Chu to the Rescue: Former DOE Sec Profits from Regs He Made
Let’s see, ascend to a powerful, important position in Washington, DC–one where you have your hands on the levers of power. Pull those levers to put in place some of the most onerous regulations imaginable that will make companies pay out the nose to (unbelievably) “capture carbon” so the carbon doesn’t escape, like a fugitive criminal, into the atmosphere. Then create low interest loans and outright government grants to companies to create the technology that companies will need to meet the strict new standards. Oh, and after you help create those new rules and the programs to fund the technology, leave that position and go to work for a tech company that happens to provide a solution to meet the new regulations you just created. All very cozy, don’t you think? That’s what former Sec. of the Dept. of Energy Steven Chu has done.
Canadian carbon capture company Inventys Thermal Technologies announced last week that Chu will join their board for undisclosed boatloads of money and stock options to “advise them” in their quest to dominate the carbon capture market, playing off fears of global warming and strict government regulations that will require companies to do something to (unbelievably) capture carbon. The only word we can think of that’s appropriate is: “incestuous”…
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We may have just found a good reason to become Amish. The Columbus Dispatch has an article today about how some (many?) in Ohio’s Amish community are “flipping” their royalty rights–selling future potential royalty payments for a lump sum now–and leaving Ohio for greener pastures in PA or NY–in areas where shale gas drilling is either nonexistent or far less active than it is in the white hot eastern OH area.
MDN reported the sad news on Friday that PA’s Supreme Court gutted big and important parts of the Act 13 legislation passed in early 2012 (see