By Kimberly Kindy and Dan Keating, The Washington Post

Problems Plague U.S. Flex-Fuel Fleet. Most Government-Bought Vehicles Still Use Standard Gas. The federal government has invested billions of dollars over the past 16 years, building a fleet of 112,000 alternative-fuel vehicles to serve as a model for a national movement away from fossil fuels. But the costly effort to put more workers into vehicles powered by ethanol and other fuel alternatives has been fraught with problems, many of them caused by buying vehicles before fuel stations were in place to support them, a Washington Post analysis of federal records shows.

“I call it the ‘Field of Dreams’ plan. If you buy them, they will come,” said Wayne Corey, vehicle operations manager with the U.S. Postal Service. “It hasn’t happened.” Under a mandate from Congress, federal agencies have gradually increased their fleets of alternative-fuel vehicles, a majority of them “flex-fuel,” capable of running on either gasoline or ethanol-based E85 fuel. But many of the vehicles were sent to locations hundreds of miles from any alternative fueling sites, the analysis shows. As a result, more than 92 percent of the fuel used in the government’s alternative-fuel fleet continues to be standard gasoline. A 2005 law—meant to align the vehicles with alternative-fuel stations—now requires agencies to seek waivers when a vehicle is more than five miles or 15 minutes from an ethanol pump.

The latest generations of alternative vehicles have compounded the problem. Often, the vehicles come only with larger engines than the ones they replaced in the fleet. Consequently, the federal program—known as EPAct—has sometimes increased gasoline consumption and emission rates, the opposite of what was intended. The EPAct program offers a cautionary tale as President-elect Barack Obama promises to kill dependence on foreign oil and revive the economy by retooling for the green revolution, experts say.

“This is an example of a law that has had a perversely different effect than what was originally intended,’’ said Jim Kliesch, a senior engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an nonprofit environmental organization based in Washington. The Postal Service illustrates the problem. It estimates that its 37,000 newer alternative-fuel delivery vans, which can run on high-grade ethanol, consumed 1.5 million additional gallons of gasoline last fiscal year because of the larger engines. The vehicles that would allow the agency to meet federal mandates were available in six- and eight-cylinder models—not the four-cylinder variety it traditionally purchased. Alternative fuel was used less than 1 percent of the time in 2007-2008. Read more here.

By the way, since Kyoto was ratified:
Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%
Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%
Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%
Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%

By Lubos Motl

DeSmogBlog, a propagandistic blog about the climate funded by John Lefebvre, a criminal arrested for money laundering, informs us about a lawsuit filed by Danny Bloom, a radical environmentalist activist.In this lawsuit, Bloom claims to represent the “future generations of human beings on Earth - if there are any” and he wants to be personally paid USD 1 billion from those world leaders who are skeptical about the catastrophic climate change. This list is supposed to include politicians as undecided as Stephen Harper of Canada.

Bloom claims that he will donate the money to the IPCC. Of course, unless the capital will be needed to repay some money to John Lefevbre and others.

Now, I think that the probability that Bloom could win this absurd case is infinitesimally tiny. Still, it may be a useful exercise to imagine that he will. Just imagine that these internationally organized criminals - John Lefevbre, Danny Bloom, RealClimate.ORG, and many others - will also be able to take over the International Criminal Court and steal billions of dollars from any innocent individuals they dislike, according to their own choice.

After the next lawsuit, climate skeptics could perhaps be executed, too. Climate skeptics would become as threatened by these organized fanatics as the German Jews were around 1938: it became legitimate to steal their ski or furcoats and to break their windows but not to steal billions of dollars from them. Sane and human countries should leave the International Criminal Court, outlaw the climate activists, and freeze all of their assets. Yes, I am afraid that if things like Bloom’s victory in the lawsuit would occur, a world war against the climate alarmists, analogous to the war on terror, would be my preferred next step.  Read post and comments here.

Icecap Comment: Another bold arrogant move by alarmists who may be reeling by the weather not cooperating with their proposed scenarios. Desmogblog head James Hoggan is also chairman of the board of the David Suzuki (the radical environmentalist who wanted to imprison politicians who did not agree with his extreme position) and numerous alternative energy groups. Despite that obvious conflict of interest, Desmogblog maintains a phoney list claiming skeptics are all bought and paid for by big oil. The same argument is being used by alarmist professors riding the AGW gravy train, conveniently ignoring the fact that they are getting millions supporting their alarmist position. They all have won the lottery and want to be sure the annuity checks keep on coming. Expect their actions to become more and more extreme and desperate as their phrophecies continue to fail. NOAA and NASA and Hadley have taken to manipulating data to try and delay the inevitable as their budgets have been fattened by the same perversion of science.

By Senator James Inhofe

Mr. President, Americans are once again being asked to foot the bill for yet another “urgent” bailout.  In October, Congress voted for an unprecedented $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, and now much of the same alarmist rhetoric is being employed to pressure members to act quickly. The latest bailout demand making the rounds in Washington is for the Big Three auto industry. Democrats would have you believe the proposed bailout is all about saving jobs, but, having been in Washington long enough, my instincts led me to dig deeper where I unearthed green roots hiding beneath the bailout rhetoric. 

It now appears that much of what you have heard in the media about the auto bailout being about “jobs” has been misleading.  In fact, there are “usual suspects” working behind the scenes to subvert the auto bailout and ultimately betray auto workers.  The facts are these: 

The proposed $25 billion bailout of Detroit now appears to have been hijacked by the powerful environmental lobby. The November 19 Wall Street Journal asks: “When is $25 billion in taxpayer cash insufficient to bail out Detroit’s auto makers?” Answer: “When the money is a tool of Congressional industrial policy to turn GM, Ford and Chrysler into agents of the Sierra Club and other green lobbies.” According to the Wall Street Journal, the auto bailout has degenerated into a tool to “make Detroit a subsidiary of the Sierra Club.” We hear proponents of the auto bailout endlessly say it’s about jobs. But the truth is, this bailout appears to be about environmental lobbies taking over the U.S. auto industry. 

The Wall Street Journal explains: “In their public statements, proponents describe the bailout as an attempt to save jobs, American manufacturing and the middle-class way of life. But look closely and you can see that what’s really going on is an attempt to use taxpayer money to remake Detroit in the image of the modern environmental movement. Given a choice between greens and blue-collar workers, Congress puts the greens first.”

The Journal continued: “The more realistic alternative to this utopian green vision is to let GM or Chrysler file for Chapter 11 like any other company that can’t pay its bills. The immediate costs would be severe, but at least bankruptcy would provide the political and legal means for them to evolve into smaller, more competitive companies. Taxpayers shouldn’t be asked to finance a green industrial policy promoted by lobbyists and Congressmen who know nothing about what it takes to make a car—much less make a profit.” Read more here.