Some of President Barack Obama’s top donors and fundraising bundlers are partners in Amonix Inc., the latest Solyndra-like corporate crash. The company has announced a layoff of 200 workers — two-thirds of its workforce — despite a federal green-technology tax credit of $5.9 million in 2010.

The investors include John Doerr’s venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Daniel Weiss’ Angeleno Group LLC and Steve Westly’s eponymous Westly Group, according to Amonix’s website.
These three investors have also invested heavily in Obama and other Democrats — and the president’s aides are now trying to minimize the political damage.

Spain Halts Renewable Subsidies to Curb $31 Billion of Debts – Bloomberg.

Spain halted subsidies for renewable energy projects to help curb its budget deficit and rein in power-system borrowings backed by the state that reached 24 billion euros ($31 billion) at the end of 2011.
“What is today an energy problem could become a financial problem,” Industry Minister Jose Manuel Soria said in Madrid. The government passed a decree today stopping subsidies for new wind, solar, co-generation or waste incineration plants.

Via SDA

California breaks rank again, demands over 15% of cars sold be non-polluting by 2025.

Less than a year after everyone with any sort of say in the matter seemed to agree that 54.5 miles per gallon by the year 2025 was a properly attainable goal, the California Air Resources Board has decided to change things up a bit.

In addition to CAFE requirements of a 54.5-mpg fleet average (using the government’s formula, not what you see on window stickers), at least 15.4 percent of all cars sold by any major automaker doing business in California will have to be either fully electric, a plug-in hybrid or be powered by a hydrogen fuel cell by 2025. There are questions about the “over-compliance” section of the bill, which we’ll be investigating further.

Since when are coal powered cars non-polluting anyway?

Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again) | Mail Online.

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Buffett’s Burlington Northern Among Winners From Keystone Denial – Bloomberg.

Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.

With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.

A pickup truck collided with a moving train at a crossing outside of Oxbow Sunday evening, derailing 22 cars.

Twenty-two railcars ended up in a field on Sunday night, after a 20-year-old man from Manor slammed his red pickup truck into a moving train near Oxbow.

Light crude oil leaked from six of the cars, with Canadian Pacific (CP) officials and environmental crews on scene throughout Monday to assess the damage and start the cleanup.

The accident happened at an uncontrolled rural train crossing near Highway 18, about 265 kilometres southeast of Regina, at 11 p.m.

1,000 Days Without a Budget: Facts on the Senate’s Failure.

Tuesday, January 24, will mark the 1,000th day since the U.S. Senate has passed a budget—an egregious dereliction of duty on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D–NV) watch. By enacting continuing resolution upon continuing resolution (short-term measures to keep the government running, spending money at the current rate), the Senate has taken a pass on leading, all to the detriment of the poor and middle class.

This week President Obama handed down what may prove to be one of the most fateful decisions of his entire administration when he rejected the plan to build the Keystone XL Pipeline carrying oil from the tar sands of Canada to the refineries of Houston. The decision did not win him one new vote but was crucial in protecting his environmental flank. The movie stars and Sierra Club contributors were getting restless and had drawn the line in the sand.

Dems propose ‘Reasonable Profits Board’ to regulate oil company profits – The Hill’s Floor Action.

Six House Democrats, led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), want to set up a “Reasonable Profits Board” to control gas profits.

The Democrats, worried about higher gas prices, want to set up a board that would apply a “windfall profit tax” as high as 100 percent on the sale of oil and gas, according to their legislation. The bill provides no specific guidance for how the board would determine what constitutes a reasonable profit.

Regina man left in persistent vegetative state.

At 22 years of age, a formerly healthy Regina man was left in a vegetative state — unable to communicate, walk or feed himself — for the remainder of his life.

Pickton failings compared to Bernardo | News Talk 980 CJME.

The same systemic problems that allowed notorious sex killer Paul Bernardo to rape and murder women in Ontario in the late 1980s and early 1990s contributed to the failure of the Vancouver police and RCMP to catch serial killer Robert Pickton, a public inquiry heard Monday.