Item One: Two weeks ago, the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) revoked a previous ruling regarding drains on public swimming pools.
Evidently, the danger is that small children could have their arms or legs trapped in the drain due to suction,and then drown. All of this stems from a 2008 law passed by Congress.
Eighteen months ago, one of the CPSC Commissioners had voted with two others in favor of a simple plastic drain cover that could not be blocked; however, he recently changed his vote and sided with two other commissioners on the five-person commission. This re-vote occurred after a noisy and emotional debate.
The decision means that public pools, some 300,000 of them, with a single drain will have to install costly backup systems or close.
Item Two: Much heat (and little light) has been generated over the recent revelation that Solyndra, a manufacturer of solar products, has filed for bankruptcy. Companies go bankrupt every day, but Solyndra has distinguished itself in two ways. First, President Obama had praised the Fremont, Calif., company as being on the leading edge of the “green jobs” revolution. Second, in 2009 Solyndra applied for and received a Department of Energy loan through the Federal Financing Bank, an arm of the U.S. Treasury. Solyndra had promised to create 4,000 new jobs.
The loan amounted to $535 million. Since Solyndra is in bankruptcy, who pays it back? Yep, the taxpayers.
You’d think they’d learn but they don’t.
On Sept. 29 of this year, the Energy Department completed a $737 million loan guarantee to Tonopah Solar Energy in Nevada. The loan approval came just two days prior to the expiration of the loan program, according to the Boston Globe.
The common thread between the swimming pool drains and the solar energy loan programs is that all of the implementation was, and is in the hands of unelected Federal bureaucrats. Congress passes legislation but leaves the burden of implementation and enforcement up to bureaucrats who tend to become insulated both from Congressional oversight and public opinion.
It also has become very politicized. So far, the Obama administration hasn’t met a wind or solar program it didn’t like or a carbon-fired generating plant it didn’t hate. But, we need to look at the whole picture.
The Energy Information Administration, an agency of the U.S. government, has estimated that solar thermal energy plants generate electricity at a cost of $311.80 per megawatt hour. Off-shore wind plants come in with a cost of $243.20.
The new (and much-despised) natural gas-fired plants cost $63.10 per megawatt hour.
But the unelected Washington bureaucrats don’t seem to care about economics. It’s the goal that counts, you see; the idea that government knows best and knows more. The “touchy-feely-hopey” change and feel-good thing.
Guess that’s how people act when they don’t have to pay the office light bill or close the local swimming pool and explain why to their fellow townspeople.
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