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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (71237)	4/20/2009 11:05:21 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

More unintended consequences from Congressional action Betsy's Page Kimberly Strassel has the tale of how a Congressional effort to help out alternative fuels ended up shoveling billions of dollars to an industry to do what it was already doing. <<< This is the tale of how a supposedly innocuous federal subsidy to encourage "alternative energy" has, in a few short years, ballooned into a huge taxpayer liability and a potential trade dispute, even as it has distorted markets and led to greater fossil-fuel use. Think of it as a harbinger of the unintended consequences that will accompany the Obama energy revolution. Back in 2005, Congress passed a highway bill. In its wisdom, it created a subsidy that gave some entities a 50-cents-a-gallon tax credit for blending "alternative" fuels with traditional fossil fuels. The law restricted which businesses could apply and limited the credit to use of fuel in motor vehicles. Not long after, some members of Congress got to wondering if they couldn't tweak this credit in a way that would benefit specific home-state industries. In 2007, Congress expanded the types of alternative fuels that counted for the credit, while also allowing "non-mobile" entities to apply. This meant that Alaskan fish-processing facilities, for instance, which run their boilers off fish oil, might now also claim the credit. What Congress apparently didn't consider was every other industry that might qualify. Turns out the paper industry has long used something called the "kraft" process to make paper. One byproduct is a sludge called "black liquor," which the industry has used for decades to fuel its plants. Black liquor is cost-effective, makes plants nearly self-sufficient, and, most importantly (at least for this story), definitely falls under Congress's definition of an "alternative fuel." All of which has allowed the paper industry to start collecting giant federal payments for doing nothing more than what it has done for decades. And in fairness, why not? If Congress is going to lard up the tax code with thousands of complex provisions designed to "encourage" behavior, it shouldn't be surprised when those already practicing said behavior line up for their reward, too. In March, International Paper announced it had received $71 million from the feds for a one-month period last fall. The company is on track to claim as much as $1 billion in 2009. Verso took in nearly $30 million from the operation of just one mill in one quarter of last year. Other giants are gearing up to realize their own windfalls. Wall Street has gone wild, pushing paper-company stocks up dramatically in recent weeks. Happy as industry is to have this new federal lifeline in the middle of a recession, it is the only one smiling. Foreign competitors are screaming that the subsidy is unfairly propping up the U.S. industry in tough times. They claim the U.S. industry is ramping up production simply to realize more tax money. Canadian forestry firms are already demanding their government file a trade complaint. >>> Read the rest. It's a microcosm of what happens when the government gets involved and distorts the markets. betsyspage.blogspot.com

To: Sully- who wrote (71237)	4/22/2009 1:48:48 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Obama declines to take "yes" for an answer on detaining terrorists, Part Two By Paul Power Line Yesterday, Jed Babbin reported that White House lawyers are refusing to accept the findings of an inter-agency committee that the Uighur Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo Bay are too dangerous to release inside the U.S. Today, Thomas Joscelyn shows that a contrary finding would not only contradict the "inter-agency" conclusion, but would also be hard to square with the Treasury Department's recent designation of Abdul Haq, the leader of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party ("ETIP"), as a terrorist. In so designating Abdul Haq, the Treasury Department noted that he is a member of al Qaeda's Shura Council - a position reserved for only key terrorists with close ties to the terror organization. Abdul Haq is also on the U.N.'s list of persons associated with Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, or the Taliban. The question then becomes whether (or perhaps to what extent) the 17 Uighur detainees are linked to Abdul Haq. The answer, according to Joscelyn, is that at least ten of the Uighurs (including two who have been transferred to Albania) have openly admitted their ties to Abdul Haq, as well as to Hassan Mahsum, who before he was killed in Waziristan in October 2003, was the leader of ETIP. The admissions came during their testimony at combatant status review tribunals at Guantánamo Bay. Even as the detainees were protesting their general innocence, they admitted that they received training at a camp in Tora Boro that was run by Abdul Haq. One of them testified that when he and his comrades went to the mountains "we were waiting for Abdul Haq, he was in charge of the group. We were waiting for him to come up to give orders or take us somewhere else." Haq is, in Joscelyn's words, "a violent jihadist who shares al Qaeda's ideology, maintains operational ties to the organization as a member of its Shura Council, and seeks the creation of a radical Islamist state throughout Central and South Asia." Why does the Obama administration want to relocate a a cadre of his trainees to the United States? powerlineblog.com