From The Daily Caller
4:57 PM 03/11/2019 | Energy Jason Hopkins | Energy Investigator
President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2020 budget calls for huge reductions in Environmental Protection Agency and Energy Department spending in order to pay for wall construction on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Trump administration unveiled its 2020 budget proposal Monday, which calls for cuts in domestic spending while dramatically increasing infrastructure and defense spending. In one specific piece of the proposal, the president is asking to slash the EPA’s budget by 31 percent — the biggest cut for any of the agencies, according to the Washington Examiner.
Trump’s budget would cut the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office, an office within the Department of Energy, from $2.3 billion to about $700 million — a 70 percent reduction.
At the same time, the president is asking for $8.6 billion in funding for more border wall construction. The additional funds will allow the administration to reach its long-sought goal of completing 722 miles of barrier construction.
However, it’s likely dead-on-arrival in a Congress where Democrats now control the House of Representatives. The federal government just recently exited out of a historic 35-day shutdown over border wall funding, and those negotiations only produced $1.375 billion in funds for wall construction. Following the border wall compromise in February, Trump declared a national emergency, allowing him to allocate a total of $8 billion for wall construction.
Democrats of Capitol Hill immediately blasted the president’s latest budget request.
President Donald Trump speaks at a rally on Aug. 21, 2018 in Charleston, West Virginia. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“President Trump hurt millions of Americans and caused widespread chaos when he recklessly shut down the government to try to get his expensive and ineffective wall, which he promised would be paid for by Mexico,” read a joint statement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “Congress refused to fund his wall and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again. We hope he learned his lesson.” (RELATED: A Huge Reduction In Troops At The Border Could Happen Quickly)
The budget proposal for the 2020 fiscal year, which ends one month before the presidential election, will likely keep border enforcement a top issue during the presidential election season.
The president wants to spend $200 billion on infrastructure altogether and is also calling for a raise in defense spending to $750 billion — up from $716 billion in 2019.
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Anyone see the cover of the New Yorker magazine lately? FAKE NEWS – it has Trump on the white house with a banner “Build the wall” as water is covering the white house lawn, presumably from rising seas, hilariously desperate leftist claptrap.
Ms. Pro-Choice, tear down the walls… naive… green, renewable irony.
That cartoon shows shows an ocean rise of approximately 65′.
Using data from the closest station ( https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8594900 ) it would take approximately 6000 years (+/- 600) for that to occur.
That’s some “emergency”.
If the water is rising wouldn’t the first thing you build is a wall?
No, a boat.
Than gather the liberals 2 by 2?
Or maybe dig a ditch to help drain the… whatever needs draining?
I like the idea of “Budget Guts.”
If the waters are rising then NY already is planning flood gates:
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=s-uJXL-pN4bsrgSi45KAAw&q=new+York+planning+flood+gates+&oq=new+York+planning+flood+gates+&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
Taking money from fake problems to solve real problems? Works for me!
Quote of the month: “Common Sense is now a Super-Power.”
Go Donald!!!!
There is a real problem on Arizona ranches. link The solution can’t be just a wall. On the other hand, the wall will be at least somewhat successful, as opposed to counterproductive renewable energy.
“Trump’s budget would cut the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office, an office within the Department of Energy, from $2.3 billion”
…the obvious irony is hysterical…….efficiency and renewable
Glad he’s reducing green energy funds but the wall is a total waste of money. I’d rather get a tax refund.
I would rather he deploy 3 Armored Infantry Brigades to the southern border. They can full secure it while Combat Engineers and Seabees build a real border wall.
It sure beats budgeting for Hillary’s State Dept. with a 70 percent increase back in the day of Obama tongue-in-cheek budget plans—to pay for global Clinton Foundation ask trips.
“President Trump hurt millions of Americans and caused widespread chaos when he recklessly shut down the government to try to get his expensive and ineffective wall, which he promised would be paid for by Mexico,”
It seems to me they are lying of course. Congress funds the government. When both upper and lower chambers of Congress passed the smae funding legislation, Trump signed it. In addition, a President’s veto on any legislation or funding appropriation can be overridden by Congress and put into effect.
Congressional Democrats just want to blame the President for their failures. They depend on a public ignorant of facts and the Constitution to peddle their hypocrisy.
Use the wind turbines as towers, the photovoltaic panels as walls, station the environmentalists to defend the border, and sell the electricity to Mexico.
That would work if they had the blades closer to the ground…
Top post!
Love it!
Continuing to pour money down the “renewables” rat hole is a bad idea, even if one really wants illegals to scab for your business if a Republican or illegally vote for you if a Democrat.
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
It seems quite possible that the gallows constructed for the President will serve to hang the very people who invested so much effort to design and build it.
“Global Warming/Climate Change is a welfare scam to enrich the high class in poor nations; while being financed by the middle class in the rich nations.”
Penny wise and Pound wise
Only the foolish will see it otherwise.
One should not confuse fossil fuels for fossil fools.
I am all for eliminating fossil fools as the main source of governmental power for modern civilization.
Trump is a true warrior when it comes to reckless, wasteful spending of possibly trillions of dollars to fix the unfixable called climate change. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ sole purpose in office seems to be to run Trump out of the Presidential office via impeachment at the expense of serving the American people. The only way Trump should leave office is by being defeated by the voters in the next election. Apparently, the Democrats seem to fear an election, so, they will use impeachment instead. Meanwhile, Greenpeace is on the warpath with Trump because they fear they’ll lose their cashflow and status when the man made global warming lie is exposed for all to see. I’m betting the common sense American people will give Trump a 2nd term so he can finish the job and leave the Democrat babies to whine and scream for an additional four years.
House impeachment investigations?
Cancelled
{Warning: Crazy Tin-Foil Hat conspiracy theory ahead.}
House of Representatives Contingency Plan #1:
Event:
Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies, giving President Trump a third Supreme Court Pick. This situation is absolutely unacceptable to the Democrat party.
Action:
The House of Representatives immediately Impeaches President Trump.
(The Articles of Impeachment were already written and shelved against just such a need.)
News Shows and pundits across the country declare that any nomination from an impeached president is illegitimate on its’ face and cannot be considered.
Retaliation:
The Trump Justice Dept. hands down numerous felony indictments for espionage and related crimes against numerous Democrat operatives involved in the “Russia! Russia! Russia!” scandal.
Rumors swirl around the Capitol that if the democrats do not straighten out, Hillary Clinton is next.
Many democrats know that HRC is the only person standing between them and their own indictment. If she goes, they are next in line.
All Hell Breaks Lose.
{END: Crazy Tin-Foil Hat conspiracy.}
The democrats control the House of Representatives. They have one, and only one, mission.
That is to destroy the Trump Presidency. At this, they will stop at nothing.
They will not pass a single spending bill, much less a whole budget. They will not address issues, they will not address any crisis. None of that is on any agenda.
Nothing will get done.
(Impeachment investigations canceled. Who cares, not needed.)
You leave out that given they will not pass any of his bills he can do what he has done here and send bills up as virtue signalling. He knows he will never have to live with the consequences and fallout of such bills because they wont be passed. The same tactic is used by leftists like the Green New Deal which is nothing more than an aspiration pile of junk. Two can play the game and you can go hard.
The President doesn’t send up bills.
His budget certainly beats the Green New Deal.
If I want any of my new projects approved … all I need to do is HYPE all the “green” features we are providing … to the simple-minded automatons sitting on the Commissions who grant approvals. It’s just a stupid game. Played against stupid opponents. They all have the mentality of AOC … and worse.
Trump should propose windmills and solar-panels covering the WALLS … now THAT would get all the FAKE greenies to support it.
All I hear is that Wind power cost less than Coal, Solar power cost less than Coal, Renewables cost less than Nuclear, etc,.
If true then WHY are there Subsidies, Why are there government back loans, Exceptions in the regulations for endangered species deaths, and the rest of the government giveaways I am paying for?
+1
If renewable energy is *really* cheaper than fossil fuel then let it stand on its own! Of course the truth is that is isn’t!
+2
And getting rid of ANY AND ALL MANDATES that utilities buy any of the useless, unpredictable power produced need to be abolished. If people want to waste their OWN money on “occasional, unpredictable electricity” let them go ahead, but not a nickel should be paid to them for the “benefit” of destabilizing the grid!
I’ve been investigating wind power for an email conversation (debate) I’m having with a citizen of San Francisco. From memory, the construction of a wind power plant in $/kW is about twice as expensive as a gas fired plant.
The usual claim of lower price for wind depends on the “Levelized Cost of Energy” (LCOE), which only takes into account the building and running of the physical plant. Since wind plants run without fuel purchases, they’re cheaper to operate.
However, economics of power plants also requires evaluating the Levelized Avoided Cost of Energy (LACE). Avoided cost measures the value of the energy actually delivered to the grid. Wind fails here because the radical intermittency of wind power plants makes their energy very expensive to accommodate.
The Energy Information Agency has a summary discussion of LCOE and LACE here (pdf).
The other element that tells the tale is that investment in wind plummets when the subsidies are threatened.
Subsidies are not only government monies but also the legal mandates put on energy utilities to purchase wind energy. They’re forced to buy a product they do not want. The whole system then becomes more expensive and more difficult to manage.
Subsidies and mandates make wind power economically attractive to tax farmers. Warren Buffet is a good example. They’re all troughers, and their profits come from your pocket. It’s legal theft.
So, don’t believe the wind (solar) is cheaper than coal (gas, fossil fuels) story. It’s not true. The claim fixates on LCOE and is very (likely often deliberately) misleading.
Dancing in the streets…
Dancing in the streets…
Depression in progressive climate religious centers…
Depression in progressive climate religious centers…
English majors, political science majors, philosophy majors, psycho-babble majors, various other liberal art majors all looking work and “learning to code”.
Now they can rerun all of those climate scientist depression fairy tales, and there will finally be some reality behind the claims.
Dancing in the streets…
Please, please, please can we borrow Trump for the next 17 days to sort out Brexit for us?
Pretty please?
Sorry. He’s got 6 more years in office here. After that? Sure no problem.
Here’s my free advice HotScot: What you need to do is convince some country, (no, I didn’t say “sh*thole country”), to vote against delaying Article 50. Maybe Hungary or Bulgaria or Latvia would help out? Malta? For that matter, the French have been chafing at having Anglo-Saxon values in the EU forever, maybe you can have Boorish Johnson say something to offend French culture and then demand that they extend Article 50.
OTOH, your idea about using the Donald does have merit. TDS is powerful. He could start by suggesting that the UK needs to have a new referendum and stay in the EU. He could go on about how as a child, his Scottish mum told him Europe should be united. Really explode heads! That Corbyn guy seems nice. Not as simpatico as Kim Jong Un, mind you. Then you’ll get 27 votes against delaying Brexit and the SNP will switch to No-Deal. You wouldn’t need to borrow him for 17 days to do that, he could tweet it out in about 17 minutes.
Anyway condolences on the state of affairs.
HotScot
Trump would have left without a deal and just have said to the EU, “We are open for business. Gimme a wall, sorry, call!”
Karma at play !
Indians were saying please, please, please to the British to Exit India till 1947.
Now the British are in a pitiable situation for Brexit under the EU Administration.
Maybe he’ll take a week’s holiday and help you out. He should have 5 days to party when he’s done.
This is awesome. Now if we just start repurposing turbines by laying them down to be used as actual wall segments were in business! Those babies can’t be easy to climb over. At roughly 560’ of blades and tower per turbine were only 6808 decommissions away from completing the “wall.” MAGA!!!
Cut the EEREO Office altogether – why do we even need it?
Regarding Pres. Trump’s proposed cuts to the “Green” energy fund, can the Democrats overrule this measure ?
MJE
Yes, it’s a fantasy budget, sort of a theoretical plan proposed by the President as political theatre. It’s the House of Representatives where the appropriation bills must originate. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi will have the same priorities as the Trump Administration, don’t you think?
There are supposed to be a number of bills passed to fund various parts of the government, but that never happens any more. Now they routinely pass an “omnibus spending bill” or a “continuing resolution” on the night before the government would be shut down (or a few weeks after it shuts down). And that was when the Republicans had control. Now that the Democrats control the House, it will be an even bigger food fight.
We probably won’t have a budget until Janaury 2021.
The current budget goes until September 30, 2019. They won’t be able to agree on a new budget after that. But with the primaries beginning in February 2020 and with the election in November 2020 they won’t want to risk another shut down.
The line of least resistance is that they will pass a series of short term continuing resolutions after the current budget expires. In the continuing resolutions spending levels will probably be frozen at current levels until January 2021.
Much as I would like to see the wall built, my guess is that the Supreme Court will delay as long as they can and then decide that the President can’t re-program the money to pay for it. Its a bed rock principle that only the legislature can authorize spending. I don’t see how the courts can get around that.
Nope. PDJT has in addition to the just appropriated ~1.4 billion for the Rio sector ~40 miles of levee wall) $ 0.6b from Treasury and ~$2.8b from 10USC284. Both figures from Mulvaney.
At the NM Normandy barrier replacement actual accepted bid of $101m for 14 miles in NM ($7.2m/mile) he already has enough for the ~270 most critical miles (17 locations done by 2020 election) out of the eventual 722 miles total. Just math. The 2020 budget battle makes a wonderful 2020 campaign issue for him.
“We probably won’t have a budget until Janaury 2021.”
I agree. It will be continuing resolutions all the way to the next election.
Trump should start using the Democrats obstructionism as a talking point to take back the House of Representatives from the Do-nothing Democrats in 2020.
Trump’s budget would appear to be breaking at least two campaign promises. Firstly he repeatedly stated
that Mexico would pay for the wall and now he is trying to get American taxpayers to pay for it. He also
stated that he would not cut Medicare but his 2020 budget will reduce it by $800 million over the next decade.
So perhaps a more accurate headline might be “Trump uses Medicare funding to pay for the wall”
“Trump’s budget would appear to be breaking at least two campaign promises. Firstly he repeatedly stated that Mexico would pay for the wall and now he is trying to get American taxpayers to pay for it.”
During the runup to the 2016 election Trump said Mexico would pay for the wall with the extra revenue the US Treasury will receive from the new Mexico-US-Canada trade deal. When this deal is finalized by Congress, Trump’s promise will have been kept.
I suppose it is a question as to whether the Democrat congress will go along with the new trade deal. They may reject it simply because it is connected to Trump and will make him look good if the deal is finalized.
Trump also mentioned other ways Mexico could pay for the wall, so I think you can bet your bottom dollar than in the end Mexico is going to pay for this wall.
As for Trump cutting Medicare, I don’t believe it, that’s just a leftwing talking point. I don’t have the details of this particular proposal but I suspect it has something to do with trying to fix the problems cause when Obama transferred Medicare money to Obamacare.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Trump’s budget is dead on arrival in the House. And the House’s budget will be dead on arrival at the White House. A standoff.
Another excellent idea from Trump. Divert money from complete wastage that benefits CAGW scammers and banksters in Western Nations at the expense of the poor nations and developing Nations, and direct it into a useful barrier to restore order to the Nation’s immigration system.
I like this idea and hope he is successful.
If Trump proposed building a wall made out of solar panels, he would probably get that funded. Throw in a windmill every 1/2 mile, and you have a watchtower to go along with the wall. Actually, the solar insolation is not that bad at the Mexico/USA border, (maybe 25%) and if designed to be a vertical barrier with the solar panels on the top/south side with the frame being the wall, it probably wouldn’t be fiction to work more economically than a purpose built solar farm for the solar part since you are building a wall anyway. If you are already appropriated the ground for the wall, and are going to the expense of building a real wall, sticking some solar panels on it shouldn’t be rocket science for some engineers to figure out. At least this might get the wall built which would be worth far more than the renewable energy, although that would help pay for it by getting it approved. Maybe…
Haha now that would be an approach tell them you are building a solar farm but just that it is going to be long and linear and high to keep the panels safe.
Perfect. Maybe it doesn’t get enacted as written but it starts the negotiation.
Charge a $20 surcharge or 20% on all western unions sent south of the border the wall would be paid for by the mexicans.
I’d like to see all the EPA responsibilities transferred to the states. They all have environmental agencies these days, which they did not when the EPA was created. After transfer to the states, dissolve the EPA.
States can negotiate agreements about border-crossing resources, such as rivers. Disputes can adjudicated in Federal courts. The Federal EPA is not needed.
Concentrations of power, such as the EPA, attract demagogues and tyrants. They use the levers to engineer society, to target individuals or industries, and to punish their critics. Much better to distribute that power over the 50 states.
Any state government that rums amuck and tramples on its citizens, loses them, their tax revenue, and their enterprise to another state. It’s the American way. 🙂
Good! And it ain’t “trump’s” wall, it is America’s wall.
That’s a brilliant idea by Trump, build a wall to keep climate change out.
What is best use of limited capital resources, expensive, unreliable, non-dispatchable, interruptible renewables that are unsustainable without subsidies and mandates or the Wall? Are you kidding?
copy/ source?
CO2 “The grand total produced by all living things is estimated to be 440 billion tons per year, or 13 times the amount of carbon dioxide currently being produced by fossil-fuel emissions. Fossil-fuel emissions are less than 10 percent of biological emissions”.
If CO2 really is a problem, wind and solar ain’t the cure. Inlight of the confirming observed information accumulated these past five years, including 1) failed climate models, 2) the pause, and 3) polar ice stability the alarmist position of CO2 as the climate knob is untenable. Build the Wall.
I’m embarrassed, but I live in Massachusetts. The only nuclear power plant in the state was hut down killing 84% of the state’s green energy. The state government is pushing for a solar Massachusetts and placing more and more wind tunnels across the state while supporting groups that fight pipelines for natural gas and even hydroelectric power from Canada. Trump is a breath of fresh air against this insidious onslaught of ignorance that claims to create millions of jobs producing the world’s most expensive, unaffordable and unreliable power when following this course would do the job that Hitler and Stalin couldn’t.
shut down, wind turbines, sorry I should proof read before I post my rant.
Joe, you have every reason to be embarrassed but you’re only in 2nd place…I live in California. But I’ll give you this, your Senator Markey is #1 worst in America
We feel your pain! At a distance, yet we feel it all the same.
Green new deal: “…Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) prepared to introduce a framework outlining the goals of a sweeping climate pact going forward….”
Joe, don’t like what’s been happening with energy? How about Markley’s new partner and plan?
Green new deal: “…Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) prepared to introduce a framework outlining the goals of a sweeping climate pact going forward….”
Joe, don’t like what’s been happening with energy? How about Markley’s new partner and plan?
Joe, you have every reason to be embarrassed but you’re only in 2nd place…I live in California.
not to add to your embarrassment Dennis, but his name is Jon not joe 😉
Ouch sorry Jon. Double entry from receiving “posting awaiting moderation”
What”s that about?
If thousands of miles of scorching desert and a high probability of a brutal death haven’t stopped the migrants, I doubt a wall will do much…
Since walls work wherever we build them yes, walls will work. Trick is to not let unions and subgrade contractors rob us blind in the process.
Trump Budget Guts Renewable Energy Spending To Pay For Border Wall –>
Trump Budget Cuts Renewable Energy Spending To Pay For Border Wall