News the Stars Bring Today

Congresswoman Gwen Moore was interviewed on Fox to explain her earmark of half a million dollars for an alternative energy study, which she calls “Poop to Power.” Now, if you examine her background, you will find that she is a very strong Mother who went from being a single welfare Mom to a highly successful person, and now lawmaker.

However, her degree is in political science, not chemistry, or biochemistry. The earmark allocates half a million to the Marquette University to study the feasibility of using human waste to convert to usable energy, like methane. Now decades ago, the Hindu Indians discovered that cow manure, as well as cow urine had valuable and usable properties. For example, if cow manure is dried, it can be used for fuel, and still is used in many places in India.

As a matter of fact, according to Environment.about.com, this concept is already being planned by San Antonio in a deal with a Massachusetts company, Ameresco, Inc. The plan is to convert the methane from San Antonio’s bio-mass into natural gas. It is expected to produce an additional $250K for the city each year. The contract was signed in September 2008 and will take 18-24 months to construct the needed facilities.

So, my question is, if Ameresco already has the method and is using this in San Antonio, why reduplicate the research? Remember, Ms. Moore’s degree is in political science, not Chemistry, and as the Fox news reporter, Bill Hemmer, pointed out, why not let the grant process take this over? Those issuing grants are more aware of the scientific achievements that have already been accomplished.

While I applaud Congresswoman Moore for her dedication, I think that the White House could have trimmed the Omnibus with little “pet” projects like this, that are simply redundancies. It is not the only project that she was responsible for, if you
examine Moore’s government website, you will she that she has at least a dozen other earmarks. Frankly the money would have been better used by the state in building, not researching, the “poop to power” concept.