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So Much For Sequestration: Military Purchases Green Fuel at $59 per Gallon

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Photo Credit: GevoWith many claiming to feel the pangs of the sequestration, it appears a green company’s contract for a more expensive jet fuel was allowed to go through.

The renewable chemical and biofuel company Gevo in its first quarter investor relations report stated that it signed a contract with the Defense Logistics Agency to supply 3,650 gallons of renewable jet fuel.

The order, worth $215,350 total ($59/gallon), is set to be delivered by 2013′s second quarter and has the option to be increased to 12,500 gallons, which would cost up to $737,500.

Gevo calls this an “initial testing phase.”

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Representative: ‘My Constituents Want More Sequestration, Not Less’

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesNobody is particularly happy about the arbitrary, across-the-board spending cuts taking effect as a result of sequestration. That is, except for maybe Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), who said Tuesday that his constituents want even more cuts to kick in.

“The people that I’ve talked to seem to be doing well,” Long told local news affiliate KOLR10 News. “In fact, when I got out in restaurants here in town, people come up to me. They want to see more sequestration, not less.”

Long said people in other parts of the country may be feeling pain as a result of the $85 billion in cuts. But not his community.

“We haven’t seen any measurable effect here at all,” he said.

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Cancer Clinics Still Suffering From Sequester, Ask Why FAA was Fixed, Cancer Ignored

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Photo Credit: José GoulãoCongress should have addressed deep cuts to cancer clinics before tackling airline delays caused by sequestration, people at several of those clinics said Friday.

Both the House and Senate have now voted to restore funding that the Federal Aviation Administration lost through the automatic budget cuts known as “sequestration.” The bill is headed to President Obama’s desk.

Although delays in air travel affect lawmakers personally, cancer clinics say the cuts they are facing under the sequester are far more serious — and should have been a higher priority for Congress.

“I would invite anyone in Washington to come look my patients in the eye and tell them that waiting for a flight is a bigger problem than traveling farther and waiting longer for chemotherapy,” said William Nibley, a doctor at Utah Cancer Specialists in Salt Lake City.

Cancer clinics have seen their Medicare payments slashed under sequestration. They have had to turn away thousands of new patients, and some clinics say they will have to close their doors for good if the sequester cuts are not reversed soon.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama: Pass My Budget or Suffer More 'Pain' (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeIn his weekly address, Pres. Obama threatened Americans with more sequester “pain” if they don’t convince Congress to pass his budget.

First, Obama exploited the sequester’s effect on children, the elderly, and airline travelers:

“Because of these reckless cuts, there are parents whose kids just got kicked out of Head Start programs scrambling for a solution. There are seniors who depend on programs like Meals on Wheels to live independently looking for help. There are military communities – families that have already sacrificed enough – coping under new strains. All because of these cuts.”

“This week, the sequester hurt travelers, who were stuck for hours in airports and on planes, and rightly frustrated by it.”

And, there’s more pain on the horizon, Obama warned: “These cuts are scheduled to keep falling across other parts of the government that provide vital services for the American people.”

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Hill’s Newest Earmarks: Sequester Exemptions

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Photo Credit: AP

Sequestration exemptions are shaping up to be Washington’s newest version of earmarks.

Agencies, companies and other groups are on the hunt for Capitol Hill allies with the juice to save their pet issues from the full force of the across-the-board cuts. Some have already been successful.

The campaigns are just one example of Washington slipping back into business-as-usual, where powerful players are open to satisfying special interests, even on sequester — which wasn’t supposed to play favorites.

“This parochial interest nature of Congress is re-emerging in, I think, an unseemly way,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

“We’re moving into some dangerous territory if we just allow every member to pick areas that they think ought to be changed,” added Sen. Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican who made a name for himself in the House by ridiculing earmarks in appropriations bills.

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Sequestration Solved: New GAO Report Identifies $95 Billion in Overlapping Programs

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Photo Credit: AP

Duplicative drug abuse and treatment services are strewn over 76 federal programs. Housing services are spread across 20 different agencies. Renewable energy projects go through 23 federal agencies and 130 sub-agencies.

Even federal catfish inspections are done by three different agencies. These are only a few of 162 examples identified by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency, of fragmented, duplicative federal programs and services.

The 2013 edition of the annual report originally requested by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, is being released today and it concludes that not only does such managerial dysfunction hobble the federal government, it’s also extraordinarily costly.

“The $95 billion in overlap identified in this report, combined with the $200 billion in overlap identified in GAO’s previous two reports, could easily cover the costs of sequestration,” Coburn told The Washington Examiner.

“Yet, instead of preventing furloughs, reopening air traffic control towers and restoring public access to White House, Congress and the administration continue to defend billions of dollars in duplication programs that are little more than monuments to the good intentions of career politicians in Washington,” he said.

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Safe from Sequester: $704,198 for Gardening at NATO Ambassador’s Home

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Photo Credit: NATO website

Just over a week after sequestration took effect, the State Department allotted more than $700,000 for gardening at a U.S. Ambassador’s residence in Brussels, Belgium.

On March 11, State awarded a contract to provide gardening services at an “official residence” of the U.S. Mission in Belgium.

A State Department spokesperson confirmed to CNSNews.com that the contract is for Truman Hall, a historic property that serves at the residence of the Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The current U.S. ambassador to NATO is Ivo H. Daalder, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in May 2009.

The total award comes to $704,198.30, including $134,744 for the base year and four one-year option periods thereafter.

A State Department spokesperson said that Truman Hall regularly hosts visitors from the 28 NATO nations and other Alliance partner countries around the world and is a valuable platform for America’s diplomacy.

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Hypocrite-in-Chief: Blaming Sequester, Medicare Cancer Patients Turned Away While Obama Gives $1.2 Billion to Green Energy

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Photo Credit: Sarah L. Voisin

Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.

Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially. Patients at these clinics would need to seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the capacity to accommodate them.

“If we treated the patients receiving the most expensive drugs, we’d be out of business in six months to a year,” said Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in New York. “The drugs we’re going to lose money on we’re not going to administer right now.”

After an emergency meeting Tuesday, Vacirca’s clinics decided that they would no longer see one-third of their 16,000 Medicare patients. “A lot of us are in disbelief that this is happening,” he said. “It’s a choice between seeing these patients and staying in business.”

Some who have been pushing the federal government to spend less on health care say this is not the right approach.

Read more from this story HERE.

To read about the $1.2 billion giveaway to green energy companies, click HERE.

DOE Awarding More Than $1.2 Billion in Energy Subsidies Despite Sequester

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Photo Credit: janie.hernandez55

More than $1.2 billion in cash payments has been awarded to renewable energy projects by the Department of Energy and the Treasury Department since the beginning of the year, with the majority of them going to solar electricity.

While other agencies grapple with furloughs and service cuts, the DOE continues to hand out 30 percent of the cost basis for renewable projects under its 1603 program, part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Between January 1 and February 14,$1,254,769,726 was awarded to 435 renewable energy projects, 381 of which were to solar, according to the Heritage Foundation.

The 1603 program had awarded more than $9.2 billion to 748 wind projects and $2.7 billion to more than 44,000 solar projects through July 2012, according to a separate Heritage report.

The program won’t escape the sequester completely unscathed. Projects awarded between March 1 and September 30 will be reduced by 8.7 percent.

But the DOE is pressing ahead with awards to green technology. The department also announced last month it will award $150 million left over from a separate stimulus program, 48C manufacture tax credits.

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Beef With the Sequester? At Least One Federal Program Was Able to Beat It

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Photo Credit: Evan Vucci

The sequester was supposed to be something new in Washington: a budget cut you couldn’t beat. Once it hit, it hit. The money was gone, and nobody could get it back.

That turned out to be true—for about 3 weeks. Then somebody beat it. Last week, President Obama signed a spending bill that gave the Agriculture Department’s food inspectors what everybody else wanted: a get-out-of-the-sequester card. Their program got $55 million in new money, which replaced almost all of what the sequester took.

There’s a story there, about how power and lobbying can still make money appear in Washington, even in this age of austerity. It started with sharp political theater.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack insisted that the sequester would force him to shut down all U.S. meat production on at least 11 days. The inspectors union didn’t believe that. Neither did many in the powerful meat lobby. But they were too worried not to help Vilsack anyway. After an extensive campaign, the Senate gave Vilsack the money.

So the sequester can be hacked. Now, other interest groups are waiting: police officers, airport executives, Border Patrol agents. The question is: Can it be hacked again?

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