Obama’s Economic Recovery ‘Advisory’ Board: Little dissent, lots of self-dealing on climate

GreenHellBlog

President Obama’s so-called Economic Recovery Advisory Board held its first quarterly meeting today — it was a spectacle of the sort of self-dealing and corruption that we may rightly expect to become routine if cap-and-trade legislation passes.

After the meeting, CNBC’s Becky Quick interviewed ERAB board member John Doerr, head of the venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins — that’s right, the very same Kleiner Perkins that has invested more than $1 billion in 40 cap-and-trade-dependent business ventures and that has Al Gore as a partner.

Doerr said that ERAB talked about the need for:

* Green technologies;
* Cap-and-trade; and
* Rewarding electric utilities for selling less electricity.

Doerr also told Quick that an EPA analysis showed that cap-and-trade would cost Americans less than $100 per year. (LOL!)

But we have no reason to believe that Doerr wouldn’t say and do absolutely anything to help ram through cap-and-trade legislation that would enable his firm to steal billions of dollars from consumers and taxpayers through bogus Al Gore-endorsed “green technologies.”

If you’re thinking that Doerr is only one voice on the ERAB and that less-biased heads will prevail, think again. Here are the other ERAB members and their interests/positions on cap-and-trade:

* Austan Goolsbee as staff director and chief economist (Obama administration);
* William H. Donaldson, SEC Chair, 2003-05 (Obama supporter who has spoken in support of climate legislation);
* Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., president and CEO, TIAA-CREF (TIAA-CREF promotes climate change legislation through shareholder activism and possibly stands to benefit from “green” investments);
* Robert Wolf, chairman and CEO, UBS (sells climate change-related financial products);
* David F. Swensen, CIO, Yale University (Yale supports climate change legislation);
* Mark T. Gallogly, founder and managing partner, Centerbridge Partners L.P. (early Obama supporter);
* Penny Pritzker, chairwoman, Pritzker Realty Group (Obama campaign finance chairman);
* Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO, GE (parent company of NBC News) (lobbying for climate legislation through USCAP);
* John Doerr, partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (lobbying for climate legislation through Al Gore);
* Jim Owens, chairman and CEO, Caterpillar Inc. (lobbying for climate change legislation through USCAP);
* Monica C. Lozano, publisher & chief executive officer, La Opinion (her newspaper endorsed Obama);
* Charles E. Phillips, Jr., president, Oracle (wants to use Oracle technology to ration electricity to consumers through a “smart grid”);
* Anna Burger, chairwoman, Change to Win (union group that supports green jobs);
* Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasurer, AFL-CIO (the union has joined with greens to lobby for climate legislation);
* Laura D’Andrea Tyson, dean, Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley (Obama supporter who has advocated climate change legislation);
* Martin Feldstein, professor of Economics, Harvard (opposes cap-and-trade)

So of the 16 members of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, only one (Feldstein) opposes cap-and-trade. At least six (Immelt, Owens, Doerr, Ferguson, Wolf, Phillips) expect direct financial benefits from cap-and-trade. The remaining members are either Obama supporters/employees or union representatives. Taxpayers, consumers and non-rent-seeking businesses have been left out in the cold.

Click here for the Quick-Doerr interview. Don’t miss Green Hell endorser Larry Kudlow’s anti-green fusillade at the end.


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