Obama's Solar Energy Cronyism Train Continues Down the Track of Waste and Disgust

Many times we have reviewed the sad, sad wasteful story of how the Obama administration and its Energy Department have wasted billions and billions of taxpayer dollars on bogus, failed, and bankrupt alternative energy companies and projects. The vast majority, if not all, of these entities were operated by political cronies of the President and leading Democrats. The sad part is that not only were billions of dollars lost, nothing of an appreciable value was ever returned to the American taxpayer.

Consider our detailed review of such waste on April 9, 2012 (http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/04/three-cs-of-political-class-cronyism.html):

- Solyndra, a bankrupt California solar panel company, went belly up after it blew through more than $530 million of taxpayer wealth after receiving an ill-advised government loan guarantee. Prior to going out of business, Solyndra donated $7,500 to the California Democratic Party and company employees had also contributed more than $20,000 to Democratic candidates.

- According to an ABC News report, Fisker Motors is a Finland based automotive company that is working to develop electric cars. Unfortunately, two years ago, the Obama administration approved a taxpayer backed loan for $529 million for this Finnish company to help with their technology development.

Why U.S. taxpayer dollars went to back a government loan to a Finnish auto company should have every American up in arms, especially considering how fragile and desperate our domestic car industry was. However, since then, the following distressing situations have arisen:

• The first line of cars from Fisker is being assembled in a rural Finland auto plant owned by a another Finish company, Valmet.
• The reason given for building the U.S. financed cars in the Finland boondocks, according to the Fisker owner and founder, Henrik Fisker, is that: “There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle. They don’t exist here.”
• This situation arose despite the fact that Vice President Joe Biden hyped the loan as a way to create thousands of American manufacturing jobs. Two years after the half billion dollar loan and risk, no U.S. Jobs have been created beyond some preliminary engineering work but no manufacturing jobs
• Fisker went on to say: "We're not in the business of failing; we're in the business of winning. So we make the right decision for the business. That's why we went to Finland."
• According to ABC News, Fisker is more than a year behind in rolling out its $97,000 luxury electric vehicle. Only forty units of this luxury model have been made and only two of the forty have actually been sold.
• Joe Biden still believes that the company will eventually build tens of thousands of electric cars at a closed down GM factory. However, a General Accounting Office review found: "DOE cannot be assured that the projects are on track to deliver the vehicles as agreed. It also means that U.S. taxpayers do not know whether they are getting what they paid for through the loans."

How does cronyism figure into this silly and wasteful loan of American taxpayer money to a Finnish company? Consider:

• One of Fisker's biggest financial supporters is the California venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr, a California billionaire, hosted President Obama at a February dinner for high-tech executives at his secluded estate south of San Francisco.
• Doerr and Kleiner Perkins executives have contributed more than $1 million to Federal political causes and campaigns over the last two decades, primarily supporting Democrats.
• Doerr serves on Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
• Former Democratic Vice President Al Gore is another Kleiner Perkins senior partner.

Now you start to understand that giving money to a Finnish car company to make a high end niche car model that the average American will never be able to afford has more to do with cronyism and campaign donations than sound government decision making.

But the auto cronyism is not confined to Fisker:

• The Department of Energy has also invested almost another half a billion taxpayer dollars with a loan to another electric car manufacturer, Tesla Motors.
• SEC filings show that Tesla has never had a profitable quarter and has no experience in mass auto production. It eventually wants to “mass produce” an electric car that costs about $57,000. Mass produce, car, and $57,000 is one of the biggest incongruities of all time.
• A former Tesla board member, Steve Westly, is an Obama campaign donation bundler who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the President in 2008 and for his 2012 re-election campaign. 
• The Westly Group was also a financial supporter of Tesla Motors until Tesla went public in 2010, and Westly continues to back the company.
• Tesla's founder and CEO, Elon Musk, is a major political contributor who has primarily backed Democrats, including Obama. 

- And solar energy cronyism is not confined to Solyndra. In late September, 2011, the Department of Energy approved a $737 million loan guarantee to a company called Solarserve that is working on a solar plant in Nevada. Given Obama's history of cronyism with Solyndra, Fisker, and Telsa, it should come as no surprise that this project was also infected with cronyism. Turns out that the brother-in-law of Democrat Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Ronald Pelosi, is second in command at the primary energy investment fund that backs the Solarserve effort. Surprise, surprise.

- The Department of Energy also granted a $135 million loan guarantee to a wind power company in early 2011, Brookfield Asset Management. For the past two years, the company has been represented by the lobbying firm called Heather Podesta and Partners, LLC. If the name Podesta sounds familiar, it should be. Heather Podesta, a top election campaign fundraiser for Obama, is married to Tony Podesta who is the brother of John Podesta who has served long and loyally in Obama's past political efforts. Disgusting conflict of interest.

- It seems to never end. The Department of Energy handed out another Federal loan guarantee to another solar company in September, 2011, this one worth $1.37 billion, to BrightSource energy. This company wants to build the largest solar power plant in the world. A former board member of the company, John Bryson, was Obama's Commerce Department secretary until his recent resignation due to some bad driving incidents in California.

All of this waste was disgraceful and disgusting when we reported on it back in April. But we recently came across even more wasteful cronyism in the alternative energy field. Appears that even exposing the cronyism and waste to the light of day does not discourage the Washington political class.

Consider the highlights of an April 3, 2012 Washington Beacon News report, keeping in mind that Harry Reid, the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, represents the state of Nevada:

• Three large renewable energy projects, Nevada Geothermal, Ormat Nevada, and SolarReserve, all of whom have received large grants of taxpayer wealth from Obama's Energy Department, are located in Reid’s home state.
• Executives from all three companies have donated to Reid and his fellow Democrats' election campaigns to the tune of over $58,000 since 2008.
• Brightsource Energy, which received a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Energy Department and will also operate a solar facility in Nevada, has donated at least $21,600 to Democrats' election campaigns since 2008. It has donated zero dollars to Republicans.
• Reid received almost $4,000 from Brightsource executives in the 2010 cycle, including $2,400 from CEO John Woolard, who hosted a fundraiser for the majority leader.
• Woolard is also a Barack Obama donor and has visited the White House almost a dozen times since Obama took office.
• Reid’s staffers have been a key part of Washington D.C.’s revolving door, setting up shop with lobbying outfits that have ties to green energy companies and the Department of Interior, which oversees such projects.
• For example, Kai Anderson, a top lobbyist for Ormat, is a former deputy chief of staff for Reid.
• Paul Thomsen, who handles government affairs for Ormat Nevada, Inc., is also a former Reid Staffer.
• Neil Kornze, the acting deputy director of policy for the Bureau of Land Management under the Department of Interior, is also a former energy staffer for Reid.
• Sanjay Wagle served as a renewable energy advisor at the Energy Department and he formerly worked for Vantage Point Venture Partners, a major backer of Brightsource Energy.
• Former Obama Commerce Secretary John Bryson was chairman of BrightSource’s board prior to Obama submitting his name for Commerce Secretary.
• The Beacon article reported that Bryson had up to $500,000 in stock options from BrightSource and a $700,000 advisory fee from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, an investment group that has bought a number of solar farms in California.
• Bryson was also the CEO of Edison International, which obtained exclusive power purchase agreements for four of the solar projects, at the time the awards were issued.
• Kathleen Weiss, the lead lobbyist and Vice President of First Solar, had 16 meetings at the White House with Valerie Jarrett and other senior administration staffers. In 2008, she donated $2,300 to then-Senator Ken Salazar (who is now Secretary of the Interior) and Harry Reid.
• The Department of Interior’s fast-track program was spearheaded by Steve Black, a counselor to Ken Salazar, and Janea Scott, special assistant to Black and former attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund.
• Black leads the Renewable Energy Policy Group, a network of senior officials at state and Federal agencies who make key decisions on clean energy projects.

Unbelievable. As they used to say in baseball circles, you cannot tell the players without a scorecard. In politics, you cannot tell the cronyism without looking at campaign spending and donation records.  

Incestuous is too mild a word to use in describing how these people use our wealth to enhance their political careers and their cronies' personal wealth, with nothing in return for taxpayers. The Cronyism train rolls on with taxpayer dollars as the fuel and political incest as the oil for the engine.


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