Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Sen. Reid has plan to reform energy infrastructure

To provide a plan to boost the nation's use of clean energy, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Monday he will introduce major legislation this week to reform electric transmission line development. Reid made the announcement at a Washington conference where he, Pickens, former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and others met to discuss guiding principles to reform the United States' energy policy. The forum was titled the "National Clean Energy Project: Building the New Economy." [Four deep thinkers with a plan] The Obama administration has said it would like 25 percent of the nation's energy to come from renewable sources by 2025, and the billions of dollars provided in the recently signed stimulus package offer the means to get there, Reid said. His bill, he said, will provide more guidance for that funding to be used appropriately. [Washington wants more control, otherwise the billions might be spent productively] The legislation will call for the president to designate renewable energy zones with significant clean-energy-generating potential. Once that occurs, the bill will call for massive planning efforts to site transmission lines around those zones--a process that the federal government will take over if it stalls...[Eminent domain notices will be sent on recycled paper]...CNET News

In a previous article on this issue, the author writes:

Questions remain, however, as to whether the Energy Department and other government agencies will be able to overcome a complex regulatory maze to spend the funds quickly and appropriately, particularly for transmission lines. "Our energy sector is very complicated," Karen Harbert, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy, said at the Chamber on Tuesday. "It's become too easy for any project of any hue to get wrapped up in 'green' tape."...

Even the government can't overcome their own regulations.

Not to worry. I believe Reid, Clinton & Gore will fix things.

I also believe there are buffalo chips the size of houses floating down the Rio Grande today.

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