Social Security spends $700,000 on Phoenix conference

PHOENIX -- A Social Security Administration motivational management conference held at a high-end Valley resort last week cost $700,000, the SSA told the ABC15 Investigators.

Costs for the conference at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa included airfare, hotel entertainment, dancers, motivational speakers, and food, an administration official said.

Progress in Climate Change Talks, and a U.S. Plan That Needs Improvement - washingtonpost.com

Sadly, we have no confidence that things will improve in the Senate. Despite holding a news conference in February declaring that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee would be "starting fresh" and that "we're willing to look at everything," Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is using the cap-and-trade provisions of Waxman-Markey as the template for her committee's bill. Her committee staff promises that members are being creative in looking at how to do things differently to achieve the bill's goals. Unless that includes serious consideration of a properly designed carbon tax or a cleaner cap-and-trade system that auctions a majority of the emissions credits and rebates the money to taxpayers, that's a promise that won't be fulfilled.

Greentech Media: Reality Check: How Much Impact Can the Feds Have on Solar?

"The tax equity market has collapsed. Unless we revive that market concurrently, then we are heading to a cliff," Zanoli said. "The cash grant is only a two-year program – what happens when the government no longer writes checks?"

NYTimes: Solar power still a "pipsqueak"

But even with the increases of the last decade, solar power is a pipsqueak among energy sources; it represents about one-quarter of 1 percent of California’s total energy capacity, according to the California Energy Commission. Nationally, according to the Energy Information Administration, it represents about 0.02 percent of total capacity, but those federal figures are incomplete: they reflect only centralized facilities, not distributed rooftop installations.