GEE, WHO COULDA PREDICTED IT? Sales of Electric Vehicles Collapse in January

Never mind that the United States sits on hundreds or thousands of years of fossil fuel supplies. Never mind that. The federal government wants you to drive electric cars. The problem is, you ain't buyin' em.

EV sales had shown minor signs of life in the last quarter of 2012, only to collapse sharply in January. “Sales of the Chevrolet Volt, the Toyota Prius Plug-In and Nissan Leaf each had deep dropoffs in January from December,” Reuters says.

“Even after accounting for the fact that January is one of the slowest months of the year for auto sales, the dropoff for plug-in electric cars was considerable,” Michelle Krebs of Edmunds told the wire. According to Krebs, consumers are opting instead for less-expensive standard hybrids, rather than plug-in electric cars. OEMS blame other factors, such as limited supply, model year changeovers, or changeovers from Japanese to U.S. production, as it is the case for the Nissan LEAF. GM says January sales were down for the Volt because people bought before the end of the year to gain the 2012 tax credit. Which may have been the power behind the last quarter rise of the still tiny segment...

Ain't central planning grand?

I mean, how many billions of dollars did this administration waste on electric cars and batteries when the technology just isn't ready? When the full history of the Obama green energy program is written (starting with Solyndra, Fisker, A123 Systems, Tesla, etc.), it will make the Teapot Dome Scandal look like a shoplifting incident.

Thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts' outrageous Obamacare decision, though, it would seem the federal government has the legal right to command you to buy electric vehicles. So we got that goin' for us.


Hat tip: BadBlue Car News.

JUST LIKE THE NLRB: Lawless EPA "thumbing its nose" at nation's second highest court #Bastiat

Yesterday the EPA became the second arm of the Obama administration to execute a rhetorical middle-fingered salute to a federal court.

Just days ago the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), responding to a federal Appeals Court that found the president's recess appointments were illegal, said that it would ignore the court's order and continue business as usual.

On Thursday, the EPA replied to another federal Appeals Court decision. The court had just thrown out the agency's mandate to the oil industry that it use non-existent biofuels; the EPA in return metaphorically spit in the court's face.

Days after a federal appeals court said the Obama administration is setting overly optimistic production quotas for the struggling biofuels industry, the government issued new standards Thursday that raise production estimates for 2013.

New standards announced by the Environmental Protection Agency require production of 14 million gallons of so-called cellulosic biofuels made from grasses and woody material. That's up from an 8.7 million-gallon requirement in 2012 -- when actual production was near zero.

An oil industry representative said the Obama administration was thumbing its nose at a ruling last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The court threw out the 2012 mandate for cellulosic biofuels, saying it was based on wishful thinking rather than accurate estimates for an industry the Obama administration wants to encourage. Administration officials have said that increased use of biofuels could lower greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming, as well as lower U.S. dependence on foreign fuel.

"The court recognized the absurdity of fining companies for failing to use a nonexistent biofuel," said Bob Greco, director of downstream operations for the American Petroleum Institute, the principal lobbying group for the oil and gas industry... Greco said he was astonished that EPA would nearly double the mandate for biofuel in 2013. "EPA needs a serious reality check," he said, calling the mandate a "stealth tax on gasoline" and an "egregious example of bad public policy."

This administration is engaging in, as Frederic Bastiat termed it, "legal plunder":

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.

What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to describe them all. Thus we must content ourselves with pointing out the most striking.

In the first place, it erases from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice. No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree...

...imagine that this fatal principle has been introduced: Under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law takes property from one person and gives it to another.

...how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.

The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.

Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system.

The entire federal government has, at least by Bastiat's definition, become a monolithic apparatus designed to facilitate legal plunder. From General Motors to Solyndra and the Stimulus to Obamacare, the taxpayers' trillions have been stolen -- "legally" -- and directed to the president's political backers.

It is a recipe for disaster and a societal model that cannot long survive.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

DAZZLING: Composite Hurricane Map: 1851 to 2010

Spotted at Australia's Courier-Mail, stunning graphics created by information architect John Nelson map every tropical typhoon, cyclone and hurricane since 1851:

The storm map offers an unusual perspective of the Earth from below, centered on Antarctica, with the rest of the planet unfurling around the southern continent like flower petals.

While the Caribbean is the clear global hot spot for tropical storm activity, the major southern hemisphere active zone is across Australia's north, with cyclones forming everywhere between Mozambique and Tahiti...

...Mapmaker John Nelson, mapping manager for data visualization company IDV Solutions, told Our Amazing Planet why the map's oddball point of view was the best way to tell the story of the data.

"When I put it onto a rectangular map it was neat looking, but a little bit disappointing," he said.

The unusual perspective beautiful showcases the curving paths the storms make across the world's oceans...

It reveals that tropical storms abhor the Equator, and can never cross it.

Nelson's map employs US government data on tropical storms and hurricanes from 1851 through 2010.

Interestingly, the "proportionality of storm severity looks to be getting more consistent year to year with the benefit of more data." In other words, warmal colding appears to have no effect on storms, just as it has no impact on temperatures.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER SLAPDOWN FOR WHITE HOUSE: EPA slammed for mandating use of nonexistent biofuels

It seems like just yesterday that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit blasted President Obama's unprecedented act of claiming the Senate was in recess to place unpopular appointees on the National Labor Relations Board. Oh, that's right. It was just yesterday.

Slamming the administration in a blistering unanimous decision, Chief Judge David Sentelle wrote, "We will not do violence to the Constitution by ignoring the Framers’ choice of words."

Early this morning, The Daily Caller reports, another federal judge slammed the Obama EPA for mandating the use of nonexistent biofuels. Go figure.

A federal court delivered a serious blow to the Environmental Protection Agency’s renewable fuel agenda, ruling that the agency exceeded its authority by mandating refiners use cellulosic biofuels, which isn’t commercially available.

The court sided with the country’s chief oil and gas lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, in striking down the 2012 EPA mandate that would have forced refineries to purchase more than $8 million in credits for 8.65 million of gallons of the cellulosic biofuel. However, none of the biofuel is commercially available.

“[W]e agree with API that EPA’s 2012 projection of cellulosic biofuel production was in excess of the agency’s statutory authority,” reads the court decision...

The Obama administration is operating without any concern for the law. I believe that they have failed to consider the full implications of their behavior.

Lawlessness begets lawlessness. Which explains rallies like this one.

And signs like this.

If a president operates with reckless disregard for the law, why would the citizenry behave any differently?

BUT YOU STILL NEED TO DRIVE A SMART CART, PEON: China's record-level air pollution, as seen from space

Perhaps someone could alert "Richard Windsor" to this breaking story:

NASA's Earth Observatory this week released startling before-and-after photos of northeastern China, where residents in Beijing and other cities have been suffering from suffocating levels of smog and air pollution. The satellite images, embedded below, were taken from the same position in space, 11 days apart; the top photo was captured on January 14th, the bottom on January 3rd.

As the images make clear, Beijing has seen increased haze, cloud, and fog coverage over this period, though these formations are far from typical...

...Perhaps most terrifying, though, is the fact that NASA's images weren't even taken at the height of China's smog crisis. When the January 14th photo was captured, Beijing's air quality index (AQI) stood at 341 — well above the 300 AQI threshold at which air is considered to be hazardous to all humans, but far below the city's high point. Conditions reached a nadir, in fact, on January 12th, when the AQI in Beijing reached a staggering 775. According to independent air quality monitors at the US Embassy, PM2.5 particle pollution readings in Beijing over the weekend were literally "beyond index."

Red China has yet to address its catastrophic environmental problems, which dwarf those of the U.S. in every way imaginable. Despite this, the Obama EPA is completely out of control, issuing regulations, shutting down businesses, and violating sunshine laws (as evidenced by the unlawful email scam that led to the resignation of EPA chief Lisa Jackson).


Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News.

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT TELL THOMAS FRIEDMAN: "Air Pollution From Cars Is Killing Everyone In Beijing"

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has, on numerous occasions, praised the governmental structure and leadership of the People's Republic of China. To do so, he studiously must ignore Red China's "re-education" camps, its slave laborers, its systematic persecution of religious practitioners, and its controlled economy. The latter requires government approval and intervention for virtually every business in the country and has spurred the growth of a corrupt and dangerous form of crony capitalism.

And then there's the PRC's destruction of the environment:

No one would ever go to Beijing for its crisp air and clear skies, but smog problem in China's capital has, evidently, gotten way out of control.

NPR reported Saturday that the smog in the second-most populous Chinese city was thick and causing people's eyes to burn, with residents being urged to stay indoors...

...It's so severe that the level of pollution was, according to NPR, "literally off the charts," because the U.S. Embassy's smog index stops at 500 and the projected index in Beijing was closer to 800. Things in the 300 or higher range are usually pretty bad to begin with.

The contributing factors to heavy smog? Cars, of course, which have exploded in popularity in the last decade in China, and in Beijing in particular. There have been measures to slow the car congestion, but things like limiting the amount of new vehicle registrations have just made people stand in long lines. And talk offering rebates on electric vehicles sounds like a great idea, until you remember that it's coal producing most of the city's electricity.

Perhaps we should require Thomas Friedman to run the Beijing Marathon before publishing future advertisements for Communism.


Hat tip: BadBlue Car News.

GEE, YOU MEAN IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FINANCIAL SENSE? GE Abandons Plans to Buy 25,000 Electric and Hybrid Vehicles

Forrest Gump could have predicted this frickin' mess.

While General Electric has a vested interest in see electric and plug-in hybrid cars storm the car market, GE has apparently had a change of heart. The electronics and aviation giant announced that it was no longer seeking to replace much of its fleet with 25,000 hybrid and electric vehicles. Instead, GE will pursue other alt-fuel options, including CNG and propane.

That isn’t to say GE is completely abandoning its plans to buy electrified vehicles; just a few months ago GE announced that it would be buying 2,000 Ford C-Max Energi plug-in hybrids to bolster its fleet. Add to that the thousands of Chevy Volts GE has already purchased, and it is fair to say that GE put its money where its mouth is.

Unfortunately, as GE soon found out, hybrids and electric vehicles don’t make financial sense for every job or situation. With many GE employees logging an average of 100 miles or more a day, the hybrids face diminishing returns when it comes to fuel savings, and a Chevy Volt is a poor replacement for a work truck or van.

Electric and hybrid vehicles don't make any financial sense? I'll alert the media.


Hat tip: BadBlue Car News.

15-YARD OVERSHARE PENALTY: NBC's Al Roker Admits He Sharted at the White House

Because I know how to sniff out the crucial, up-to-the-minute news stories:

Al Roker made an embarrassing admission during Dateline on Sunday when he recalled an incident that happened after undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 2002.

While being interviewed by correspondent Nancy Snyderman, MD, the weatherman – who lost more than 100 lbs. following the surgery – confessed to having an accident while at the White House.

"When you have a bypass and your bowels [have] been reconstructed, you think you're pretty safe," Roker begins in the video on TMZ.com... "And I probably went off and ate something I wasn't supposed to. And as I'm walking to the press room … I gotta pass a little gas here. I'm walking by myself. Who's gonna know? Only a little something extra came out," the news anchor explains.

...In the moments after the incident, an anxious Roker, 58, had to think fast.

"I was panicking, so I got to the restroom of the press room, threw out the underwear and just went commando."

You know, if I'd ever sharted at the White House, I'd keep that little tidbit to myself. But that's just me.


Hat tip: BadBlue Fame.

JUST PERFECT: New "Eco-friendly" AC Coolant Said to Catch Fire, Poison Humans, Melt Windshields

Chalk this up as yet another epic failure by the ecotards (which is the term they prefer, I hear).

The case of Dupont and Honeywell's refrigerant R-1234yf is doing the exact opposite of keeping things cool. The two chemical companies have spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing R-1234yf to replace R-134a, the new refrigerant shown to be 99.7-percent kinder to the environment than the one it is meant to succeed... [After testing, the EU declared] that new and significantly revised cars from 2013 onward needed to use R-1234yf, and mandated that every car as of 2017 must use it.

Enter Daimler AG. The automaker created a head-on collision test with a B-Class at their Sindelfingen test track that would lead to the pressurized refrigerant being sprayed on the engine. The result in 20 out of 20 test[s] was that the refrigerant burst into flames as soon as it hit the hot engine... Another unexpected result of the R-1234yf test was the release of hydrogen flouride, a chemical far more deadly to humans than hydrogen cyanide, emitted in such amounts that it that turned the windshield white as it began to eat into the glass.

Said a Daimler engineer in a Reuters piece, "It was scarcely believable. The most complicated lab tests conducted using the most sensitive measuring instruments around found nothing and all we do is drive a car around a couple of times, open a tiny hole in the refrigerant line and the next thing you know the car is on fire." So Daimler said it wouldn't use the refrigerant, and it recalled the cars it had already shipped with R-1234yf.

...At least two other German and Austrian testing agencies have cautioned against the new chemical, a German firefighters organization has lobbied to have it banned while a rival German firefighters organization has cleared it for use, some German authorities are asking that automakers be given more time by the EU to conduct more tests, and it's reported that 13 carmakers have begun their own testing based on Daimler's initial findings.

A report in Bloomberg says that Volkswagen has joined Daimler in refusing to use R-1234yf in its cars. There aren't any 2013 VW models that fall under the EU mandate for use this year, so the fact that VW is speaking up means it wishes to lodge a vocal protest. Other automakers are still committed to the new chemical; Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC are still switching over in 2013, and Toyota in the EU has gone on record saying it hasn't found any safety issue with R-1234yf. The EU says it will enforce its decree [and] a Honeywell manager say[s], "The key element for the EU government is forcing the implementation of their rule."

Ain't central planning grand?

Hopefully this "green initiative" doesn't cost as many lives as the eco-Statists' last big propaganda campaign.


Hat tip: BadBlue Car News.

STUNNING: Ohio State Researchers Discover Crippling Flaw in Batteries Powering Chevy Volts, Other EVs

Well, slap me on the butt and call me Nancy.

[Researchers at] Ohio State University [raised] new questions about the functional lifetime of a typical lithium-ion battery as used in a hybrid or battery electric vehicle.

A couple of Buckeye engineers found that, over time, a battery's lithium accumulates on the sheet of copper that serves as a "current collector" that transfers energy. With lithium ions traveling between the anode and cathode, lithium was previously thought to collect only on the anode's surface as the battery ages.

The issue of battery life and energy retention has been a major one as automakers offering electric-drive vehicles need to assure potential buyers that the newfangled car's battery life will equal or exceed the timeframe of typical vehicle ownership. General Motors gives an eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty on the batteries in the Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug-in (longer in California), while Nissan has said the battery pack for the all-electric Leaf will have 80 percent capacity after five years and 70 percent after a decade. Nonetheless, Nissan has been getting flak from a group of Leaf owners in Arizona who said their cars' battery capacity was shrinking more quickly than advertised. Perhaps OSU's research will help future electric vehicles avoid similar complaints...

Brainstorm! If you bundled campaign contributions for President Obama and would like to start a "green energy" company, I've got just the thing. Name your company something cool ("Lightbringer" comes to mind) and claim you're going to solve this very problem. The Department of Energy, I'm guessing, would be champing at the bit to send you $100 million or so of the taxpayers' loot.


Hat tip: BadBlue Car News.

Train Carrying Biofuel Crosses Border 24 Times Without Unloading to Exploit Obama "Green Energy" Loopholes

But, hey: it's not like the U.S. is running trillion dollar deficits or anything.

A cargo train filled with biofuels crossed the border between the US and Canada 24 times between the 15th of June and the 28th of June 2010; not once did it unload its cargo, yet it still earned millions of dollars. CBC News of Canada was the first to pick up on this story on the 3rd of December 2012, and began their own investigation into the possible explanations behind this odd behaviour.

CN Rail, the operator of the train, stated their innocence in the matter as they had only “received shipping directions from the customer, which, under law, it has an obligation to meet. CN discharged its obligations with respect to those movements in strict compliance with its obligations as a common carrier, and was compensated accordingly.” Even so, they still managed to earn C$2.6 million in shipping fees.

During their investigation CBC managed to obtain an internal email which stated that the cars of the train were all reconfigured between each trip but that the cargo was never actually unloaded, because “each move per car across the border is revenue generated”, the sale of the cargo itself was inconsequential.

The cargo of the train was owned by Bioversal Trading Inc., or its US partner Verdero, depending on what stage of the trip it was at. The companies “made several million dollars importing and exporting the fuel to exploit a loophole in a U.S. green energy program.” Each time the loaded train crossed the border the cargo earned its owner a certain amount of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), which were awarded by the US EPA to “promote and track production and importation of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.” The RINs were supposed to be retired each time the shipment passed the border, but due to a glitch not all of them were. This enabled Bioversal to accumulate over 12 million RINs from the 24 trips, worth between 50 cents and $1 each, which they can then sell on to oil companies that haven’t met the EPA’s renewable fuel requirements...

When we get an adult in the White House, the first order of business should be to nuke the EPA's budget from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.


Hat tip: LVN.

OH, MY: Some Chevy Dealers Opting Out of Selling Volts

Eh, perhaps it's because they don't want to expand their carbon footprint, or something.

According to Automotive News, the sales of the Volt at some dealerships does not justify the cost of special tools needed to repair and service the vehicles. Dealers are spending up to $5,000 on tools, including a new item that is needed to drain the vehicle’s battery to send back to GM in case of repairs.


Despite sales of the Volt reaching 20,828 through November, some dealers are unable to sell enough of the range-extended electric cars to make up the cost of the parts. Requiring to sell just five Volts to break-even on the costs of the tools, some dealers are instead opting out of the Volt authorized dealer program...

For those of you wondering, the accompanying photo (as I understand it) depicts the first Volt arriving at a dealership sometime last year.

PHOTOS: The $17M mansion the founder of an electric car maker bought after getting $465M in federal green energy loans

Let me guess: he's doing it for the children. His children, that is.

Taxpayers footed the bill for a $465 million loan to troubled electric carmaker Tesla as part of President Barack Obama’s “green energy” stimulus. But Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk is now riding high with the purchase of his new $17 million mansion.

Here's a photo of the exterior of Musk's home in Bel Air, a 20,000-square foot palace equipped with wine cellar, tennis court, and pool.

Mr. Musk’s 20,248-square-foot hilltop mansion boasts breathtaking views, a two-story library with rolling ladder, a home theater, and a five-car garage to house his taxpayer-subsidized, pricey Tesla vehicles.

In September, The New York Times reported that Tesla had burned through cash and missed production targets, raising “questions about the long-term viability of the company” and igniting “ criticism of the government’s energy loan program, which has been heavily promoted by the Obama administration..."

Reportedly you can see the ocean from the terrace.

Coincidentally I'm sure, Musk donated over $100,000 to the Obama 2012 campaign.

And Tesla produced a grand total of 359 cars last quarter.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: when the complete history of the Obama administration is written, it will make the Teapot Dome look like a case of shoplifting.

Never have so few stolen so much from so many.


Hat tips: Sad Hill News and Lee.

Richard Windsor Resigns as Head of EPA

Or is the name Lisa Jackson? I'm so confused.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson has decided to resign her post as top environmental regulator, a move that comes as Congress applies pressure on her for complicating oversight of the EPA by using at least one secondary email address under an alias.

...Lawmakers and the EPA inspector general wonder if Jackson used a private email account created under an alias to develop those policies in a way that would be invisible to watchdogs and congressional oversight...

...Jackson used a private email under the alias “Richard Windsor” to correspond with EPA colleagues, a decision her staff defended by saying that her official email account received too many messages for her to use it efficiently.

Her official email received too many messages?

Gee, I'm no Bill Gates, but I figure with 17,000 employees and an $8 billion budget the EPA could marshal the necessary brainpower to add a lisa.jackson2@epa.gov to their Exchange server.

Investors Business Daily summarizes the story as a question: "Is The EPA's Lisa Jackson Trying To Dodge A Federal Probe?"

Answer: of course she is. Just add this scandal to the list.

I WONDER WHY THEY WAITED UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION? EPA Cranks Out Third Job-Killing Regulation in a Week

Merry Christmas, Tiny Tim: the EPA has issued yet another devastating regulation. The Boiler MACT rule will hit American companies with a double whammy: it will kill jobs and spike the prices of almost every good and service. Oh, and there's an added bonus: it will make U.S. companies even less competitive internationally.

The National Association of Manufacturers is calling out the Obama administration.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) President and CEO Jay Timmons issued this statement on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final Boiler MACT regulation:

“For the second straight week, the EPA has finalized another costly and crippling regulation at a time when our economy is on the brink. Boiler MACT will not create jobs, and studies indicate it could cost manufacturers as much as $14 billion. Manufacturers are understandably growing more pessimistic about the direction of the economy. The end-of-year regulatory assault on businesses, combined with the uncertainty of the fiscal cliff, makes for one of the worst business environments in living memory.

...this regulation remains far from being realistic. Currently, it is 20 percent more expensive to manufacture in the United States compared to our major trading partners, and Boiler MACT will only drive that differential higher...

And, as usual, these regulations were all withheld from the American public until after the election. This is just another example of how the progressive Left must hide who they are from the American people. It's called deception.

It's not just the fiscal cliff we have to worry about. It's not just the overhang of deficits. It's also the intentional, wanton destruction of the American manufacturing sector, pursued by the eco-statist Left through hundreds of thousands of pages of excessive regulations and executed by thousands of unelected, nameless bureaucrats.

Everyone with two neurons to rub together knows that the federal government has a catastrophic addiction to spending. And I can think of no better way to start fixing that problem than by nuking the EPA's budget, say, by 90 percent. Nuke it. It's the only way to be sure.

COLOR ME SURPRISED: Another Fatal Smart Car Accident

Driving around a golf cart on roads populated by real vehicles is like a 150-pounder trying to play offensive line in the NFL:

An Upland man was killed Wednesday... following a crash on the eastbound 210 Freeway east of Towne Avenue. Antonio Sanchez, 62, was pronounced dead at the scene around 2:45 a.m., according to a California Highway Patrol news release.

Sanchez was traveling east on the 210 freeway near Towne Avenue when he was involved in a minor crash, according to CHP officials... Sanchez's Smart Car was disabled and remained in the fast lane of the freeway without it's lights on, officials said.

Shortly after the initial crash, a motorist in a 1996 Toyota Camry rear-ended the Smart Car... The driver of the Camry was taken to Pomona Valley Community Hospital with minor to moderate injuries.

This was a Camry versus a Smart Car. You can only imagine, say, a Lincoln Navigator hitting one. Or a semi.

And these are the kinds of cars that the Obama EPA intends all of us to drive, at the trifling cost of only $6,700 per car.


Image: SmartCarWreck.com.

AWESOME: EPA-mandated "green" fuel likely to damage auto engines

And even Government Motors is complaining about the ongoing eco-lunacy of the Obama EPA.

AAA urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to halt sales of gasoline with higher ethanol concentrations Friday, contending the fuel blend causes engine damage not covered under most auto warranties.

EPA says that cars made in the model year 2001 and later can handle E15, the fuel blend made up of 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent petroleum...

General Motors vehicles model years 2012 and newer, as well as 2013 model-year Ford vehicles, permit use of E15. Still, GM spokeswoman Sharon Basel said the automaker agrees with AAA [and] said EPA was being "irresponsible" by permitting the use of E15 without evaluating the fuel's effects on the entire car.

"We have the same opinion, the same view as what AAA has so eloquently put in their release," Basel told The Hill on Friday.

AAA noted BMW, Chrysler, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen do not cover damage from E15 under their warranties. Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo have said E15 damage might void warranties, according to AAA.

If we had adult leadership in Washington, the EPA would receive a 90 percent budget cut. Essential services only. All of the other bureaucrats, regulators and useless, Statist hacks should be required to get real jobs, so they can see how we peons live under their senseless, maddening dictates.


Image: Examiner.

HARD TO KEEP UP WITH THE SCANDALS: EPA said to have broken law by using secret email accounts to hide radical agenda

At the rate this administration is going, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Kim Kardashian is involved in a secret love triangle with Jay Carney and David Axelrod.

I refer, of course, to the daily stream of scandals involving the Obama administration and its many tentacles. The latest shoe to drop, outside of the Benghazi-related sex scandals, is the unsurprising report that the EPA's top dogs have been routinely breaking the law for years.

The name Richard Windsor may sound innocuous, but it is allegedly one of the secret “alias” email accounts used by Obama EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

...In his book [“The Liberal War on on Transparency", author Chris] Horner revealed the existence of “alias” email accounts used by EPA administrators. The first such transparency dodge, he writes, came from Carol Browner, former director of the Obama White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy and Bill Clinton’s EPA administrator.

“You remember Ms. Browner, the lady who suddenly ordered her computer hard drive reformatted and backup tapes erased, hours after a federal court issued a ‘preserve’ order … that her lawyers at the Clinton Justice Department insisted they hadn’t yet told her about?... The one who said it’s all good because she didn’t use her computer for email anyway? That one.”

Horner said two former “fairly senior” EPA officials contacted him while he was researching his book, and gave him the name of one of the email alias names used by EPA Chief Jackson... “Richard Windsor” was just “[o]ne of the alternate email addresses she used...”

...“These alias accounts, from their origin and use under Browner to their use by Browner’s successor, are now the subject of a lawsuit..." [because] all government employees are required by federal law to use official email accounts to conduct government business...

Jackson, of course, is a hard left "eco-warrior" who has pushed the EPA to enact the most radical, anti-business regulations in American history.

And Horner asserts that other top officials are also using private email accounts to avoid Freedom of Information requests.

That Jackson would illegally hide her agenda from public scrutiny is precisely what we've come to expect from "the most transparent administration ever".

"WE GOT S***": Obama Refugee camps in New Jersey lack heat, power, basic sanitation facilities

As USA Today observes, "Camp Freedom" more closely "resembles a prison camp".

As he lights up a Marlboro and takes a slow drag before exhaling, Brian Sotelo is a man who finally has reached his breaking point.

Anger drips from every word as he peers at the tops of white tents rising over the trees in the distance. The depth of despair in his eyes is difficult to fathom.

...He stood and talked in the cool morning air a short distance up the road after security at the front gate threatened to have his car removed outside the entrance to what Sotelo's identification tag calls "Camp Freedom," even though it more closely resembles a prison camp.

The Seaside Heights, N.J., resident was at a Toms River, N.J., arena with his wife and three kids a half hour before the shelter opened as superstorm Sandy approached last week. On Wednesday, Sotelo was part of a contingent shifted to this makeshift tent city in a parking lot across the road from a racetrack about 30 miles north...

"Sitting there last night you could see your breath," Sotelo said. Outside temperatures hovered below freezing, in the upper 20s and low 30s. "At (the arena) the Red Cross made an announcement that they were sending us to permanent structures up here that had just been redone, that had washing machines and hot showers and steady electric, and they sent us to tent city. We got (expletive).

...No media is allowed inside the fenced complex, which houses operations for Jersey Central Power & Light's army of workers from out of the area...

..Sotelo scrolls through the photos he took inside the facility as his wife, Renee, huddles for warmth inside a late-model Toyota Corolla stuffed with possessions, having to drive out through the snow and slush to tell their story. Temperatures Thursday finally made it into the upper 40s. Images on the small screen include lines of outdoor portable toilets, of snow and ice breaching the bottom of the tent and an elderly woman sitting up, huddled in blankets.

All the while, a black car with tinted windows crests the hill and cruises by, as if to check on the proceedings.

Somehow, "Camp Freedom" seems an apt name for this sort of facility. And I can't help but think of this entrance to another camp.

This sign reads "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work makes one free".


Hat tip: WyBlog and BadBlue News.

CHART: Wind speed and Mean Sea Level Pressure, East Coast of the United States, Last Wednesday Night

Spotted at @RyanMaue's Twitter feed:

As an aside, President Bomber Jacket McPhoto-op doesn't appear in this photo from the Dissociative Press:

More than two million people in New York and New Jersey remain without power.

So let me be the first to say, "Heckuva job, Bammy!"