EPA Gives Grant Money to Interpol

Rob Gordon / June 08, 2011

It is hard to make sense of many grants the U.S. gives to nations from whom it is simultaneously borrowing. The federal government’s profligate spending through grant programs is starting to get some notice—for example, on Fox News as well as The Foundry.

For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has provided a grant to the United Nations Environmental Program so it may help implement “Russia’s National Plan of Action for Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment from Anthropogenic Pollution.” With yet another grant, EPA is helping Interpol (the International Criminal Police Organization) police carbon trading markets which, apparently, has not been going so well.

In January, European carbon trading “ground to a halt” after the computer-based theft of more than $70 million in allowances. Carbon trading is ostensibly designed to save humanity from catastrophic global warming. In truth, it is a way to impose a tax on energy without admitting it. Under the scheme, those who emit carbon dioxide (CO₂) have to buy allowances (permits) to do so from others. Government issues the permits and therefore controls the supply. The fewer it issues or the more it eventually withdraws from the “market,” they more they cost. The more the permits cost, the less people can afford to emit CO₂. (more…)