I'm watching a live feed of the House of Representatives, where they are debating an Energy bil which would increase taxes on oil companies and subsidize clean and renewable energy.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) is offering a motion to recommit which would insert the "Protect America Act" (aka the Spy on America and Grant Retroactive Immunity to the Telecoms Act).
With his typical charm and wit, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-MI) raised a point of order against Hoekstra's motion. Point of order sustained. Hoekstra appeals. The House is now voting on the motion to table the appeal of the ruling of the Chair (today it's Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)).
While I don't have much time to write at the moment, I'll point out two things:
- Big Telecom wants this immunity because they've been investing billions into systems to divert and copy fiber optic traffic for the purposes of data mining and spying at various peering points. They also stand to risk billions in judgements and legal fees (and jail time for executives?) if they're not granted immunity, because they've been complicit in a conspiracy to illegally wiretap the entire country.
- While renewable energy may not be great for Detroit, the technological investment and R&D for developing truly renewable fuel and energy sources would help the economy. There would be jobs for smart people to think about these things and develop solutions, as well as jobs for the labor needed to implement stuff.
- Here's a question: wouldn't Google have an interest in developing energy sources to power their massive data centers? Who do they buy their power from? More importantly, how much does fuel for their backup generators cost? Hey, Larry and Sergey! It doesn't matter if you own your own seperate backbone if there isn't any juice to run your data centers. If you want to be self-sufficient, be self-sufficient. Or, you could always invade a country.
Actually, google does invest in alternate energy sources.
-They have most of their car shelters layered with solar panels.
-A fair number of their backup generators can use bio-diesel.
-They encourage the use of electric carts and bikes to get too and fro on their larger campuses (which isn't precisely alternate energy, but is close)
In fact, the office parks they've got in RTP occasionally manage to put power back into the grid.