(Promoted by Colorado Pols)
Representative Ken Buck (CD4) tweeted yesterday that his amendment helps soldiers “focus on immediate national security needs, not climate change”. However, the Department of Defense’s own analysis says that climate change is a major threat to stability worldwide, and should be included in all planning.
Ken Buck’s tweet on June 14, 2016:
And he’s using Bernie Sanders/ Elizabeth Warren language about “crony capitalism” just to confuse folks:
House is voting right now on my amendment to end crony capitalist subsidies to energy technologies.
— Rep. Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) May 25, 2016
So what’s got Mr. Buck going all “Fight the Power” here? Rep. Buck doesn’t like the Department of Defense spending on renewable energy sources to power its facilities.
For example, Fort Drum, New York has a military base running 100% on biomass. The public might applaud this energy self-sufficiency – remember all that rhetoric about not being “addicted to oil”? But Buck’s standing strong against it. Ken Buck’s amendment would have prevented using renewable energy on this project.
According to Heritage Action for America, a conservative lobbying /watchdog group:
The House will vote on an amendment by Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO)…to H.R. 4909, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017. The amendment would prohibit funding for the renewable energy mandate at DOD and prohibit the Secretary of Defense from purchasing alternative energy unless it is equivalent to conventional energy in terms of cost and capability.
Fortunately, Buck’s Energy Reform Amendment (#245) to the Department of Defense budget was defeated:
The amendment went down to defeat 266-159, with Stefanik and Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, and 81 other Republicans joining 183 Democrats (including Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam) against 159 Republicans favoring it. The $602 billion NDAA, which puts the imprint of Congress on what the U.S. military looks like in the coming year, passed the House on Wednesday night without the amendment 277-147.
So Ken Buck is bragging about an amendment he sponsored to the Defense Department’s 2017 budget, which would have prevented the DoD from using renewable energy. And Buck’s amendment was defeated – the DoD is still going to use renewable energy, because their own analysts say that climate change is a threat to national security.
Nice try, Bucko.
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The fossil fuels industries in the U.S. receive tens of billions of dollars of tax breaks and subsidies from the taxpayer … that's crony capitalism, too.
So, what it really amounts to is that Buck is trying to award even more favors to his big campaign contributors.
Ken Buck — just another hypocritical politician.
Could he be any more of an embarrassment? Has he forgotten that DOD first defined climate change a threat multiplier under the Bush administration??? Does he understand the only reason his constituents have $7 billion in wind farm investments in their district is because of public policy? Oh, never mind.
Have faith in Ken. He'll find a way!
I'd forgotten his #JulesburgJihad moment. <sigh>
There's little daylight between the climate beliefs of Buck and Muslim clerics. Both of their positions are equally absurd.
Pity that there isn't a Fundamentalists of the World conference. Jerry Falwell, Pastor Hagee, Pat Robertson, Steven Anderson, and Gordon Klingenschmitt could promote their ideas that comfortably dressed women, gay people, fornicators, voodoo practitioners, and others cause hurricanes, 9/11,massacres, earthquakes, and disembowelment of pregnant women.
It seems that Muslim fundamentalists have a lot of crazy talk in common with these guys. They should all get together in one low-lying, earthquake – prone, buggy location so that God in one of her/his guises could smack them and their true believers flat with a giant ZOT.
Of course, I'm way too nice a person ever to harbor such a revenge fantasy myself – but it would be such a special occasion.
This. From a Baptist preacher in Sacramento. Any guess on who he's voting for? (I'm guessing Gordon and this man would get along just fine).
The "blow their brains out" is nearly a direct paraphrase from the Republican Beatitudes IIRC
Blessed are the murderous…
There is such a conference at least for North America. It's the annual Values Voters Summit held in D.C.
I've decided to just call him Ken Duck. It's more efficient than Ken Dumbfuck.
or Fen Kuck?
Perhaps someone should remind Mr. Buck that by using renewable energy, at places like Ft. Drum, that frees up oil and gas products to fuel our fighter jets, B-52's etc and therefore we have additional supplies of traditional energy to defend the country.
True, R36. One of the first justifications for using renewables was that they would preserve a future in which commercial air travel is possible.
I suspect that military flight would always be prioritized, but we might lose the ability to get that gizmo overnight from Amazon via air freight.
I'll wait a few days for rail delivery and save jet fuel for visiting my kids in New Haven.