VA: Green Energy Is A Priority; Healthcare, Not So Much.
We’ve all heard about the ongoing VA health care problems at multiple VA Medical Centers. At least 40 vets appear to have died at the Phoenix VA medical center alone while awaiting medical appointments. God only knows what the total is this year nationwide.
Want to guess what the VA has been doing with literally millions instead of providing health care? Let me warn you: you really don’t want to know.
I’ll tell you anyway. They’re spending millions of dollars on green energy technology. Seriously.
The Washington Times has a short article on the subject. I’m guessing it will turn your stomach when you read it.
The VA doesn’t have a resource problem. It has leadership and priorities problems.
And those leadership and priorities problems are costing some vets their lives.
Category: Veteran Health Care, Veterans' Affairs Department
Sounds like they’re just following the Glorious Leader’s priorities. Tree-hugging snake oil programs are far more important than the lives of current/former military personnel. Just look at the “green” lead-free ammo that chews up M4 barrels like it’s cool and has the shittiest ballistics known to man. Or the “green” fuel the Navy is now buying, for 20x the cost of real fuel, that reportedly ruins engines.
Are you really that surprised?
Other Whitey: frankly, no.
Disgusted, yes. But surprised? No.
“The VA doesn’t have a resource problem. It has leadership and priorities problems.” Thank you Hondo for that statement and the article. The VA has priority problems amongst all their others. How many federal agencies do we have to pursue crap like green energy? Too many to use VA budgeted money for it. But hey, who am I? Right? Just one little taxpayer over here running his mouth.
In a previous professional life I ran a construction group at a medium size solar PV development firm. I am very familiar with the financing, design, build out and operation of commercial PV systems from 50kW through 20MW utility-scale installations across the country. There are a few things that stink here. 1) Financing – I have been involved with creating the financing plan for over 100 systems and all of them, EVERY ONE THAT GOT BUILT, did not require ANY capital investment on the part of the host site. The systems are financed entirely through the sale of the energy produced to the host site and the Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs). If the financing didn’t close the system didn’t get built. Period. These things require large capital investments and typically use debt financing from large third party investors looking for tax shelters in the form of capital asset depreciation (along the same lines as a manufacturing company buying a new piece of equipment and depreciating it on their taxes). The only investment on the part of the host site is the agreement to buy the power at a set rate for a set amount of time. On every project I built the power sold to the customer was done so CHEAPER than they bought it from the local utility. What I am getting at here is whoever decided that they needed to pay a ton of money for a renewable energy installation had ABSOLUTELY NO business acumen and completely failed to do their due diligence. Horsepower – I worked extensively with a Midwestern utility which was interested in deploying utility-scale solar at several municipal locations. It would have been the largest utility-scale deployment of solar PV in the US up to that time and would have involved the installation of hundreds of Megawatts of solar installed at over 100 host sites. It was a gigantic project worth over $1B at the time. AS THE OWNER THEY HAD 3 PEOPLE MANAGING THE INITIATIVE AND THEY WERE DOING IT PART TIME as part of their job. It was one senior manager,… Read more »
DOD is spending TONS of money for solar energy on bases. You should see the acres of solar panels installed at DM AFB and on every new quarters that they built. They spent millions to save hundreds on electricity and are charging those in quarters higher rates than those on the economy for power too.
Your penultimate statement is wrong… it is too restrictive. VA doesn’t have a leadership problem, the entire freakin’ administration and government does.
Union employees, goooooo figure.