hard to beleive but 8 republicans broke ranks and voted for this load of crap bill.   219 Ayes, 212 Nayes and 3 members no present (2 Rs and 1 D).   Roll Call Vote Here

The bill was 1200 pages long plus another 300 page amendment that was released the SAME day as the vote.   This bill will reach the tentacles of the federal government into your home like nothing you have ever seen before.  There are provisions for all kinds of household appliances, lighting fixtures, not to mention of course the giant unseen increase in energy costs that will hit everyone in the form of higher electric bills at your house, and increase cost of goods as manufacturers pass on those costs to us.  Chinese goods will remain cheap as they will continue to pollute, so count on more cheap crap at Wal Mart and fewer US manufacturing jobs.

Plenty of pork in the bill too – Section 287 “Duty to Serve Unerserved Markets for Energy Efficient and Location Efficient Mortgages” describes incentives to allow low income mortgagees to have their income level raised at least dollar for dollar for purposes of qualifying for a mortgage by counting “projected” savings from energy efficiency improvements and moving to a house which would lower that persons transportation costs.  This is insane – the incentive ALREADY exists for people to do these things.  What’s worse is the “savings” don’t change the current cash flow of the borrower, and if they are THAT close to the loan/don’t loan decision point – then WHAT THE HELL are we doing loaning them money for a 30 year mortgage?