month that goes over the regulations that have been issued by Washington over the course of the year and the financial consequences of those rules. 81,000 Rules were issued in 2012 at a rate of 9 per day, costing Americans $1.8 trillion in total to comply with federal regulations. The report notes that tegulatory costs amount to $14,678 per family – 23 percent of the average household income of $63,685 and 30 percent of the expenditure budget of $49,705 and more than receipts from corporate and personal income taxes combined.

Is this what the founders intended? The Washington Examiner used Jefferson as their example:

Washington politicians and bureaucrats seem to have forgotten that one of the key charges against King George III in the Declaration of Independence was that he had “erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

But it was not primarily the heavy economic cost of the King’s multitudes and swarms that so worried the founders as much as the unaccountability that resulted. As Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration, put it a few years before his death: “Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.”

The CEI report illustrates that in our era government agencies feel free to manipulate thousands of regulations to serve questionably motivated purposes not “common sense.”

On Real News Wednesday the panel discussed the overwhelming scope of the regulation coming