With all this talk of oil and energy, I decided to look at the Department of Energy web site to see what it claims to be doing.
Loads of good sounding info, but I decided to go to the budget, as that’s where things usually reveal themselves (follow the money…).
I had no idea how much money the DoE spends, but for ’09 they’ve requested $25 BILLION. Now I’m sure govt lovers and Bush haters will come right out and say “that’s cheaper than Iraq in a week” or whatever, but ignoring that bogus comparison, how much is $25 BILLION?
Well if there’s 300 million men, women, and children in this country, that equates to about $83 EACH, a year.
So, are you happy, that you, your relatives, friends, children, everyone, is paying $83 a year for this fine organization?
Their budget “highlights” document is 113 pages. Yikes.
It says they need that money to “address the growing demand for affordable, clean and reliable energy; preserve our national security; and enable scientific breakthroughs that could have significant impacts on our quality of life and the health of the American people.” Yeah, right. But what do they actually DO?
This is their mission/strategy page: http://www.doe.gov/about/index.htm
On their strategic plan page it says:
By implementing DOE’s Strategic Plan, we are enhancing America’s energy security and sustaining our economic vitality.
EPIC FAIL! Oil is what, $139 today????
So I looked under achievements and awards to see what we might all be getting for $83 a year.
What’s this? Part of their funding went to the human genome project. What has that got to do with energy?
So then I find that their ‘researchers’ helped with research on Climate Change that lead to the IPCC winning the ’07 Nobel Peace Prize. And this is about energy and not weather HOW? This research was done at Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee which has 4200 people and is entirely funded by DoE. Facts about ORNL.
Your tax dollars at work folks.