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NASA Admits It Gave Jet Fuel Discounts To Google Execs' Company
An anonymous reader writes "In a letter to Senator Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee, NASA 'admits the agency was selling jet fuel at below market rates to H2-11, a company owned by the founders of Google.' The agency has since raised its rates to reflect market prices but has informed the Senator that it would be impossible for NASA to recoup the money that tax payers have paid in order to subsidize Google's jet fuel discounts."
Maybe I'm a simpleton, but the one page letter linked to seems to suggest fairly explicitly that NASA was selling the fuel at "full cost" not at any kind of loss, and therefore the claim in the article that tax payers are somehow out of pocket is a load of crap. Please do correct me if I'm wrong.
helping out the little guy!
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
But I'm much more interested in hearing about the rationale for offering this deal. Did NASA get anything in return? Did H2-11 request a subsidy? Was this a simple accounting error or due to corruption. The "what" here is far less interesting to me than the "why".
Facts have a liberal bias.
From what I read, it looks like they sold the fuel at "full cost", rather than "market rate".
Does this mean they sold the fuel at the same cost NASA paid for it? If so, what's the big deal? NASA is a government agency, not a business. They don't have to sell fuel at a profit.
It's not like they were giving it away or losing money on it!
In an attempt to spin this correctly, Google announced that it will be giving out free jet fuel for SF area slum kids to sniff!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Hmm, from TFA, it seems that they're required, when they sell this sort of stuff (surplus to needs fuel, in this case) to sell it at cost.
Since "cost" is below "retail" (pretty much by definition), and since the government doesn't pay fuel taxes (to itself or any State government), "cost" works out to be quite a bit below "retail".
So, NASA got rid of some fuel that was excess to their needs, got paid for it at exactly the rate that they paid for it (making it a wash in bookkeeping), and did it entirely in accordance with applicable law.
In other words, nothing to see here, move along.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It reads like it wasn't a subsidy to Google, it's that NASA sold fuel to all it's qualified partners at cost rather than at market rates. So the taxpayers didn't pay anything for a subsidy. NASA recouped what it paid for the fuel, it just didn't make a profit on the transaction. I don't see any compelling reason to require a government agency like NASA to turn a profit on it's deals, as long as it doesn't lose money on them either.
Seriously. Google and other companies in silicon valley skip out on billions worth of taxes by funneling it through Ireland and this is what you want to focus on. Jet fuel?
The issue here is that Google got to keep their jets at AMES at all, not that they got fuel subsidies. NASA sold them fuel the only way NASA knew how, and probably in full compliance with regulations. The issue is not with the fuel sales, but with Google being able to keep their jets their at all.
Anyone familiar with the area knows that AMES is much more convenient for a private plane of the size the Google Execs own than pretty much any other option. SFO, OAK, and SJC are all busy, and have various red-tape on them. Airports like SQL are too small for the google jets. Normally no non-NASA flights can be at AMES. There are no Apple Jets, no Cisco Jets, no Facebook Jets at this airport. Google attempted to get around this by offering free instrumentation on their jets to NASA.
This is the first step in calling bullshit. This should have never happened. A few instruments does not make it a NASA project. Google should have never been there in the first place. Someone gave them preferential treatment using the instruments as an excuse.
H2-11 should be prohibited from refueling at NASA Ames. That way they can crash, die, and people can bitch about how NASA refused to help a brother out.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
If you come to my house and do some work I'm not going to charge you market rates on coffee... Maybe share the cost.
Thank God that Google has never given anyone anything at below cost and has in no way benefited this country, Senator. /portwineboy@gmail.com
this sig deleted by another sig
The fuel wasn't surplus. But the problem was altogether different.
An audit was conducted concerning Google's aircraft being stored that the ames facility. It turns out that they lease a hangar from NASA as market rates but also allow their aircraft to be used by NASA for Earth Science projects.
http://oig.nasa.gov/Special-Re...
In the course of this, the supplier of fuel for the site charges a market rate for everyone but NASA who gets charged a cost plus rate. NASA had them fueling the aircraft (which is more then just their jet) on the cost plus rate for the NASA projects but an oversight happened and they ended up being charged cost plus for everything including private non-government flights. The audit doesn't place blame or malice in it and writes it off as a misunderstanding. The letter in the article is confirmation that NASA was doing it, didn't have anything in place to detect it, cannot go back and fix it, but have that all taken care of now and the separate rates will be applied appropriately.
10 years now in the south of USA using algae. Why is it more expensive?? Even Indian Technology makes a mockery out of this subject, by making it even cheaper: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/new-process-to-make-bioaviation-fuel-cheaper/article5743796.ece
All it takes to make fuel is a high pressure vessel, high temps, absence of air and right material to turn into fuel. (almost anything will work except metals)
Junkyards in Canada have been making biodiesel since the 1990's out of garbage, using the same process.
South America has known how to turn back old tires into gasoline for at lest a decade.
Considering Grassley investigated NASA last year about some viking photo, my guess this has little to do with governmental accounting, and more about someone in NASA pissing in his Cheerios.
This was set in motion 2011. Searching for H2-11 (to see what it was) I came across how the jets were in the position to get the fuel, that "Google has no official relation with H211", and heck of a lot of information on this -in one link (dated Dec 11, 2011).
"The Google leaders and their friends are not the only ones using the jets. NASA conducts flights on the planes with its own researchers and equipment to gain scientific data. That deal was part of the unusual agreement with NASA allowing the Google team the use of Moffett Field, an airport closed to private aircraft."
Below is from the same link and explains NASA and Google's ties at least at Moffit field, I added the links for hanger one.
"The Mercury News reported the three top executives at Google, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt, are offering to pay $33 million to finish the restoration of the historic airship hangar at Moffett Field. The giant structure, built in the 1930s and called Hangar One, "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... (1930s as a naval airship hangar for the USS Macon)
Save Hanger one
http://www.savehangarone.org/
"The jets are not owned or operated by Google. Instead, the 3 Google leaders operate the fleet through an LLC called H211. Google has no official relation with H211. Ken Ambrose, the Director of Operations for H211, announced the funding offer at a public meeting this week. He also complained that NASA, which owns Hangar One, has taken too long to respond to the offer.
On first glance, it sounds like a purely noble gesture by the Google trio. The building is in the middle of a project to strip toxic materials in its siding. Lack of taxpayer funding to complete the project has raised fears that could lead to the demolition of one of the world’s largest freestanding structures.
But, as the Mercury News reported, “There’s a catch: They want to use up to two-thirds of the floor space of the hangar to house their fleet of eight private jets.” Most of the members on the Hangar One committee, along with the local congresswoman, support the idea, although there is some concern about the public-private partnership."
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/...
Maybe they're trying to reCOUP their losses? (Eh? Ehh?)
Just because you disagree doesn't mean it's not true.
That memo is a wonderful example of why exposing poor practices is difficult. The terminology is so dense that only those on the inside can truly understand it without a good deal of research. Most times people probably give up because they fear looking stupid for not knowing the lingo.
"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes" -- Leona Helmsley
Circumcision is child abuse.
Google is just going to have to be a little bit more compliant when it comes to FISA orders, that's all.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Does the association to google make you cry or something? Are you afraid it will somehow lead to more graft or something when people notice the connection to other shell companies that google benefits from??
So I guess the question might be is who cares? Obviously not you- or you don't care enough to put a name close to your post so the dog can chase the rabbit down the hole. So you car just enough to mention something but not enough to be associated with that mentioning which makes me wonder why you even bothered.