Picture of Senator Broadway and Obama's Net Zero Energy Dream Home

(Broadway Is Running for Arkansas Lt. Governor on Democratic Ticket)

Imagine a time during a summer like this one, the government can control your thermostat and set it at 85 degrees. Or even worse, imagine the time when the government decides air conditioning is overrated as a Washington Post writer did this week, saying, "A.C.'s obvious public-health benefits during severe heat waves do not justify its lavish use in everyday life for months on end. Less than half a century ago, America thrived with only the spottiest use of air conditioning."

Imagine the time when the government mandates that you spend $20,000 to retrofit your house for "environmental improvements" before you will be "allowed" to sell it or rent it. And imagine adding $20,000 for recycled building supplies for your new house and for insulation to seal it up so tight in order to protect the environment and our Earth that it will be unhealthy for people to live in. (Google "sick house syndrome" to learn more about this.) Environmentalists in the US and around the world are discussing and pushing for all these things.

There is a word the true liberals use to incorporate all of the above environmental issues and more, and Senator Shane Broadway (the Democrat candidate for Lt. Governor in Arkansas) is well aware of it. It is called sustainable development which includes sustainable building design. This word is like a code word. Liberals can use it and know exactly what they are talking about while the ordinary person still understands sustainable in it traditional meaning. Arkansas is well ahead of most of the states in this movement.

Senator Shane Broadway has teamed up with the most liberal legislator in Arkansas, and the first-ever openly gay Arkansas legislator, Kathy Webb, and sponsored several global warming (or climate change) bills in 2009 that kick the can along toward these wacky environmentalists' goals. Back in 2005 Broadway sponsored a bill that set up the Legislative Task Force on Sustainable Building Design. The committee has about three legislators on it, and about ten people who are non- legislator members, probably pros in the environmentalist movement that point them in the direction of the national leftist environmentalists.

In 2009 Broadway sponsored SB 921 (Act 1372) "To Create The Sustainable Building Design Program for State Agencies." It is only two pages long and looks almost like a shell bill to be filled in later without whatever the administration desires. If one did not know what sustainable meant, the bill would appear innocent enough. Another word for sustainable building design is "green building design." But if Broadway had used green building in his bill, someone might catch on to the real meaning of the bill.

In 2009 Broadway also sponsored two appropriation bills, one in the amount of $20 million and the other for $15 million for the Sustainable Building Design. One has to know this is only the beginning for this new sustainable building program bureaucracy. Every state building in the state, including colleges, now has to have an energy audit within the next five years. When Broadway sponsored the first bill for an adequacy study of all the school buildings in the state in 2004 , the study alone costs only $10 million. Later the study came back recommending $2.5 to 4.5 billion for school improvement changes.

One has to read the minutes of the Task Force that Broadway's bill set up in 2005 to learn what Senator Broadway is really up to. The vocabulary is not totally sanitized in those minutes; therefore, the liberals' real plans are revealed in them to some extent. Governor Beebe also set up a Global Warming Commission in 2007, naming the radical liberal Kathy Webb mentioned above as Co-Chair. Webb and Broadway are both Co-Chairs of the Sustainable Building task force above. How convenient!

There is proof that the two committees worked hand in hand. For example, the March, 2008 minutes of this Task Force consisted of Webb's presentation on the ten priorities of the Global Warming Commission. Under the first priority this point is listed: "Promotion and Incentives for Improved Design and Construction, e.g. LEED, green buildings." 1

Viola! In 2009 the Arkansas Energy Office on their website heralds eleven new energy related bills, the most critical ones being sponsored and co-sponsored by Broadway and Webb. This Arkansas Energy Office is actually channeling money from the Stimulus bill to the Clinton Foundation Climate Initiative. 2 Think about that for a minute. (More about Clinton's foundation later, but this last action does not sound ethical to me.)

Broadway's bills take another step toward aligning Arkansas with the leftists' national and international goals. "The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is committed to improving the most popular model residential energy code by 30% by 2012 and moving to net zero energy homes by 2020." The European Union and United Nations have about the same goals. (Can you imagine how any one with common sense can think it is possible to build houses that would have NO energy costs? Or if it were possible, can you imagine what it would cost or what sacrifices the American people would have to make? Note the picture above of the zero energy house that is proudly posted several places on the web. 3

The first major step toward those goals is embodied in the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). Thanks to Senator Broadway's bills and his work on the Arkansas Sustainable Building Design Task Force, Arkansas is one of only nine states that have officially adopted the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code IECC. (One source said 9 states and another source said 14 states)

"Energy use in all existing state buildings must be reduced by 20 percent of 2008 levels by 2014 and 30 percent by 2017," is now a requirement in Arkansas according to this website: http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=AR07R&re=1&ee=1 How do you think these state buildings are going to reach that without causing great discomfort to workers and citizens? And who, other than the taxpayer, is going to pay for all the labor and materials to bring these buildings up to these standards? 4

"Buildings in the United States, in their production and use, consume an estimated 40-65% of our national energy total." If the liberals can prescribe the energy requirements for buildings, they have implemented about 50% of their global warming (climate change) agenda even without the cap and trade bill. 5

I am sure you have noted how the Stimulus bill is being used for grants in numerous ways to coerce states and communities to implement the Obama and Pelosi agenda. The "green building" plan is no exception. The stimulus bill is funding $3.6 billion of the total $787 billion stimulus fund for the green building program. Broadway's work and legislation have helped Arkansas meet the requirements to obtain Obama's stimulus money. One of the requirements is implementing the unreasonable 2009 IECC standards (mentioned above). Arkansas is one of nine states that have officially done so. But now that grant money is being offered, most of the other states are jumping on board. It is unbelievable that such a small amount of money can buy our entire energy and housing industry, just as a small percentage of the federal funds have allowed the federal government to control our education.

Arkansas Energy Office only received $39.4 million for "Green" programs in Arkansas, and only part of that is going to the building program. For comparison, one school district, Fayetteville High School, is in the planning process of building a $110 million dollar high school. For that measly amount of money Arkansas and the other states across the nation are jumping on board to implement these unreasonably stringent standards that take away the freedom of every citizen in our state and nation to control our lives and our very homes. (And if $3.6 billion can buy the energy and housing industry in 50 states, what can the other $783 billion stimulus bill buy?) Our leaders are truly selling our freedom for a "bowl of pottage."

But in Arkansas, thanks to Broadway, Governor Beebe and other liberal Democrats, Arkansas is way ahead of most states on our progressive global warming energy legislation and did not need the stimulus bill to get them on board. Arkansas has been on board at least since 2005 when Broadway sponsored the bill to set up the Legislative Task Force on Sustainable Building Design.

It is interesting to note that only 22% of Americans consider the UN to be a reliable source of information on global warming and fifty-nine percent (59%) of Americans say it's at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming. And Americans overwhelmingly believe our leaders should focus on the economy instead of global warming issues. Seventy-one percent (71%) say the bigger priority for U.S. national leaders is stimulating the economy to create jobs. Only 15% say they should focus instead on stopping global warming to save the environment. 6.

So Broadway and the liberals in Arkansas are, like Obama and Pelosi, ignoring the people's needs and desires and are focusing on an unproven science of global warming instead of on jobs. According to a newspaper article, "When the goals [protecting the environment and promoting economic development] cannot be reconciled, Beebe said, the environment is his top priority." 7

And while the liberals are pushing for all these environmental changes that will cramp everyone's lifestyles, they are blocking us from drilling for oil in every way possible and even blocking us from utilizing coals for our electrical power plants - even right here in Arkansas. But sixty-seven percent of Americans still want to drill for oil. 8

On September 25, 2008 the Arkansas Governor's Commission on Global Warming adopted a recommendation that no new coal plants be built in the state until carbon sequestration technology is ready. Now a power plant's (SWEPCO in Southern Arkansas) plans have been blocked and is keeping Arkansas from being able to access clean inexpensive power that would have served our needs now and in the future - and which will now be sold out of state � to Louisiana and Texas. Using less coal or no is the reason Obama claimed that with his plans for reduced carbon emission that "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." 9

Be sure to note in the other article I posted the influence Mikhail Gorbachev had in launching the green movement in 1993. Also note the power of President Clinton's Clinton Foundation Climate Initiative that has brought together global leaders, 100 current and former heads of state, hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundation, and prominent members of the media with 1400 commitments valued at $46 billion mostly to bring about the green movement. (All of this done outside of legislation and without representation of the people.)

Just for the record, according to several sources, The Cap and Trade Bill, Sect. 202 (that passed the US House but not the Senate) originally mandated, "a national retrofit program to increase the energy efficiency of all existing homes across America and that unless you retrofit your home to comply with the energy and water efficiency standards of the act you wouldn't be able to sell your home." 10

And in 2008 the California included a regulation that every new home and every renovated heating and air conditioning system would be required by law to include an FM receiver that would allow the Energy Commission to reset the thermostat. An outcry of Californians and people across the nation caused the Commission to withdraw the rule.11

Another article, a longer fully documented version of this information and much more specific, documented information about Broadway's bills and how they tie in with the national and international movement can be found at this link: http://www.wpaag.org/Broadway%20voting%20record%203%20Research.htm or on a fromer post on this blog. I felt like that article needed more background information so I wrote this one. You will only get a true picture by reading the details in that article.

I am convinced that you should read and study the information in the former post referred to in the above paragraph. The liberals always stay several years ahead of conservatives, catch our conservative legislators off guard, and push through this legislation before our conservative legislators know what it is all about. I have seen that happen several times the last few years. For example, all Senators voted for some of these bills by Broadway; and not one Republican Representative actually voted against them. A very few representatives refrained from voting. We must do our research, and as a united group, use our voice to educate our legislators through our outcry about these issues.

For documentation and footnotes on this article, see this link: http://www.wpaag.org/Broadway's%20zero%20energy%20home.htm If I had already included documentation in the former post (article mentioned in above paragraph), I probably did not include them at this link.