Tag Archives: Green Jobs

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Another green energy firm goes bankrupt after getting $43 million loan from taxpayers

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From Fox News.

Excerpt:

An energy company that received a $43 million loan guarantee through the same federal program that backed Solyndra has followed the path of the failed solar firm and filed for bankruptcy.

Beacon Power Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The company, which develops energy storage systems based on what are known as “flywheels,” had received the federal guarantee for a 20-megawatt energy storage plant in Stephentown, N.Y., back in August 2010.

[…]The Massachusetts-based company also received $29 million in grants from the Energy Department and the state of Pennsylvania through separate programs for a plant in Hazle Township, Pa.

Beacon Power Corporation has not responded to a request for comment from FoxNews.com.

[…]Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, called the revelation of the bankruptcy another example of “the reckless abuse of taxpayers’ dollars in the pursuit of green jobs.” He also suggested that crony capitalism had a hand in the decision to give Beacon a loan.

One of the most controversial aspects of the Solyndra case — aside from the sheer size of the $535 million guarantee — was a decision earlier this year to prioritize private investors over taxpayers in case of bankruptcy. Republicans have accused the administration of giving precedence to investors in the companies who are also Obama backers.

“As with Solyndra, the head of Beacon Power appears to have been a supporter of President Obama’s,” Sessions said in a statement.

“Increasingly, we are moving away from our capitalist heritage and towards a system where most Americans play by the rules while some are able to rig the game in their favor. The real divide is not split along income lines, but between the politically-connected and those—whether businesses or individuals—who just want the freedom to earn a living.”

[…]Campaign finance records show top Beacon officials contributing to Democratic candidates. Capp apparently was an Obama supporter, giving at least $500 to the Obama campaign in 2008. He also donated to Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Mass.

Beacon employee Matthew Polimeno has donated $750 since 2008 to Tsongas’ campaign and another $250 to the failed campaign of Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. CFO James Spiezio also donated $250 to the Coakley campaign in 2009.

Marsha Blackburn is also involved in investigating the $535 million loan to Solyndra.

Solyndra is another Democrat-connected company that went bankrupt after getting taxpayer dollars from the Obama administration.

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Obama gives $529 million loan to firm that outsources manufacturing to Finland

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From ABC News. (H/T Doug Ross Journal)

Excerpt:

With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department’s $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the job of assembling the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car has been outsourced to Finland.

[…]The loan to Fisker is part of a $1 billion bet the Energy Department has made in two politically connected California-based electric carmakers producing sporty — and pricey — cutting-edge autos. Fisker Automotive, backed by a powerhouse venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore, predicts it will eventually be churning out tens of thousands of electric sports sedans at the shuttered GM factory it bought in Delaware. And Tesla Motors, whose prime backers include PayPal mogul Elon Musk and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, says it will do the same in a massive facility tooling up in Silicon Valley.

An investigation by ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News that will air on “Good Morning America” found that the DOE’s bet carries risks for taxpayers, has raised concern among industry observers and government auditors, and adds to questions about the way billions of dollars in loans for smart cars and green energy companies have been awarded. Fisker is more than a year behind rolling out its $97,000 luxury vehicle bankrolled in part with DOE money. While more are promised soon, just 40 of its Karma cars (below) have been manufactured and only two delivered to customers’ driveways, including one to movie star Leonardo DiCaprio. Tesla’s SEC filings reveal the start-up has lost money every quarter. And while its federal funding is intended to help it mass produce a new $57,400 Model S sedan, the company has no experience in a project so vast.

Doug Ross’ post linked to a description of the car’s features:

Yikes. The EPA has finally released its official fuel economy rating for the Fisker Karma, and it’s not high: just 52 MPGe, an all-electric range of 32 miles and 20 miles per gallon on gasoline when the battery runs dry. This is well below the numbers that Fisker reps were bandying about in past years: 67.2 mpge and an all-electric range of 50 miles.

The Wall Street Journal explains who stands to gain from these taxpayer-funded loans.

Excerpt:

A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.

The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla is a California startup focusing on all-electric vehicles, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns.

[…]Kalee Kreider, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gore, confirmed that the former vice president backs Fisker and purchased a Karma. “He believes that a global shift of the automobile fleet toward electric vehicles, accompanying a shift toward renewable-energy generation, represents an important part of a sensible strategy for solving the climate crisis,” she said in a statement.

Fisker’s top investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a veteran Silicon Valley venture-capital firm of which Gore is a partner. Employees of KPCB have donated more than $2.2 million to political campaigns, mostly for Democrats, including President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign contributions.

Officials at Kleiner Perkins didn’t return requests for comment.

We have been in a massive economic downturn that started when Nancy Pelosi took the gavel from John Boehner in January of 2007. And this is what the Democrats have been doing?

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E-mails show that Democrats were about to approve a second loan to Solyndra

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Federal subsidies per unit of electricity
Federal subsidies per unit of electricity

From the Washington Post – e-mails reveal that the Obama administration was planning to approve a second green jobs loan for Solyndra, just as they were going bankrupt.

Excerpt:

Newly released e-mails show the Obama administration’s Energy Department was poised to give Solyndra a second taxpayer loan of $469 million last year, even as the company’s financial situation grew increasingly dire.

The department was still considering providing the second loan guarantee to the solar-panel manufacturer in April and May 2010, at a time when Solyndra’s auditors were already warning that the company was in danger of collapsing.

Details of the plan are revealed in e-mails released this week by Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the original loan. On Wednesday, the probe intensified as committee Republicans requested that the White House provide all documents, dating back to President Obama’s inauguration, that would show communications between staff members and other officials regarding Solyndra’s original $535 million federal loan guarantee.

Republican leaders said that documents obtained in recent weeks show that Obama’s “closest confidantes” monitored the loan, and that his campaign donors offered advice on the company.

“Documents reveal a startlingly cozy relationship between wealthy donors and the president’s confidantes, especially in matters related to Solyndra,” Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the committee’s investigations panel, said in a statement.

E-mails already made public in the eight-month investigation have kept the White House and the Energy Department on the defensive for weeks, showing in part that Valerie Jarrett and Lawrence H. Summers, top Obama advisers at the time, took part in discussions about Solyndra.

The Energy Department provided Solyndra with its first taxpayer-backed loan guarantee in September 2009. Documents released this week show that White House career staffers, who first questioned the loan that fall, by April 2010 were using gallows humor to describe the prospect of giving Solyndra a second round of help. That spring, industry analysts were publicly questioning how the Silicon Valley start-up could be spending cash so quickly from the federal loan and $933 million in private capital.

I got the above story from Powerline blog, and they noted something else interesting.

Excerpt:

In related news, the Inspector General of the Department of Labor released a report on the $500 million green jobs training program that was part of the original “stimulus” act. The IG’s findings are not pretty:

ETA and grantees have reported achieving limited performance targets for serving and placing workers. Grantees have reported serving 52,762 (42 percent) of the targeted 124,893 participants with 61 percent of training grant periods having elapsed, and have reported placing 8,035 participants (10 percent) into employment out of the target of 79,854 participants 17 months after the grants were awarded. Of the 52,762 participants served, grantees reported that 20,818 (39 percent) were individuals who already have jobs and enrolled in training in order to retain their jobs, obtain new work, or otherwise upgrade their skills. In addition, according to interviews conducted early in 2011 with regional officials, grantees have expressed concerns that jobs have not materialized and that job placements have been fewer than expected for this point in the grant program.

“Jobs have not materialized”? Really? This is no surprise to anyone who understands what a boondoggle the whole “green jobs” initiative is. The report’s grimmest finding relates to job retention: the forecast for the training program was that 69,717 trainees would find jobs lasting for at least six months. So far, the actual number is 1,336. Sure, as time goes by some additional trainees may hit the six-month mark, but as of the time period covered in the report, only 6,662 had found jobs at all. With over 60% of the grant period gone by, only one-third of the amount allocated has been spent by the grantees.

Is this what Obama means by “economic stimulus”? I think that “stimulus” might be the word that Democrats use to mean “paying off the people who get you elected with taxpayer money”.

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