EPA Wasted $13,000 on Low-MPG Car Rentals in Copenhagen — Were Offered Free Zero Emission Cars (PJM Exclusive)
At last December’s UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ran up a $13,000 bill for conventional combustion engine cars, a private driver, and old-fashioned baggage vans, according to government records.
The EPA paid more in two weeks for cars than most Americans make in a month. Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, chose to ignore Copenhagen’s readily available crunchy alternatives, like hybrids or algae-fueled vehicles that were available — for free — to VIPs and governments through the Danish Foreign Ministry, or demonstration cars that ran on new green fuels produced by California companies. Jackson rented from the very conventional Avis, and drove around in a 158-horsepower, 16 valve conventional gas-powered Ford Mondeo.
The car that Lisa Jackson and her driver used in Copenhagen would have failed the president’s new fuel efficiency standards released yesterday of 35.5 miles per gallon. Her Mondeo only got 25.2 miles per gallon.
Copenhagen isn’t Los Angeles, where mass transit is as prevalent as ice storms. All UN delegates received free passes for public transport throughout the Danish capital, and there were many “green” cars and experimental demonstration vehicles swarming throughout.
Had Ms. Jackson rented from the other conventional company in the city, Hertz, she could have chosen from a “green” line of cars made available in Copenhagen. Or — if she was in love with the Ford Mondeo — she could have rented a 1.8-liter diesel version, and have generated half the carbon dioxide during the climate change conference.
But she didn’t.
According to official government documents, Ms. Jackson charged taxpayers $8,732 for a car — and driver — over six days, as she conventionally crawled through traffic congestion in downtown Copenhagen. An additional $3,457 went towards another Ford and at least two vans to carry the delegation’s baggage.
Details of EPA’s rather unimaginative transportation choices at the climate change parley were obtained by Pajamas Media and PJTV with a Freedom of Information Act request from the agency.
EPA did not return our requests for comment about the records.
Here is Ms. Jackson’s “carbon footprint” from Copenhagen:
- Her car emitted twice the CO2 of a diesel vehicle (Ford makes the same Mondeo with a diesel engine).
- Mondeo is the second highest CO2 emitter among all vehicle classes at 223g/km. (If it was 226g/km, it would be the highest emitter of CO2 among sedans.)
- Her car emitted 24% more CO2 than the “average” new UK vehicle (223g/km vs. UK average of 179g/km).
- Her car emitted more than double the CO2 of a hybrid (223g/km vs. 89g/km for hybrids in UK).
- Her car got 25.2 mpg, average for the U.S. fleet and below average for European cars.
In a March 5, 2010, blog post, Lisa Jackson scolded her readers:
Environmentalism isn’t a boutique issue that affects only a few. … Protecting our air, water and land is all of our jobs. I want to help people see the many ways that environmental issues affect their daily lives.
She didn’t take her own advice in Copenhagen. She instead did what most Americans do out of necessity, practicality, and reason, though the availability of free, “green” transportation made her choice unreasonable and certainly unnecessary.
Typical progressive hypocrisy or mere clueless bureaucracy? I’m hard-pressed to decide which.
Relax – it’s both! A twofer!
Now come on, Richard. You didn’t really expect librul big shots to practice what they preach, did you? The rules the D- and B-crats come up with are, like taxes, just for the little people.
The elites consider themselves deserving of these goodies. They are, after all, altruistic souls who sacrifice so much on our behalf. Rule are only for the unwashed masses.
Words simply fail when confronted with this stuff.
Testing 3
What are you testing??
Reaction.
Testing 5
I will treat climate change as a crisis requiring changes to my behavior when those who are pushing for such changes alter their behavior in response to the supposed crisis. Until they do, I will presume they are just power-hungry totalitarians.
FTW.
Heck yeah! If you mean what you say then you damn well better do it yourself! Sheesh. Don’t expect us to believe this crap if you don’t believe in it enough to alter your life.
You proles don’t know your place. Apparatchiks like Lisa are immune to any constraints the “little people” are subject to. Don’t you know Gaia has bestowed on them an exemption? They can do as they please, because they matter. The rest of us do not.
Last time I was in downtown Copenhagen we walked everywhere. It’s very walkable, and has some walking-only streets. It’s not a big city like LA that sprawls for miles, and a car isn’t necessarily an asset.
Is Lisa Jackson the EPA bureaucrat who spoke to…the Washington Press Club?…awhile back, utterly blowing off the significance of the AGW meltdown in recent months ?
Besides Ms. Jackson’s baldfaced hypocrisy, the entire trip was a joke. Nancy Pelosi & a substantial crowd of Congresscritters flew over in the waning days of the 2-week conference. Reportedly, some of their family members went along for the ride, incurring egregious expense to the American taxpayer.
As a start, we are working to revitalize and refashion the U.S. economy for the low-carbon, clean energy future.
These people draw no parallel between making Executive Orders as to how “others” need to behave and their own behaviors.
Always with the imperious Left, such as exempting themselves from the “healthcare” monstrosity they would impose onto the public, it’s “do as I say, not as I do”.
If they really cared about CO2 emissions, they would not have flown huge delegations to the conference but used teleconferencing instead. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Mann-made globull warming, heh!
Good work, Pajamasmedia.
Congratulations PJM, you’re starting to show some serious investigative chops as well as insightful commentary. Keep it up.
So what’s the fuss about? We all knew this was just “theater”, right? AGW was never about science saving the planet. It was always a vehicle to usurp enormous political power and bring about radical change. Only the uninformed and unwashed masses were to take it seriously. You didn’t know? Sorry, the memo must have gone astray.
Is it just me, or couldn’t you just buy a used Mondeo and two used passenger vans for that much money?
Point, Evil Red, good point. Mondeo’s are known as clitorises in the UK coz every “£$% has one. Thirteen K would buy you a very nice, low-mile used diesel station wagon or a 3- or 4-year-old and a highish-mile Ford Transit for the equipment. But then you’d be kitted out like a small-time jobbing musician (my nephew this last few years. I know the prices coz I bought the cars…) or an ordinary Brit family person with a small business. Heaven forfend that such folks should ever be mistaken for the people they fleece – er, sorry! Represent.
The “svelt, attractive, sexy 70 year old” Pelosi could not bring herself to ride with plebians…and the rest of the US delegation should have stayed home for all the good they accomplished.
The one who needs to walk everywhere is the porcine Al Gore, the king of first global warming, now lately climate change. Were he to move into a 1500 square foot house (a double wide?) he could reduce his sooty footprint and save the universe.
Whoops!!! The “leaders” want everyone else to save the universe so that they can fly in private jets on someone else’s nickel.
$8K for a six-day rental? Who was the driver, Michael Schumacher?
All we know is that he is called, “The Stig”.
Well done.
I’ll start acting like it’s a crisis once those that tell me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.
But she’s special! This is important!
Like any religion, I am sure the environmental church, like the neo-con and t party church has its share of sinners. However, the environmental movement is 50+ years old and only getting stronger. Cleaner air and water and renewable rescources “in all we do” is the future. We would all be wise to get over it, get used to it, accept it and boldly proclaim its finality. Anyone, any politician or any company that dont get on the train will never successfully reach the right destination. And for them, they too shall have to face their own crisis.
“We would all be wise to get over it, get used to it, accept it and boldly proclaim its finality”
hahahahahahahaha
Sorry, dude, nothing is final except Judgement Day.
I’m sure he meant “final-finality” as in Final Solution since the long-term goal of the Enviroweenie Church is a world without people “and all they do” – so yes Judgment Day it is.
Not to endorse the decision of which vehicle was rented from what rental company, but is there a federal requirement that prevents “gifts” of a certain value being accepted (rules are rules and free use of a vehicle could be construed as a “gift” from that gov’t or organization or company), and does the agency have a standing contract with one car rental company and not another, and thus the one rental company must be selected if that company has vehicles available? I read the article and did not see any mention of that.
A very good question, that requires an honest and non-snarky answer.
If you back to the article, the word “free” is in quotes, more than likely because the vehicles were available “to VIPs and governments through the Danish Foreign Ministry”.
Now this is just opinion, but that probably means the vehicles are part of the Danish Foreign Ministry’s transportation fleet, owned outright or leased by the government.
Transportation for visiting government personnel is often made available from the host country’s Foreign Service Department (think the U.S. State Department).
If that is the case, then Miss Lisa’s rental was not only hypocritical, by also subtly insulting to the Danes.
As may have been said already, some of us are more equal than others. Liberals don’t practice what they preach – they’ve already got “theirs” (a government expense account, a trust fund, an inheritance, perhaps an earned bank account, or some other form of wealth they can use & btw I don’t fault them for having any of these) so the rules are only for the rest of us peons.
The EPA has put so many regulatory burdens on business that many people just don’t even bother to try to start one nowadays, but naturally, like Hillary Clinton said, she nor Ms. Jackson “can’t go out and save every under-capitalized business out there.” According to them, it’s up to the business owner to find sufficient capital to cut through the red tape (perhaps by having to hire a lawyer), pay withholding taxes, business license taxes, income taxes, unemployment taxes, sales taxes (perhaps by having to hire an accountant to figure it all out), and every other ridiculous financial burden the government puts on business(es). Heaven forbid the govt. should relax some of these burdens to make it less difficult for people to start and keep a business.
IT’S TIME TO STOP THE INSANITY – FIRE CONGRESS 2010! FIRE OBAMA 2012!
Silly serfs (ooops – citizens). Didn’t you know that rules are for other people? Our elite betters cannot afford to subject themselves to the restrictions they place on others – they are too exalted for such limitations! Now go back to figuring out how much we are going to take from your paycheck while we destroy the economy in which you are trying to make a living.
Lisa Jackson …. didn’t take her own advice in Copenhagen.
Ms Jackson is a Totalitarian of the Mussolini-modeled modified Marxist variety, whose nomenklatura — like those of the former Soviet Union, of Australia, of the Euro-Peon Neo-Soviet and of, say, Singapore — are an elite subset of the general population who have exempted themselves from every imposition and burden they’ve conjured up and stuck the rest of us with!
Do not expect Ms Jackson to ever to take her own advice — or ever, come to that, even believe any of it!
Mikee is echoing Glenn Reynolds–we should believe it’s a crisis when people who say it’s a crisis act like it’s a crisis. I agree.
In any case, I’ve been to Copenhagen. It has a very efficient and reliable public transit system and is well supplied with taxis for the occasional need to move heavy or a lot of baggage.
Can anyone imagine that if this were a Bush administration functionary the scandal would be receiving the same lack of interest from the media?
Stupid is as stupid does!! Add in a heaping helping of arrogance and voila….an oba-mao bureaucrat!! Reminds of something I’ve heard before…..they have us surrounded….the poor b@$t@!ds!!
But, but as the gentlewoman said,
(emphasis added)
Copenhagen is not one of the fifty-seven states, so anything done there is OK.
You can bet they would have gone the $13,000 route even if they had been using their own money and not “free” taxpayer dollars don’t you think?? Does that describe a liberal or what??