"Hope & Change"…and Saving the Planet 

Next February, we will celebrate the 5th anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). You know, President Obama's trillion-dollar spending spree that was sold to the American people as a means to save our economy from the brink of disaster and create American jobs. 

As the former-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in 2010, when she and her left-wing minions were forcing the Affordable Care Act on the American people, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy.”

This brings me to today's Green Corruption File, "The RAT in the Recovery and the Gang of Ten," which is the underbelly of this scandal. First is the deception: other than the overall "save the planet" manipulation, Americans were misled as to the real purpose of the stimulus package. Secondly, the Obama administration's "RAT maneuver" (and those behind it) leaves us with speculation (some will say proof) of premeditation and intention in regards to potential shenanigans with the stimulus funds. Last but not least, the "ten green stimulus authors" (yet there could be more) that I have uncovered and will expand upon in the third section of this post, were allowed to ensure that their "green" interests were represented in the stimulus bill, thus cashing in at the tune of tens of billions of tax dollars.

What most don't know, not even the majority of Congress, is that there was a RAT hidden deep inside the 1,073-page stimulus bill, which was drafted by the Obama transition team and congressional aides.

Entitled the Obama-Biden Transition Project, it employed approximately 400 people and it was comprised of Obama bundlers and campaign contributors as well as lobbyist and those that operate inside Washington’s egregious revolving door. In the mix was a squadron of Center for American Progress (CAP) experts, the billionaire George Soros-funded liberal think tank. Within this transition group, we also find many that eventually operated inside this clean-energy scheme, of which I'll highlight later.

Did you know that that there’s a competitive and contentious governor race going on in Virginia? The two contenders: the state Attorney General Republican Ken Cuccinelli vs. Democrat Terry McAuliffe, “whose controversial business dealings and past life as a party moneyman make him a walking negative ad," wrote POLITICO this month. 

McAuliffe, with a modest lead, Wednesday night during a crucial debate in Northern Virginia each "cast the other as unfit for office, untrustworthy and wrong for the commonwealth," noted the Washington Post.

Blows were thrown, with McAuliffe attempting to cast Cuccinelli as a "right-winger," and Cuccinelli landing a right hook: “If Terry’s elected governor, we’re gonna have to change the state motto from ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis’ to ‘Quid Pro Quo.'" Still, most of the headlines portrayed this debate as uneventful, and there was very little "pounding McAuliffe over transgressions such as the current federal investigation of a “green car” company that the Democrat founded" –– the focus of today's Green Corruption File.

On Friday October 26, 2012, President Obama told a local Denver, Colorado news anchor that decisions made in the loan program office are “decisions, by the way, that are made by the Department of Energy, they have nothing to do with politics.” 

Southern Company’s Vogtle Project Subsidized with $8.33 Billion of Taxpayer Money: Pressured by the White House (photo right courtesy of Inhabitat.com: President Obama's February 2010  announcement for Southern Company's $8B in federal loan guarantees) 

But let’s go back to the past: on Tuesday, December 1, 2009, Loan Program Office (LPO) contractor Paul Barbian sent an email to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) analyst Kelly Colyar, James C. McCrea, Senior Credit Advisor of the Loan Programs, as well as other DOE Officials.

With a subject line of “Vogtle: Deadline set by Secretary, Barbian writes, “Nick Whitcombe called me a few minutes ago (7:00 PM eastern). He told me that Dave Franz, Susan Richardson, and he had been called to the Secretary’s office and told to “agree” to the term sheet with OPC by Friday, Dec. 4, and to agree to the term sheet with MEAG by Dec 9. The time pressure is coming from the White House, according to Nick." Note: The DOE Official is Nicholas Whitcombe, the former Acting Director of the Advanced Technologies Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM).

This particular email was released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on October 31, 2012, which was accompanied by a summary memorandum and other material that contradicts the president's claim that "decisions" were made solely by the Department of Energy (DOE). In fact this is not the only case where the White House, President Obama as well as Vice President Joe Biden were actively involved in the DOE deal making –– a bombshell part of the Green Corruption Scandal that despite the fact that it was ignored by the media, Marita Noon and I immediately broke this story on November 1, 2012. Our headline read Emails Catch White House Lie on Green-Energy Loans, whereas I personally read and studied over 150 emails, which revealed a series of questionable practices, including coercion, cronyism, and cover ups.

In February 2010, "the Department of Energy offered a conditional commitment for an $8.33 billion loan guarantee to support the construction of the nation’s next generation of advanced nuclear reactors," referred to as The Vogtle Project. This loan guarantee was offered to Southern Company and its partners [Georgia Power Company, Oglethorpe Power Corporation (OPC), and the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG)] to build two nuclear reactors in Georgia, but according to recent reports, "the award has yet to be finalized.”

Eleven days ago I discovered that the Vogtle Project is in worse shape than I had documented this past May, adding to a long list of Obama’s taxpayer-funded clean-energy failures, of which we've tracked more than 50, with at least half bankrupt. On July 2, 2013, “Taxpayers for Common Sense released a report that pointed to Southern Company as the next project with potential to blow up in the federal government's face,” documented Kevin Glass at The Daily Caller.

According to this report: DOE Loan Guarantee Program: Vogtle Reactors 3&4, “On top of construction delays and litigation, the oversight and management of the construction of reactors 3&4 has been questionable." The report goes on, “As a result of the escalating construction costs of the Vogtle facility, most financial rating agencies are downgrading their assessment of the partners involved in the project.”

Since the February 2010 DOE proposal, Taxpayers for Common Sense notes that...

 ...In June 2010, the project partners accepted DOE’s offer. Since then, the Department of Energy has extended its $8.33 billion loan guarantee offer multiple times. Worse, “documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act after years of effort reveal wide-ranging negotiations between the Office of Budget and Management, Department of Treasury, and the Department of Energy on what the appropriate credit subsidy costs should be. Years of closed-door negotiations have allowed loan guarantee partners to craft a deal that heavily benefits them and exposes taxpayers to even greater risk.

What I can also divulge from that Halloween email dump regarding this particular project is that on Wednesday, June 9, 2010 there was a meeting with Peter Orsag (former Director of the Office of Management and Budget) and Carol Browner (Al Gore's crony and former Climate Czar, now at the Center for American Progress, another huge player in this green energy scheme), which was requested by OMB and DOE “to work through issues that come up in the Loan Programs.”

Former DOE Loan Advisor Jonathan Silver and Chris Otness, Assistant at the Loan Programs Office, prepared the briefing, and it included a few familiar projects like Abengoa, Blue Mountain, and UniStar. However what struck me as odd is that OH Rep Democrat Dennis Kucinich –– a member of the House Oversight Committee, and as I reported last July, adores Mr. Silver, and has been adamant that there is NO DOE scandal –– is found on page seven of that meeting outline. Maybe Kucinich was looking out for taxpayers...

Recently, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) took aim at the president's new climate agenda, which circumvents Congress and as stated by Reason.com, "ambitiously seeks to control nearly every aspect of how Americans produce and consume energy." IER's issue in this case is that President Obama's "alleged all-of-the-above energy policy includes large taxpayer subsidies for so-called clean-coal technologies, including carbon capture and storage."

If you've been paying attention, and what the IER is referring to is that part the new climate plan includes Obama's proposed $8 billion in federal loan guarantees relating to "decarbonizing coal" –– fossil fuel technologies to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. It seems that even some "greenies" aren't too happy about this: "The proposal would fund schemes such as waste heat recovery and carbon dioxide capture, however it has unsurprisingly received criticism as it would draw focus away from green technology projects such as renewable energy and electric vehicles,"wrote Inhabitat.com.

President Barack Obama's –– who promised to have, and claims to be, the most transparent administration in history –– “political appointees are using secret government email accounts to conduct official business,” The Associated Press found. This ranges across several government agencies, including the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), the Labor Department (DOL) as well as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Just after the release of this information, Kathleen Sebelius came under fire about her emails, of which the AP published as KGS2@hhs.gov with her public email address of Kathleen.Sebelius@hhs.gov. When confronted by Fox News about the report, Sebelius denied any secrecy, “There is no secret email account, there’s a public email and a private email, and they’re all FOIABle, they’re all available.”

As the denials pile up, the White House shifts the blame, citing it as a practice used by previous administrations. However, the scale and scope across the government and this administration remains a mystery, because transparency is nil: “Most federal agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees' email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) more than three months ago,” noted Fox News. According to the AP report last week, they are waiting for at least ten agencies to respond, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Treasury, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, Commerce and Agriculture, of which "all have said they are working on a response to the AP.”

Former EPA Head Lisa Jackson’s Alter Ego, the Fictitious “Richard Windsor,” Wins Awards

This is just the latest in a slew of government officials that we can confirm who have been using suspect email practices, which adds to the lack of transparency within the Obama White House. As you may recall Lisa Jackson, the former head of the EPA –– chosen by Obama in 2009 –– used an “alter ego” as her email account to conduct government business.

In the fall of 2012 the name “Richard Windsor” triggered an environmental alarm –– what POLITICO called “an inadvertent ruckus for an agency already under fire from conservatives.” It “spawned a host of accusatory news reports and questions from lawmakers, all of them implying that Jackson was trying to dodge congressional oversight and public records laws by using a private email account under a fake name.”

SPECIAL NOTE: This was first published at Townhall.com as
"On Earth Day, Let's Waste More Money," and at the Heartland Institute on April 24, 2013, by Marita Noon –– my cohort in exposing President Obama's clean-energy dirt. However, considering additional taxpayer-funded green energy issues have emerged, I'll make be some adjustments as well as updates.

Following Ms. Noon's column I'll be amending our 2012 list of taxpayer-funded green energy failures, of which at that time I had documented 52 (23 bankrupt and 29 troubled) ––  at least $15 billion of green taxpayer money either gone or at risk. With additional research, by the summer of 2013, we may hit a new total of 60, marking the billions burned on Obama's green energy agenda as outrageous! 

Additionally, we can give more data on my list of taxpayer-backed green energy companies that were in distress. One in particular is Bloom Energy, which I had reported received $5 million in taxpayer money, but it was more like $70 million in federal grants and $200 million in funding from the state of California. It turns out that in February of this year, they were "fined for illegally paying employees in pesos."

A jaw-dropping revelation came to light in December 2011 by the Trib Total Media, yet it was ignored by the media and even missed by those of us watching the solar world unfold. 

China's major solar panel companies — whose low-cost products led some American factories to close, helped create the Solyndra controversy and spawned talk of a trade war — were bankrolled in the United States by the world's largest investment banks.

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, USB Investment Bank and others raised $6.5 billion for seven young Chinese solar panel makers in the mid-2000s by underwriting their securities on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, a Tribune-Review investigation has found.

The Trib goes on, "It's not clear how the idea of using offshore tax havens to get listed on U.S. exchanges developed. But the Trib learned through SEC reports how Chinese solar companies grabbed onto the idea." The first was Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd., now the world's largest solar company. It began operating as a Chinese company in May 2002, and by 2004 reported sales of $85.3 million..."

However, Bloomberg News reported last week, "Suntech Power Holdings Co. (STP) [was] forced to put its Chinese solar unit into bankruptcy last month, "becoming the latest casualty of a painful slump in the global solar industry,” wrote Townhall.com. But Bloomberg noted that Suntech "began that slide into insolvency in 2009 when customers linked to the founder couldn’t pay their bills and the company booked the sales as revenue anyway, regulatory filings show."

What most don’t know is that Suntech is a tiny fraction of "Obamanomics Outsourced," whereas his administration is responsible for steering billions in stimulus funds (and other "green" money) to foreign companies and shipping green jobs overseas. This is clearly a broken 2008 energy campaign promise, but worse, a violation on how the 2009 trillion-dollar stimulus package was sold –– to create jobs and grow the economy here in America.

And I will invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy to create five million new energy jobs over the next decade –– jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced; jobs building solar panels and wind turbines and a new electricity grid; jobs that will help us eliminate the oil we import from the Middle East in ten years and help save the planet in the bargain. That's how America can lead again.

Senator Barack Obama, October 27, 2008

Organizing for Action: Obama's Recycled Political Machine Pushing Climate Change, Raising Unlimited Cash from Special Interests, and Selling Access 

We've already unleashed four of the "gang," including General Electric through the 2008, 2009 DOE Electricity Advisory Committee, which includes other green stimulus winners like NextEra Energy and American Electric Power (AEP) –– the former we've covered and the latter we'll get to in this post.

On our journey, we've exposed John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and our new Secretary of State, Senator John Kerry's part. Now we tackle George Soros, who not only heavily backed candidate Kerry in 2004, but also funds the Apollo Alliance –– a left-wing organization who exerts powerful influence on the views and policies of the Obama administration, of which I had alerted to in 2010 that boasted of writing Obama's trillion-dollar spending spree, and will revisit again.

Further in our "gang of eight" is the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) that we noted in our Citigroup columns, and eventually we'll get to TJ Glautheir and McBee Strategic Consulting. Adding to the immense corruption, the "DOE Insiders" and CAP's green-energy, crony-corruption complete stories are still in the works.

"Liberalism’s most ambitious agenda" –– a laundry list of programs, of which at the conclusion, Watch.org states, "significantly it’s become a meeting place of two potentially warring factions of the Left — labor and environmentalists." Meanwhile, "Tides officials logged 92 White House visits last year," and "Perhaps Tides’ biggest coup was using its Apollo Alliance Project to help draft Obama’s massive stimulus bill."

Photo From Penny Pritzker News 

President Obama’s Jobs Council Down: Five Raked in Billions of Green Stimulus Funds, Including Billionaire Penny Pritzker 

If you haven't heard the latest on the jobs front, just two years and four meetings later, President Obama closed down his Jobs Council last Thursday. A day later, unemployment "ticked up to 7.9 percent, and remains higher than it was when Obama took office and has consistently been higher than the 7 percent mark the White House promised it would not cross if Congress passed the so-called stimulus package taken up during the president's first months in office,” reports U.S. News & World Report.

“Obama is reportedly irked by the fact that the jobs council has recommended lifting regulations rather than creating new ones. Since the American people obviously did not hold Obama accountable for his economic failures as president, he is now going to focus on other issues: climate change, gun control, abortion, and immigration,” writes Breibart News.

Since its creation, the members have pushed for renewable energy subsidies. In October 2011, these Obama advisors issued a report calling for among other things, “a new federal financing program to attract private investment for clean energy projects via loan guarantees and other tools.” This request is on top of the $80 billion of "green earmarks" that has been flowing out of the 2009-Recovery Act as well as other agencies fueling clean energy projects like the Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), etc. Furthermore, the Obama administration fires up new climate legislation and mandates, which benefits special interest groups while adversely affecting American families.

So we say goodbye to Obama’s Jobs Council –– a panel full of "deep-pocket Democratic donors and high-profile financiers" of Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, noted ABC News in 2011. Meanwhile several were Obama campaign bundlers and it included its share of union representatives like AFL-CIO’s left-wing "elitist" Richard Trumka.

During its February 2011 implementation, The Wall Street Journal pointed out, "The group is long on White House regulars, golf partners and meal guests." A jobs panel by the way –– those that have been advising the president on how to create jobs and grow the economy, of which many were recruited from President Obama's February 2009 Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) enacted by an "executive order" –– whereas the majority are known for “job outsourcing.”

If you’ve been following any of my Green Corruption stories, since December I’ve been unraveling a new series "Spreading the Wealth to Obama's Ultra-Rich Jobs Council," exposing the five panel members that have received billions of “green” funds, the majority coming from the 2009-Recovery Act. So far I’ve covered Jeffrey Immelt, John Doerr, Lewis Hay, and today I will tackle the Hyatt heiress that raised more than $900,000 for Obama's two campaigns –– billionaire Penny Pritzker, also "rumored for Commerce Job" –– although recent reports show it could soon become a reality.

Obama’s Last Commerce Secretary

This is the same position that was held by John Bryson –– entangled in a huge piece of this Green Corruption scandal –– who was BrightSource Energy’s chairman of the board prior to his appointment as Secretary of Commerce with the Obama White House in May 2011. Although Bryson resigned in June 2012 following some mysterious auto accidents, his and the current BrightSource CEO John Woolard's political influence was no mishap.

Bryson has ties to the left-wing organization the Apollo Alliance as well as the politically powerful billionaire George Soros –– both helped craft the stimulus package, a trillion-dollar influx of taxpayer cash that eventually bailed out BrightSource. The firm was part of an intense push in 2011 that involved meaningful Democrat connections –– donors, investors, and stakeholders –– and correspondences with President Obama as well as the White House and Department of Energy Officials.

Despite the fact that BrightSource was one of 22 (out of 26) projects from the 1705 loan guaranteed program –– created under the 2009-Recovery Act –– which were rated as "junk bond" status, that didn’t sway the DOE in the least. Because on April 11, 2011, the DOE announced the finalization of $1.6 billion in loan guarantees for BrightSource’s Ivanpah project, which created a whopping 1000 construction and 86 permanent jobs. These were projects that were funded by the DOE with  $16 billion of taxpayer money, of which we can confirm that over 90 percent are politically connected to the president and other high-ranking Democrats –– some both.

However, the BrightSource push started as early as September 2009, as reflected in the House Oversight leaked emails that were unleashed late October 2012 –– a treasure trove of "inside DOE Intel" –– which not only confirms the above shady scenario, it implicates more BrightSource executives and stakeholders, DOE officials as well as Obama’s Green Team and several in Congress from the Democrat side.

In the 350+ page Appendix II, I found ongoing interaction and pressure from the heavy weight K Street firm McBee Strategic Consulting, which substantiates Timothy Carney's (the Examiner) statement, “K Street is the epicenter of this green-industrial complex, and ground zero might be the firm founded by Democratic revolving-door earmark lobbyist Steve McBee.” Carney goes on with an interesting discovery; McBee ­­[a cap-and-trade pusher] “reportedly wrote key provisions in the stimulus bill to open the spigot of green corporate welfare.”

The “BrightSource Billion Dollar Shady DOE Deal,” which also received special treatment by the Department ofInterior (part of our “Special Seven Series” last summer), plot thickens because along with Google and BrightSource, “NRG is the lead investor (sometime in October 2010 during the time of their DOE loan process) of the 392 MW Ivanpah project currently being developed in southeastern California's Mojave Desert.”

The NRG piece to this green deal was underreported, as was the fact that NRG Energy Inc. (BrightSource) is "the number one  recipient of most the 1705 loans."  If you’re not aware, NRG is connected to George Soros, an Obama donor and 2009-Recovery Act advisor, who "in the first quarter of 2009, went on a stock buying spree in companies that ultimately benefited from the federal stimulus," including NRG Energy –– a huge revelation featured in Peter Schweizer's blockbuster 2011 release that rocked the Washington establishment, Throw Them All Out, which I touched upon last May when NRG Energy landed on the DOE Cronyism Hot Seat. More damaging details in the works, but I digress…

Billionaire Penny Pritzker

Penny Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt Hotel and Pritzker family fortune, was a key fundraiser for Barack Obama's presidential run in 2008. She’s the CEO of PSP Capital Partners and Pritzker Realty Group, and ranked in Forbes 400 list among the wealthiest in America. Also from the PERAB, Pritzker was one of the “elect members” of the president's Jobs Council, whom wears many liberal hats, including many prominent positions like the 2008 National Finance Chair of the Barack Obama for President campaign and co-chair of the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee, yet played a less significant role in Obama’s 2012 reelection.

Ms. Pritzker is related to the Telsa Motors $465 million loan and its 1500 jobs via the fact that –– besides Obama bundlers, big donors, and DOE insiders –– another Tesla investor is another billionaire Nicholas J. Pritzker, partner at Tao Ventures and senior development advisor for Hyatt Hotels Corp, also a donor to Obama and a cousin of Penny Pritzker –– both from Chicago.

Created under Section 136 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program (ATVM) –– not part of the 2009-Recovery Act –– holds authority to award up to $25 billion in direct loans, however, thus far the Obama administration has approved five loans worth $8.4 billion of taxpayer money.

In 2011, IWatch took notice into the DOE's "risky $1 billion bet on two politically-connected electric car builders," stating, “To date (2011), records show, more than 95 percent of applicants are still awaiting approval or have been rejected.” And that “both companies have political heavyweights behind them.”

This was a story had alluded to in 2010 and elaborated on in November 2012 –– “Cruising Down the Green Cronyism Road,” where I tracked the $8.4 billion of ATVM money to the "favored five." At that time, Marita Noon, energy columnist at Townhall.com  –– my cohort in exposing this massive Green Corruption scandal  –– and I were given an exclusive regarding XP Technologies, an ATVM applicant, which filed a lawsuit against the federal government citing “corruption and negligence.” Three have direct ties to the president: Telsa as well as Fisker Auto, which is an investment of another Jobs Council member, John Doerr (you can find my full report that I released a few weeks ago, “Bank of Obama: John Doerr and Al Gore of Kleiner Perkins, the Mother of All Green Energy Stimulus Money Winners.”)

While SolarCity's $275 million DOE deal fell apart due to the 2011 Solyndra "red flags," we do know that as of December 2012, "SolarCity currently benefits from tax credits totaling as much as 30 percent of the cost of these systems," notes Bloomberg. Moreover, as documented, SolarCity has applied for $341 million in grants, but I found 27 1603 grants for "USB SolarCity Master Tenant," which ranges over 15 states, totaling over $88 million. With this type of tally, it's difficult to say exactly how much tax-free cash SolarCity has received or will be given in the future.

Prior to entering the federal probe spotlight, SolarCity had already lined up hundreds of millions in solar funds from investors and various partnerships, which are big players in this green-energy scheme. Besides Bank of America's November 2011 entry, and sometime before July 2010, former vice president and future first "carbon billionaire" Al Gore's firm Generation Investment Management LLP became part of the SolarCity family.

The Green Corruption Blogger

Despite Harm to the Environment and the Economy, Fiscal Cliff Deal Fuels Continuing Corporate Welfare 

Benghazi isn’t the only White House cover up being exposed through leaked emails. State Department staffers aren’t the only career officials being blamed for President Obama’s inexperience, questionable judgment, and obvious cover up. A similar saga has just been exposed in the latest chapter of the green-energy crony-corruption scandal.

On October 30, The Daily Caller ran a feature titled: As many as fifty Obama backed green energy companies bankrupt or troubled. The piece cited the work Christine Lakatos and I did in our three-part “green-energy failures” series released in October. Immensely popular, the DC article was picked up by numerous sites, including Fox Nation and GOPUSA. That night, Newt Gingrich was on Fox News’ On the Record with Greta Van Sustren. After discussing the incriminating Benghazi emails, he pointed to another possible “October surprise.”

Gingrich teased: “The other big story, I think, that is going to break, is on corruption and extraordinary waste in the solar-power grants and direct involvement by the Obama White House, including the President, in the solar-panel grants involving billions of dollars, and I suspect that’s going to break Wednesday and Thursday of this week.”

His sources were dead on. The next day, Wednesday, October 31, at 1:30PM ET, we received a tip regarding the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s release of more than 150 mails, equaling hundreds of pages of convicting evidence, accompanied by a five-page “Memorandum” with the following subject line: “Update on Committee’s Oversight of the DOE Loan Guarantee Program: New Emails Show President Obama, Senior Administration Officials Misled American People about Role of President and White House in Program.”

Through the research and writing we’ve done, Lakatos and I were confident that there was direct involvement, after all, of the 26 loans (of which the majority were "junk" rated) issued through just the 1705 Loan Guarantee Program to 21 firms, virtually all of them had meaningful political ties (bundlers, donors, supporters, etc.,) to the White House and other high-ranking Democrats. Despite the obvious connection, President Obama has repeatedly denied any involvement. As it has done with Benghazi-gate, the White House, this time through Senior Advisor David Plouffe, while on Meet the Press (October 30, 2011), shuns responsibility for something politically uncomfortable: “decisions about the loan program were made by career officials in the Department of Energy on the merits.”

Likewise, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, while testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in November of 2011, stuck to the talking points when, referencing the Solyndra debacle, under oath, he said: “I am aware of no communication from the White House to the Department of Energy saying to make the loan or to restructure.” More recently, March 2012, before the House Oversight Committee, Chu claimed: “we looked at the loans on their own merits.” At that same hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), pressed Secretary Chu on nine of the firms that received loans, revealing their political connections. Chu countered that the loans were based on “merit.” Yet Jordan was perplexed, “so if you weren’t helping your buddies, and you were basing your decisions on the merits of the loan, how do you explain the fact that 23 of 27 recipients of the loan guarantees were rated as junk status investments?” Jordan concluded, “If it wasn’t your political buddies, it had to be incompetence.”

Also under oath, in the July 18, 2012, Oversight Hearing specifically addressing Abound Solar (now bankrupt and under investigation for securities fraud, consumer fraud and financial misrepresentation), former Executive Director of the Loan Program Office (LPO), Jonathan Silver stated, “Because I am no longer at the department, I do not have access to the analysis done for the Abound project. As a result, I cannot comment in detail about the transaction, but what I can do however, is give you a flavor for what we try to do on this, and every project… The loan would have gone through multiple reviews independent of the loan program’s office, including detailed reviews by career credit professionals at DOE, and career staff at OMB, Treasury, and the National Economic Council.”

Silver then emphatically informed the Committee, “This loan––like all the loans underwritten by career professionals, supported by outside specialists –– it was reviewed by career professionals from multiple executive branch offices.” “It was not rushed, the review took place over several years.” “It was not given to friends –– indeed no one in the Loan Program had any idea what individuals were involved in this [Abound] or any other transaction, nor did we care.” The questioning continued. Silver was asked if he saw any evidence of pay-to-play during his tenure. Silver’s response: “None whatsoever, sir—as I say, almost nobody that I am aware of in the Loan Program even knew who the individuals were who had invested, either directly or indirectly, into these companies.”

During the October 11 Vice Presidential debate, when Paul Ryan challenged him on the oversight of the “$90 billion in green pork to campaign contributors,” Vice President Biden sang the same tune: “His colleague runs an investigative committee, spent months and months and months going into this. Months and months. They found no evidence of cronyism.”

Just last week, October 26, 2012, President Obama continued the ruse, when he told a Denver, Colorado news anchor that decisions made in the loan program office are “decisions, by the way, that are made by the Department of Energy, they have nothing to do with politics.”

Clearly the stories were coordinated, and were contrary to the obvious conclusions a thinking person would draw—which prompted the Oversight Committee to probe further. However, until the leaked emails were made public on Thursday, we had no proof. We needed the smoking gun.

The tale-tellers, at the least, “misled the American people,” behaved unethically, and may well be guilty of perjury.

Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy

The emails revealed that Secretary Chu may well have perjured himself—though as Jordan implied, he may just be incompetent. We’ve written extensively on the interaction of decision-makers in the Administration and its “buddies.” In the March 2012 hearing, Jordan asked specifically: “Did the White House call you about, talk to you about any of these…did someone from the White House talk to you, the Chief of Staff, someone from the White House, talk to you about these respective companies, involving these individuals?”

Our research shows involvement of then-White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley in the BrightSource loan—one of the projects Jordan was asking about.

The new emails show Chu personally issued orders to prioritize a project favored by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer—Unistar.

Email #13 shows that Silver wrote to Chu’s Chief of Staff in a December 10, 2010, email: “since Aldy [White House staff Joe Aldy] personally promised the edf management group [one of the sponsors of the Unistar loan guarantee project] that he would lead an interagency review of this topic, we should tell him that he should be the one to call and deliver the news.”

Email #14: “there has been a commitment from S1 [Secretary Chu] to Steny Hoyer on this.”

Email #15: “Just came down from the Secretary’s office. He is adamant that this transaction is going to OMB by the end of the day.”

LPO Credit Advisor Jim McCrea (possibly the source of this massive email leak, as his name is one of the most consistent in the email text), had hesitation about the project, stating in Email #16: “Ordinarily, over an issue like this, I would refuse to sign the credit paper and refuse to send it to OMB tomorrow but given the direct order I was personally given by S1[Secretary Chu]…”

Didn’t someone say the loans were not politically motivated and were based solely on merit? Oh, yes, it was the President who said: “they have nothing to do with politics.”

Jonathan Silver, Former Executive Director of the Loan Program Office

Silver (reported to be an Obama bundler and Democratic donor) resigned in early October 2011, amidst the Solyndra scandal. His claim that loan reviews took place over “several years” and that loans were not “given to friends” is perjurious.

First, the loans couldn’t have been reviewed over “several years.” Obama wasn’t President until January 2009. The Stimulus funds were made available in February 2009. And, the Solyndra $528 million loan guarantee (September 2009) was the Obama administration’s first, as part of the 2009 stimulus package. Solyndra was also the first company to go bankrupt in September 2011. Clearly, there was no “several years” in there.

While logic and simple math tell us that the loans were not reviewed over “several years,” the emails prove the rushed process. In the 350+ page Appendix II, the very first email is from McCrea to Silver (dated June 15, 2010)—subject line: 28 day clock. In it he complains about things being rushed. He opens with “I do not have a good sense of why the DOE and OMB agreed to a 28 day clock following Solyndra...” Though by the end of the page-long email, McCrea seems to concede: “I am not sure that the 28 day process is really as much of a constraint as it might appear at first glance.”

Again, we covered Silver’s involvement with many key players including John Woolard, CEO of BrightSource Energy. Silver is very well connected, having served in the Clinton Administration, he parties with Al Gore, was a frequent White House visitor and participated in meetings with Chief of Staff Bill Daley. Silver used his personal email account to conduct DOE business. But there is no hard proof there.
  
The following eight paragraphs is a revision from our original post with additional information: 

Also found in Appendix II, early on (December 2009), way before the DOE finalized the $1.6 billion loan guarantee for BrightSource Energy (April 2011), we find that there was a strong push by Silver and others  inside and close to the energy department in getting this loan approved . 

We find a very suspicious email exchange about BrightSource that included CEO Woolard, Joshua Bar-Lev, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs for BrightSource, and the lobbying firm representing BrightSource, McBee Strategic Consulting  –– as well as some unknown "energy-Democrat-tied participants": 

• Steve McBee
• Jeff Markey 
• Robert Simon
• Angela Becker-Dippman 
• Michael Carr 
• Stephen Ward
• Matt Brown 
• Gabe Horwitz

We discovered that in 2009, Steve McBee alerted the masses with the following...

 "Wanted to let you know that the BrightSource application appears to moving apace at OMB and has a fighting chance of getting over to DOE..." "DOE is another story. We are hearing that despite a strong push by Silver, Spinner, Rogers and others internally, the process is getting sideways by any number of bureaucratic hold ups and there is now real potential for consideration of the project to slip until next year...[or"redeployed to China]" "ANYTHING you guys would be willing to do with DOE in terms of moving the process would be deeply appreciated."

Joshua Bar-Lev in response says, "Do you all think we should have vantage point insist on mtg with chu or silver or rodgers? Should John and I try to fly out for something similar? Looking for some game changer but perhaps we’ve done all we could. Is dc shut down by the snow or is there some impact we could make? Joshua"

NOTE: We've covered Silver, Steve Spinner and Matt Rogers (all former DOE advisors) in previous posts, as well as Silver's "shady email practices." The “DOE Insiders," where plenty of “VC Guys” and “Gore Acolytes” held key positions –– a dozen on my radar, where at least a dozen on the "green corruption" radar, including these three. 

Time out for a minute...as noted during Silver's testimony this past July, he made this denial: “...as I say, almost nobody that I am aware of in the Loan Program even knew who the individuals were who had invested, either directly or indirectly into these companies.” 

So the question remains, if Silver nor anyone else knew, why would anyone seek help from Vantage Point? Who knows? But what we do know is that Vantage Point Partners is the majority stakeholder in BrightSource, and Sanjay Wagle was a principle. Wagle just so happens to be the “renewable energy grants adviser” at the DOE under Secretary Chu.

While we know that Silver had cozy relationships with quite a few of those seeking green-energy funding (like Al Gore and Woolard), the following emails confirm that lobbying the White House and the Vice President’s office achieves results, not only with getting a loan approved, but clearing obstacles with the Department of Interior (DOI) that put their entire billion-dollar project at risk.

Email #5, drafted by Bright Source CEO John Woolard for then-Board Chairman John Bryson to send to then-White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley: “This project is now at significant risk due to delays in permitting at the Department of Interior…”

Email #6, from Wollard stated: “we are making good progress in DC. Whitehouse [sic] does seem to be very focused on this issue, in fact it is being elevated through the office of political affairs as well as VP Bidens- so we are starting to get them focused on the massive political risk- it helps that Bloomberg called Ivanpah ‘Obama’s energy project’ so it does have their attention.”

Email #7, two weeks later, BrightSource got what it wanted: “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued their revised Biological Opinion, prompting the Bureau of Land Management to issue a new notice to proceed allowing continued construction at Ivanpah units 2 and 3.”

The BrightSource case reeks of political connections, yet we are supposed to believe the loans “had nothing to do with politics.”

Joe Biden, Vice President

Biden’s denial comes from his one debate of this campaign season, about which Diana Furchtgott-Roth writes for Real Clear Markets: “In Thursday's vice presidential debate, Joe Biden denied any ‘cronyism’ in the award of Energy Department grants and loan guarantees to encourage the development of renewable energy. Plus, he asserted that government-assisted green energy projects had a better ‘batting average’ than do projects backed by investment bankers. Just one problem: Neither of Biden's assertions was true. Plus, the Vice President himself had a role in the cronyism.”

Email #6, proves her point: “…It is being elevated through the office of political affairs as well as VP Bidens…”

Then there is Email #4: “Pressure is on real heavy on SF [Shepherds Flat] due to interest from VP.” Additionally, as we addressed, though not revealed in the emails, Bernie Toon, who served then-Senator Biden as his Chief of Staff, became a lobbyist for BrightSource Energy.

The White House and President Barack Obama

President Obama did keep himself somewhat isolated—having made fewer denials and being involved in fewer emails, however, he cannot be omitted from the discussion, as he was clearly party to the loan approvals. Plus, the emails show that DOE officials were pressured by the political interests at stake.

Email #1, from McCrea to Silver: “I am growing increasingly worried about a fast track process imposed on us at the POTUS level based on this chaotic process that we are undergoing…by designing the fast track process and having it approved at the POTUS level (which is an absolute waste of his time!) it legitimizes every element and it becomes embedded like the 55% recovery rate which also was imposed by POTUS.”

Email #2, from David Schmitzer, DOE LPO Director of Loan Origination to McCrea: “Jonathan just said at our staff meeting that, opposite the message received on Thursday, AREVA is now a ‘go” (seems on Friday POTUS himself approved moving it ahead).”

Email #3, from Silver to McCrea, encouraging him to remind a Treasury official of White House interest in now bankrupt Abound Solar: “You better let him know that WH wants to move Abound forward. Policy will have to wait unless they have a specific policy problem with abound.”

Despite Obama’s claim that the decisions regarding the loans had “nothing to do with politics,” it is clear that they had everything to do with politics—and not just his own. Loans were used to bolster Senator Reid’s re-election chances in the tight 2010 race.

Email #8, McCrea wrote: “Since this is not going to go into the DOE, and just to be clear, the translation is: Reid may be desperate. WH may want to help. Short term considerations may be more important than longer term considerations and what’s a billion anyhow?”

Email #9, Silver wrote: “I need some stats on how many projects we have funded or have in DD [due diligence] as a percentage of totals.  Reid is constantly hit at home for not bringing in the federal dollars.”

If all of this were a novel, or better yet a dramatic feature film, we’d find it most entertaining. We’d leave the theater shaking our heads at the gall of the movie’s starring actor. Instead, this full-color story (White House, green energy, Silver connections) leads to red ink—money borrowed from China that the US taxpayer will be paying back for generations. 

The coercion, corruption, cronyism and, cover up of the President's pet projects is really a horror flick, after all, the emails were released on Halloween. Each one of us is a victim of an expensive trick.

Article first presented at Townhall.com written by columnist Marita K. Noon, Busting Open Energy's Den of Deception, November 4, 2012 –– as a follow up to our BREAKING this story on October 31, 2012:

• Emails Catch White House Lie on Green-Energy Loans
• BREAKING: Newly Released House Oversight Emails Incriminate White House in Green-Energy Loan Lies, where the cronyism evidence is expanded upon.

Research by Christine Lakatos THE Green Corruption blogger.

When he is confronted about the failed green-energy loan program, President Obama deflects blame—pointing to “career bureaucrats” in the Department of Energy (DOE) who supposedly approved the loans that have become an embarrassment to the White House. 

For months, along with researcher Christine Lakatos, I’ve been reporting on, first, the junk-bond rated projects (such as Solyndra) that received fast-tracked approval from the DOE and, then the failed and troubled stimulus funded companies. Solyndra was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Embarrassment after embarrassment has come to light as the projects touted as the hope for America’s future have filed for bankruptcy, sent money and jobs overseas, and faced technical difficulties.

According to GAO March 2012 statistics (and emphasized in the June 19th Congressional hearing), "For the 460 applications to the Loan Guarantee Program (LGP), DOE has made loan guarantees for 7 percent and committed to an additional 2 percent."

And of the 26 projects that got the loans, 22 were junk-bond rated—meaning private investors wouldn’t fund them. So why did we, the taxpayers?

Of the 26 loans issued through just the 1705 LGP to 21 firms, virtually all of them have meaningful political ties (bundlers, donors, supporters, etc). Our research showed that at least 90% of the projects had close ties to the White House and other high ranking Democrats. Despite the obvious connection, President Obama has repeatedly denied any involvement—preferring to blame “career bureaucrats” who could take the fall with no political consequence.

In March, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, testified that, “We looked at the loans on their own merits.” Also, back in November 2011, he said: “I am aware of no communication from White House to Department of Energy saying to make the loan or to restructure.”

Just last week, on October 26, President Obama affirmed Chu’s position when he said: “Decisions made in the loan program office are decisions, by the way, that are made by the Department of Energy, they have nothing to do with politics.”

However, late Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a new report of “over 150 emails that contradict statements by the President, Secretary Chu, and White House and DOE officials.” The emails reveal a series of questionable practices, including coercion, cronyism and, cover ups.

The Committee has been asking for the emails and additional testimony since the Solyndra story broke in September of 2011, but the DOE has been refusing to cooperate. Emails were finally leaked from former DOE employees. Some of the incriminating evidence includes the following:

1. From an email dated March 1, 2010 from David Schmitzer, DOE LPO Director of Loan
   Origination to LPO Credit Advisor McCrea and others: “Jonathan just said at our staff meeting that, opposite the message received on Thursday, AREVA is now a “go” (seems on Friday POTUS himself approved moving it ahead).”
2. From an email dated June 25, 2010, LPO Executive Director Jonathan Silver encourages LPO Credit Advisor Jim McCrea to remind a Treasury official of White House Interest in now bankrupt Abound Solar: "You better let him know that WH wants to move Abound forward. Policy will have to wait unless they have a specific policy problem with abound.”
3. From an email dated September 9, 2010 from LPO Credit Advisor McCrea to
   DOE contractor Brian Oakley: "Pressure is on real heavy on SF [Shepherds Flat] due to interest from VP.”

These emails are just a snippet of the 150 emails we are reviewing as a part of the just-released report. We have reported on each of the projects listed above and will report further.

We know that the Obama Administration operates from a “culture of corruption,” now we see that there is also a culture of deception within the White House walls. The White House green lies are bigger than innocent, little white lies; they are expensive green lies that have produced $34.7 billion in red ink for the taxpayers.

The Obama green energy program is the largest, most expensive, and deceptive case of crony capitalism in American history.

Back Story

As I was busy being "proud of myself" for making it on The Daily Caller (October 30th) with a "hit" piece featuring my "Obama Green-Energy Failures," I heard Newt Gingrich "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” (Fox News Channel). Lo and behold, Gingrich had this to say, after noting that the rumor [more incriminating Benghazi emails were forthcoming], if true, would have a substantial impact on the presidential election, Gingrich pointed to another possible “October surprise” in the coming days.

“The other big story, I think, that is going to break is on corruption and extraordinary waste in the solar power grants and direct involvement by the Obama White House, including the president, in the solar panel grants involving billions of dollars, and I suspect that’s going to break Wednesday and Thursday of this week,” Gingrich added.

The next day, I received the above bombshell Intel in my inbox around 4:30 PM, and I was immediately in contact with Marita via emails, text, and on the phone –– thus we threw up this breaking news at Townhall.com [Emails Catch White House Lie on Green-Energy Loans], divulging just a snippet of data into the 150 internal emails released by the House Oversight Committee on October 31, 2012: Emails Contradict President Obama, Administration Officials on Energy Dept. Loan Program.

Cronyism*

Besides the obvious contradictions, coercion, and cover up, since April this year, we had already chronicled many of the green-energy, crony-corruption stories –– the driving forces behind the majority of the loans that flew out of the DOE. In fact the three firms/projects found in the "smoking gun" emails released by the House Oversight Committee –– that we decided to highlight in our breaking story –– we had already reported on since April 2012.

• As mentioned Kleiner Perkins as well as Al Gore's Generation Investment Management firm (GIM) also tied to the Spanish company Abengoa that received more than $2.8 billion in loans and grants—making them the second largest recipient of the $16 billion doled out through the DOE 1705 loan guarantee program.
• Khosla Ventures, where billionaire Vinod Kholsa, another big VC winner in the green taxpayer funded giveaway, that includes Ausra (listed here), Coskata that snagged a $250 million DOE loan as well as Nordic WindPower (also a Goldman Sachs investment) for $16 million, plus more. Vinod Khosla, an affiliated partner of Kleiner Perkins, whose firm Khosla Ventures has also invested in some of the same companies as Kleiner Perkins, which include; AltaRock Energy Inc., $25 million grant from the stimulus; Amyris Biotechnologies, $25 million grant from the stimulus; and Mascoma Corporation has received state and federal grants from the DOE since 2006, totaling over $170 million and as recent as 2008, received another $49.5 million in funding from the DOE and the state of Michigan. According to Scwheizer's Throw Them All Out, "Kholsa had been the head of Obama's India Policy Team during the 2008 election and contributed to Democratic candidates. 

• October 8, 2012: Bankrupt green loan loser Abound Solar now under investigation in Colorado –– Michelle Malkin  
• October 11, 2012: House Committee Launches Document Probe Into DOE, Abound Solar –– The Heritage Foundation October 25, 2012: Colorado officials continue Abound Solar fraud investigation –– The Daily Caller  
• October 27, 2012: EMAILS SHOW WHITE HOUSE DROVE FAILED GREEN-LOAN IN COLORADO –– The Complete Colorado by Todd Shepherd  
• October 29, 2012: Emails Show White House Exerted Pressure for DOE Loan to Abound Solar –– National Legal and Policy Center

Abound Connections: 
Those that gained financially and politically:

• 2008 billionaire heiress Pat Stryker, early investor in Abound (then AVA); 2008 Obama bundler and Democrat donor (and Obama donor for 2012)
• Democratic Congressman Paul Kanjorski’s nephew Russell
• Then-Colorado Democratic Congresswoman Betsy Markey (tied to cap-and-trade) 
• At the state level, then Democratic Colorado Governor Bill Ritter strongly supported Abound Solar and its application for a DOE loan guarantee, gave letter to Secretary Chu.
• Republican ties: Abound Solar is also backed by Invus Public Equities Advisors LLC, which was co-founded by Raymond Debbane, who has donated to Republican candidates including Representative Darrell Issa. Also, Abound, formerly known as AVA Solar won part of a $60 million grant under the Bush administration.

Shepherds Flat* (I covered in my July 2012 piece entitled, General Electric Making “Bank” off Obama's “Green” Stimulus Money; Over $3 Billion and Counting) 

EXCERPT: 

General Electric, CEO Jeffrey Immelt, Chair of Obama’s Job Council and the Billions They Raked in Through the 2009 Obama Stimulus Package 

Whereas General Electric (GE) is a heavy donor to both Republicans and Democrats, and Immelt himself "plays the role of typical corporate donor who hedges his bets on both sides of the fence," in 2008, GE gave the Obama campaign $529,855, marking them a top Obama donor. Nevertheless, GE is a major player on the clean-energy scene as well as in this green energy scheme. Even The New York Times recognized GE’s “green power,” noting that in 2009, GE lobbied Congress to help expand the “clean-energy subsidy programs, and it now profits from every aspect of the boom in renewable-power plant construction,” including “hundreds of millions in contracts to sell its turbines to wind plants built with public subsidies.” In fact, you'll be "blown away" by the billions of "wind energy grants" that blew out of the stimulus package back in February 2010, of which GE is contracted to at least 26% of them as the "Turbine Manufacturer."

In late 2009, it was reported that GE became "one of the newer smart meter players," and that they "had been working with utility Oklahoma Gas & Electric on a 6,600 smart meter trial, and had procured "a contract with Pepco Holdings (PHI)," which received Smart Grid Investment Grants totaling $168 million. GE also has a big contract with Florida Power and Light," also the recipient of a $200 million stimulus grant.

Yet, this is just the beginning of the GE "green bucks"...

While a recent "news flash" was published by the Republican National Committee, confirming via Recovery.gov that "General Electric received over $1.2 billion worth of stimulus loan guarantees, awards, contracts and grants" (the majority of which were for renewable energy projects), they missed billions more. Two large 1705 loan guarantees that I had outlined in April of this year, as well as a forthcoming $490 million cash grant and a $54.6 million loan from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). Add in some smaller government subsidies and awards for a multitude of green projects, programs, and through some of their "green alliances," that I found during my 2011 research, and GE's "green tab" exceeds $3 billion in direct (some indirectly) taxpayer cash, and counting. ;

Let's take a look at GE's two projects from the 1705 Loan Guarantee Program, both of which are included the DOE's risky investment portfolio.

• 1366 Technologies Inc, Rating B by Fitch, Sept 2011 –– $150 million
• Caithness Shepherds Flat, LLC –– Rating BBB- by Fitch; Oct 2010 for $1.04 billion (or $1.3 billion)

GE sponsored the Caithness Shepherds Flat, and also supplied the project with 338 wind-turbines. On top of the $1.3 billion loan, the Caithness project is set to receive a cash grant of $490 million from the Treasury Department once those turbines start turning.

Later, another close associate of, and big donor to the president invested in Caithness. As uncovered by Peter Schweizer in his book, Throw Them All Out, "Google's CEO at the time, Eric Schmidt, served as an informal advisor to President Obama.” Still, Schmidt, Google Executive Chairman, was an Obama donor in 2008, and since April 2009, is a member of the president's Science and Technology Advisory Council (PCAST). Interestingly, Google’s $814,540 contribution to Obama’s campaign made it the fifth largest donor in 2008. As of late, Google has aimed its "search engines" at green technology, many of which have received government "help" –– BrightSource, Solar City, Telsa Motors, and others, but we’ll stay focused on GE.

The House Oversight, March 2012 investigation reveals internal memos of concern over the fact that the Caithness Shepherds Flat project was receiving “an excessive amount of public subsidy (where grants, tax credits and loan guarantees provided 65% of the funding for the project), and that private parties did not have sufficient ‘skin in the game.’”

Further, it goes on to state, “Four months after the DOE approved the Caithness loan, President Obama named Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE, as the Chairman of Obama’s Job Council” –– a council stacked with Democratic donors, and several Obama bundlers, both for the 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

It also discloses “General Electric’s broad access to loan guarantees,” and it gives a very illuminating account. “Since Immelt’s appointment as Chair of the Job Council, two additional government-backed transactions have occurred." "First the poorly rated 1366 Technologies, sponsored in part by GE, received a direct $150 million loan commitment from the DOE for its solar manufacturing plant." Second was the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) that loaned $54.6 million to Kansas City Southern Railway Company (KCSR) "to purchase thirty new General Electric ES44AC diesel-electric locomotives" –– a loan that raised red flags in the House investigation. 

More to come...

However, another incriminating factor that struck me in the new report (memo) released by House Oversight is that "DOE officials were aware of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s tough reelection in 2010 and moved projects that were important to Senator Reid forward." 

• In a December 5 2009 email, Loan Program Office Senior Credit Advisor Jim McCrea forwarded an article about Senator Reid’s reelection campaign to LPO contractor Paul Barbian and stated: “Since this is not going to go into the DOE, and just to be clear, the translation is: Reid may be desperate. WH may want to help. Short term considerations may be more important than longer term considerations and what’s a billion anyhow?” 
•  In a May 4 2010 email, LPO Executive Director Jonathan Silver wrote in an email “I need some stats on how many projects we have funded or have in DD [due diligence] as a percentage of totals.  Reid is constantly hit at home for not bringing in the federal dollars.”
• Throughout 2010 LPO emails indicate that projects in Nevada were prioritized because they were “high profile,” “tied to larger events,” or because they had Senator Reid’s support.  These projects included the $343 million SWIP project (Email #10, attached), the $98.5 million Nevada Geothermal project (Email #11, attached), and the $737 million SolarReserve Tonopah project. 

This is another part of the Green Corruption scandal brought to you by Marita and I in July 2012, Senator Harry Reid’s Part in Green-Energy Crony-Corruption. However, speaking of Jonathon Silver and Secretary Chu, they are both implicated in these newly released and damning email dumps –– both on my Green Corruption radar since 2010, along with at least a "Dozen DOE Insiders."

And in April 2012, Chu in my Green Corruption: Department of Energy “Junk Loans” and Cronyism, noting that in a gripping line of questioning, Ohio Representative Jim Jordan confronted this issue head on during that same hearing where he pressed Secretary Chu on nine of the firms that received loans, revealing their political connections. Chu countered that the loans were based on merit. Yet Jordan was perplexed, “so if you weren’t helping your buddies, and you were basing your decisions on the merits of the loan, how do you explain the fact that 23 of 27 recipients of the loan guarantees were rated as junk status investments?” Jordan concluded, “If it wasn’t your political buddies, it had to be incompetence.”

At first glance, we have plenty more cronyism and corruption to piece together with these "smoking gun" emails (and we will), and 100's of more emails to read. Still, it would be a worthy endeavor to investigate if Silver or Chu perjured themselves (or any other CEO as well as any former or current DOE Official for that matter), during any of the (five) House Oversight Committee hearings that have been conducted since 2011 –– my hunch, yes!

Stay tuned...

At the end of September, Marita Noon and I began to expose the various failures of Obama’s green-energy expenditures (mainly from the trillion dollar, 2009-stimulus package where over $90 billion was earmarked for "green") –– projects and firms that have gone bankrupt (confirming 15 with more on our radar). A hot topic that became part of the first presidential debate where after President Obama pressed Mitt Romney for supporting tax cuts for oil companies, Romney reminded Obama that he put $90 billion into failing green companies like Solyndra, Fisker, Tesla, and Ener1. “I had friend who said you don’t just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers,” Romney cleverly added.

We then we moved on to those that are functioning, but facing difficulties –– struggling either financially, while some environmentally, still others laying off workers, and quite a few on life support (approximately 20). 

Lastly, we addressed the "5 million green jobs that Candidate Obama had promised in 2008," of which Team Obama is now claiming victory, however, as we noted, the math doesn't add up, nor does the gimmick accounting –– recycled ones; those that already existed –– used by the Obama administration's Labor Department.

While in Marita's Townhall.com columns we placed an * after the project/company’s name to indicate a political connection (cronyism and corruption), in my subsequent blogs I expanded upon our efforts, and plugged in my research, listing those critical ties. 

In our three-part series, two focused directly on the failures, and our sums were 15 bankruptcies and 20 troubled (a total of 35 with over 65% having meaningful Democrat political connections –– bundlers, donors, supporters, etc). Yet, considering the rapid speed of these "green" bankruptcies and issues (about 10 that I read about just last week), I'm compiling new totals here, which will include a new and updated list by the Heritage Foundation dated October 18, 2012 –– President Obama’s Taxpayer-Backed Green Energy Failures –– with their total of 36 (updated later with a number of 34). And most listed at The Heritage and ours are very similar, however, they have some we don't and vise versa.

1. Solyndra*: Received $535 million DOE loan and $25.1 million in California tax credit. Bankrupt: September 2011
2. Abound Solar*: Received part of a $60 million grant under the Bush administration, and was awarded a $400 million loan under Obama in December of 2010. Abound was awarded a $9.2-million loan from the Export-Import Bank in July 2011. Bankrupt: June 2012
3. Beacon Power*: Received more than $25 million in DOE grants and a DOE loan for $43 million. Bankrupt: October 2011 

4. A123 Systems*: Received $390 million, of which $249 million of it was a Recovery Act Grant. Filed for Bankruptcy October 16, 2012, and two companies are seeking to buy A123; Johnson Controls and the Chinese firm Wanxiangis. 

5. AES Eastern Energy/Energy Storage*: Received $17.1 million DOE conditional commitment on August 2, 2010. Bankrupt: December 31, 2011.
6. Amonix*: Received $6 million in federal tax credits a $15.6 million grant from the DOE for research and development. Bankrupt: July 18, 2012.  
7. Azure Dynamics*: Received millions in stimulus funds and over $1.7 million in Michigan state tax credits. Bankrupt: March 27, 2012 ––  HF ADDITION: states $120 million
   
8. Babcock & Brown: Received $178 million in the largest federal (1603) stimulus wind grant in December 2009. Placed into voluntary liquidation: March 13, 2009
9. Energy Conversion Devices Inc./Uni-Solar: Received a $13.3 million Stimulus tax credit. Bankrupt: February 2011.
10. Ener1*: Received a $118.5 million DOE Stimulus grant. Bankrupt: January 26, 2011.
11. Evergreen Solar, Inc.*: Received Stimulus funds, grants, tax-credits, low-interest loans and subsidies. Bankrupt: August 15, 2011 
12. Konarka Technologies Inc.: Received $20 million in grants from government agencies such as the DOE and the Pentagon. Bankrupt: June 4, 2012.
13. ADDITION Range Fuels*: Range Fuels: $162.25 million in government commitments since 2007, of which $64 million came from a USDA Biofuel loan in 2010 alone, despite financial and technical difficulties, and opposition inside the USDA. 
14. Raser Technologies: Received $33 million Treasury Department Stimulus grant. Bankrupt: May 2, 2011. 
15. SpectraWatt*: Received $500,000 grant from the Renewable Energy Lab via the Stimulus. Bankrupt: August 23, 2011
16. Stirling Energy Systems: Received $7 million from a federal renewable-energy grant and was eligible for nearly $10.5 million in manufacturing September 28, 2011. 
17. Thompson River Power LLC: Received $6.5 million in Stimulus funds from Section 1603. Bankrupt: July 2, 2012.
18. HF ADDITION: Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million); in our unconfirmed list
19. HF ADDITION: Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million);
    in our unconfirmed list
20. HF ADDITION: Nordic Windpower* ($16 million)
21. HF ADDITION: Satcon ($3 million) As reported by the Heritage Foundation October 18, 2012, "A solar company that got a multi-million-dollar grant from the Department of Energy earlier this year announced Wednesday that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, making it the second taxpayer-backed green energy company to file for bankruptcy this week." 
22. HF ADDITION: Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981) ($6 million); in our unconfirmed bankrupt list

1. Fisker Automotive* –– $528.7 
2. Tesla Motors* –– $465 million 
3. AREVA acquired Ausra Inc.* –– $2 billion  
4. BrightSource Energy* –– $1.6 billion 
5. First Solar* –– $3 billion, plus suspicious Export-Import bank funding 
6. Nevada Geothermal* –– $78.8 million, plus $69 million in federal stimulus-funded grants
7. NextEra Energy Genesis Solar Project* –– $681.6 million
8. SunPower Corp.* (California Valley Solar Ranch project bought by NRG Energy*) –– $1.2 billion DOE loan guarantee
9. AltaRock* –– $6 million, $25 million, plus $1.45 million 
10. Bloom Energy* –– $5 million
11. CH2M Hill* –– $2 billion 
12. Chevy Volt* –– $151 million, $105 million, plus other stimulus funds HF ADDITION: GreenVolts ($500,000) - I'm assuming this is the Chevy Volt
13. ECOtality Inc.* –– $126.2 million  

14. Johnson Controls –– $299 million

15. Montana Alberta Tie Line –– $152 million of federal financing (some reports say $161 million) 
16. National Renewable Energy Lab* –– $200 million
17. Schneider Electric –– $86 million
18. Serious Material (Serious Energy)* –– $548,100   
19. Solar World Industries America –– $4.6 million  
20. ADDITION: Solar City* –– Got a $275 million conditional guarantee (DOE) that was later rejected. Besides some financial issues, Solar City was subpoenaed in July as part of a federal probe of the Treasury grant program. As reported by The Washington Free Beacon (October 18, 2012), SolarCity, is currently being audited by the Internal Revenue Service and investigated by the Treasury Department’s inspector general amid allegations that the firm misrepresented the value of its investment when applying for stimulus grants. So it looks like Solar City" has applied for approximately $325 million in these stimulus grants, according to the SEC filing." So, loan rejected, but the grant is larger (as are the political ties) –– we'll keep an eye on this story.
21. Solar World Industries America –– $4.6 million
22. HF ADDITION: Vestas ($50 million)
23. HF ADDITION: LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million, part of the Recovery Act, and millions worth of special state tax breaks based on job creation of all things) LG Chem is another green company that President Obama touted during his visit at the LG Chem battery cell production site in 2010.  This is an amusing story that was recently brought to my attention –– according to Wood TV, Michigan (October 18, 2012), "Workers at LG Chem, a $300 million lithium-ion battery plant heavily funded by taxpayers, tell Target 8 that they have so little work to do that they spend hours playing cards and board games, reading magazines or watching movies." Now, their story (more scandalous than what I posted here) is under investigation by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board –– an oversight agency for the federal stimulus program, what I call the RAT Board –– another huge part of this green corruption scandal.
24. HF ADDITION: Navistar ($10 million) 
25. HF ADDITION: Mascoma Corp.* ($100 million)

Department of Energy Collateral Damage

1. Aptera Motors 
2. Bright Automotive
3. Solar Trust*

 *Denotes companies/projects with confirmed cronyism and/or corruption.

The is the complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies by The Heritage Foundation, October 18, 2012 (updated later to reflect 34)  –– President Obama’s Taxpayer-Backed Green Energy Failures

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

1. Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
4. Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6. SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10. Amonix ($5.9 million)
11. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16. Schneider Electric ($86 million)
17. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
18. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
19. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
20. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
21. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
22. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
23. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
24. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
25. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
26. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
27. GreenVolts ($500,000)
28. Vestas ($50 million)
29. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
30. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
31. Navistar ($39 million)
32. Satcon ($3 million)*
33. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
34. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

HERITAGE CORRECTION:

Figures for four companies have been updated: Beacon Power received $43 million from the U.S. government, not $69 million as originally reported. Azure Dynamics received $5.4 million from the federal government, not $120 million as originally reported. Compact Power Inc. received $151 million as part of the stimulus, not $150 million as originally reported. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group received $700,981 in government funding, not $6 million as originally reported.

The following companies have been removed from the original list: AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy, LSP Energy and Uni-Solar did not receive government-backed loans, based on additional research. The National Renewable Energy Lab did received $200 million in stimulus funding, but it is a government laboratory.

NOTE: My blog reflects the Heritage "corrections," however, I kept in AES and the National Energy Lab –– and we initially had four unconfirmed bankruptcies:

• LSP Energy
• Mountain Plaza Inc.
• Olsen Crop Service/Olsen Mills
• Willard & Kelsey Solar Group

So far, at least $15 billion of "green" taxpayer money is either gone or still at risk, and the majority was funneled to Obama and Democrat cronies 

As you can see tracking President Obama's failed green-energy expenditures is like aiming at a moving target, and calculating the exact dollar amount is even more difficult to pinpoint. This is partly due the fact that companies/projects received multiple green government subsidies that weren't recorded or tracked properly (federal and state loans, grants and special tax credits, and from various programs and agencies). Also, some of these firms were given a loan guarantee, yet didn't have access to the entire amount,  prior to their bankruptcy.  However, as a ballpark figure, I'd say that at least $15 billion that we know of at this time. And here's why...

I had purposely listed the bankrupt and troubled from the Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee Program (DOE LGP) first. Since 2009, the DOE has guaranteed $34.7 billion – 46% through the 1705 ($16 billion of which 90% are politically connected), 30% through the 1703 ($10.3 billion—AREVA and Georgia Power), and 14% through the ATVM ($8.4 billion and 3 of the five loans are tied directly to Obama).

Marita and I covered eleven companies from the DOE LGP (Solyndra, Abound Solar, Beacon Power, Fisker Auto, Telsa Motors, AREVA, BrightSource Energy, First Solar, Nevada Geothermal, NextEra Energy's Genesis Solar Project, and SunPower/NRG Energy's California Valley Solar Ranch), noting that from that program alone, close to $10 billion of taxpayer money is already gone, while, as you can see, some is still at risk. What's interesting to note is that of the "26 loan guarantees under the 1705 program, of which the DOE doled out in excess of $16 billion, “23 of the loans were rated “Junk grade” due to their poor credit quality, while the other four were rated BBB, which is at the lowest end of the 'investment' grade of categories.”

Meaning that the DOE had already put the majority of that $16 billion into excessively risky investments. And to add insult to taxpayer injury, the driving force behind these decisions weren't based merit as the DOE would have you believe –– obviously it was cronyism and corruption. My April 2012 analysis of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform March 2012 report confirmed that over 90% have meaningful political ties to President Obama and high ranking Democrats, or both, which gives credence to Congressman Ryan's jab to the so-called "Stimulus Sheriff," Vice President Joe Biden during the VP debate, "$90 billion in green pork to campaign contributors and special interest groups." Ryan went on to call the Obama green-energy expenditures what it is, "crony capitalism and corporate welfare."

In case you missed our Obama Green Energy Failures, Three Part Series:

• Part One ––  Obama Never Admits Green Failure (September 30, 2012 @ Townhall.com); Obama Green Energy Investments: Bankrupt. My "in the weeds" edition here, Special Report Part One: Obama, the Green Loser; Cronyism Inc.
• Part Two Romney to Obama: “You Pick the Losers," (October 7, 2012 @ Townhall.com)  Obama Green Energy Investments: Troubled. My "in the weeds" edition here, Special Report Part Two: Obama, the Green Loser; Cronyism Inc.
• Part Three ––  Obama's Green Jobs Promise: 355 Jobs and Counting  (October 15, 2012 @ Townhall.com). My "in the weeds" edition here, Special Report Part Three: Where are the 5 Million Green Jobs Candidate Obama Promised?  

PS: If anyone cares to add up these failed green-energy expenditures, drop me a line and I'll post it on my blog. Thanks, Christine @calfit32@gmail.com; THE Green Corruption blogger.

PART THREE, Special Report: Obama, the Green Loser

Obama's Green Jobs Promise: 355 Jobs and Counting

October 15, 2012

Continued from...Special Report Part Two: Obama, the Green Loser; Cronyism Inc. –– Obama Green Energy Investments: Troubled 

And, Special Report Part One: Obama, the Green Loser; Cronyism Inc. –– Obama Green Energy Investments: Bankrupt

“ABC reported: ‘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.’ Those jobs didn’t materialize—at least not in America. … Two years after the loan was awarded, the Washington Post stated that Fisker ‘has missed early manufacturing goals and has gradually pushed back plans for U.S. production and the creation of thousands of jobs’… Now, in 2012, Fisker Automotive is laying off staff in order to qualify for more government loans. So, President Obama’s ‘green’ energy stimulus was supposed to create jobs; now it’s destroying jobs so that companies can get more stimulus?” 

“President Obama, in July 2010, praised Abound Solar, which was to make advanced solar panels … He believed these plants would be huge job creators: ‘2000 construction jobs and 1500 permanent jobs.’ In December 2011, CEO Craig Witsoe called Abound Solar the “anti-Solyndra” saying that his company is “doing well and growing.” However, just months after that optimistic report, Abound Solar filed bankruptcy…” 

• A person who sweeps the floor in a solar-panel manufacturing facility
• A driver of a hybrid bus
• A school bus driver
• An employee who fills the bus with fuel
• An employee involved in waste collection or water and sewer operations
• A clerk at a bicycle repair shop
• A manufacturer of rail cars
• An oil lobbyist whose company is engaged in environmental issues
• An employee of an environment or science museum

This is another collaboration by Marita Noon and Christine Lakatos –– this three-part series was originally posted at Townhall.com, yet more research is presented here at the Green Corruption Blog, in both Parts One and Two here...

1. Special Report Part One: Obama, the Green Loser; Cronyism Inc. –– Obama Green Energy Investments: Bankrupt 
2. Special Report Part Two: Obama, the Green Loser; Cronyism Inc. –– Obama Green Energy Investments: Troubled
3. Special Report Part Three: Where are the 5 Million Green Jobs Candidate Obama Promised?

My reflection of both the Republican and DemocraticNational Conventions, from Tampa to Charlotte, with even the fact-checkers having to be fact checked, has been focused on green: renewable energy and taxpayer money.

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan "slammed President Barack Obama over Solyndra during his acceptance speech." Not surprising considering the ads coming from the Romney camp, hammering away at the Obama administration's failed energy policies along with the crony capitalism charges leveled, a compelling case which the mainstream media is hell bent on either ignoring or shielding the president from.

Ryan declared, “It cost $831 billion –– the largest one-time expenditure ever by our federal government,” referring to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which was sold to the American people, guaranteed by the Obama administration; as a means to stimulate a dying economy and create jobs. “It went to companies like Solyndra, with their gold-plated connections, subsidized jobs and make-believe markets. The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare and cronyism at their worst,” Ryan reinforced.

Conversely, President Obama made a series of energy claims, including renewable, during his acceptance speech, framing his energy policies as a success, and doubling down on his commitment to invest in clean energy.

Additionally, Obama denounced corporate welfare for oil companies at a convention that according to The Center for Public Integrity, was funded by “deep-pocketed corporate donors,” and one year to the day after Solyndra declared bankruptcy.

Steve Spinner: Obama Bundler and Former DOE Loan Programs Advisor 

More amusing perhaps is the fact that the DNC rolled out the red carpet for the president's buddy, Steve Spinner, Obama bundler and former top advisor at the Department of Energy (DOE). Spinner, well known for his involvement and influence (ongoing investigation and internal emails prove) to the ill-fated, politically connected Solyndra, was spotted on the DNC stage, yet bolted for the exit as ABC news made several attempts to interview him.

Over the past two years, it has become perfectly clear that the Solyndra saga, once the poster child for the president's clean energy initiative, has morphed into the template for Obama's green corruption scandal: political payback. Yet, as most concluded a while ago, Solyndra is only the tip of the iceberg.

While this saga warrants an entire chapter, Spinner's part has been widely reported, including the fact that his wife's law firm was representing the California solar company, In October 2011, ABC News reported, "Allison Spinner's law firm, Wilson Sonsini, received $2.4 million in federal funds for legal fees related to the $535 million Energy Department loan guarantee to Solyndra."

Further, it is generally known that George Kaiser, an Oklahoma billionaire and another Obama bundler, was a 35 percent owner of Solyndra. In 2009 (at a Rotary Club event), Kaiser admitted  he, "...was trying to get as much of Obama's giant stimulus payout as possible." It turns out that Mr. Kaiser made multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was granted that huge September 2009 DOE loan. Also, top Solyndra officials made their fair share of visits to the White House (20 visits between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011), as reported by The Daily Caller in August 2011.

An insulting aspect came when we found out that then-CEO Chris Gronet bragged, “The Bank of Washington continues to help us!” –– reports The Heritage Foundation this year. However, Solyndra executives didn't have much to say two years later, as they invoked their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and did not answer any questions asked by the House Energy Committee.

What most don't know is that Fitch rated the Solyndra loan non-investment grade back in 2009, as revealed by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in March 2012. Even so, Solyndra was not the only excessively risky loan doled out by the DOE. Through the DOE’s 1705 Loan Guarantee Program, over $16 billion of taxpayer money was used to fund 26 alternative energy projects; of which 23 were junk rated.

In a twist of fate, the DOE’s junk bond portfolio is where you’ll discover that 90 percent of these firms representing these projects have meaningful ties (bundlers and donors) to President Obama (at least 16) and other high-ranking Democrats; or both, with four to Senator Harry Reid alone.

But the Solyndra saga continues...

As Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, pushes for more Solyndra emails, the high-powered list of players caught up in this drama, from inside the DOE all the way to the White House, is already long and the details are so convoluted that I can only anticipate a reality show to air soon.

What started as an unworthy investment, snagged a 2010 White House endorsement, only to become a PR nightmare that included a loan restructuring (an apparent violation of the law) and even a plot to hide their troubles from the 2010 midterm glare. Solyndra became a cautionary tale of sorts: a failed Obama green investment, one of the first to go kaput, unethical executive bonuses included, leaving in its wake FBI raids, and a trail of resignations and damning emails, all evidence that Obama's "clean" energy is dirty.

Solyndra was a client of Goldman Sachs, and is credited as the “exclusive financial adviser,” Bloomberg notes. Goldman Sachs, as I discovered long ago, has their DNA all over this green-energy crony-corruption scandal. Goldman Sachs was the number two top Obama Donor that gave more than $1 million dollars to his 2008 campaign. Furthermore, two Goldman executives sat on Obama's 2008 finance committee and two were bundlers for his 2008 campaign.

In addition to Spinner, Kaiser, Solyndra executives, and Goldman Sachs, we can add David Mann, a lobbyist and Obama Super Pac donor, who lobbied for Solyndra, to this saga. Recently The Washington Free Beacon (a great source for this scandal) uncovered that Mann was granted significant access to the White House, “He met with White House officials four times in under two years between 2010 and 2012.” The Beacon goes on, “Solyndra is the most prominent of Mann’s failed clients, but it is far from the only one.”

Moreover, GOP substantiated research informs us that, "every Obama Chief Of Staff, staffers across numerous agencies, government watchdogs, even Solyndra investors knew that the risks were too high for taxpayers."

Solyndra, which came from humble junk beginnings, now has its place in history: an art exhibit at the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley, at the price tag of half a billion taxpayer dollars.

Steve Westly, Founder and Managing Partner of The Westly Group: Obama Bundler Serving on Energy Secretary Chu's Advisory Board
 
Now, it's unclear why former Vice President Al Gore's presence was missed at the DNC (climate change drama possibly), especially since he was a strong Obama supporter in 2008. Also, Gore's firm, Kleiner Perkins, along with his friend and partner, billionaire John Doerr, considered "a very big-ticket Obama donor" by New York Magazine, who in February 2011 hosted a star-studded billionaire Silicon Valley dinner for the president, raked in billions of stimulus money for their clean-energy investments. The conflict runs deeper, as Doerr sits on the president's job council, and early on ultimately shaped what went into the energy section of the 2009 Obama stimulus package.

Kleiner Perkins is a firm that I began to unravel in 2010, stressing that over fifty percent of their Greentech Portfolio secured all kinds of loans, grants, and special tax breaks; yet it’s a firm to eventually revisit, because since 2010, they have tripled their green investments and there is much more to expose.

Amyris Biotechnologies, not on the media's radar, is a very relevant story, of which author Schweizer reveals that on “November 18, 2009, "Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein and her husband invested $1 million into Amyris, and just weeks after her seven-figure investment in Amyris, the company scored a $24 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE)." 

As of 2011, the Obama administration had already approved loans, grants, tax breaks for over forty percent (eight out of seventeen) of The Westly Group’s green investments. Besides the three listed above, are CalStar Products, EdenIQ, Solexel, Soladigm, and RecycleBank. However, what is not widely reported is that The Westly Group's clean-tech portfolio and Kleiner Perkins greentech have some of the same investments that received government subsidies like RecycleBank (see my 2010 investigation on RecycleBank) as well as Amonix and EdenIQ.

Westly is also tied to Kleiner Perkins in other ways, and shares some of the same investments as Kholsa Ventures. Goldman Sachs and others are all part of that elite "green society" that I've alluded to quite a few times, those who snagged multiple green-energy government contracts.

Tom Steyer, Senior Managing Partner of Farallon Capital Management: Obama Bundler

Billionaire Tom Steyer, another Obama bundler, who, like most prominent Obama fundraisers, has enjoyed relatively easy access to the White House, and has met with senior White House officials in the West Wing on at least four occasions.

Mr. Steyer opened his DNC speech with a Romney tax joke; then quickly moved to his green energy pitch and President Obama's vision, "This is about investing for the long haul, not for a quick-and-dirty buck," Steyer proclaimed.

As noted in The Washington Free Beacon, Steyer, "Is reportedly one of the backers of Greener Capital, which invests in alternative fuel companies that benefit from the anti-oil policies of the Obama administration. Steyer is also the founder and senior managing partner of Farallon Capital Management, which stands to profit from government policies that increase consumption of natural gas."

The Beacon goes on to give more interesting tidbits about Steyer being a Goldman Sachs protegé of Robert Rubin, but what caught my attention is that while Mr. Styers' alternative energy investments are quite impressive, he also "owns millions of dollars worth of shares in Big Oil companies such as BP."

Speaking of quick-and-dirty bucks.

According to Politico in 2010, Obama is the biggest recipient of BP donations over the past twenty years, and BP has invested big in clean energy. BP Alternative Energy includes BrightSource Energy, the recipient of $1.6 billion in DOE loans, a shady transaction that involves other high-profile political connections to the White House as well as a DOE insider.

Still, BP were winners of more Obama stimulus money; like a $308 million federal DOE grant in 2009 to Hydrogen Energy California, a joint partnership of BP and the multinational mining firm, Rio Tinto, a project considered by the right as a waste of taxpayer money, with mixed reviews by environmentalists.

As reported by the Los Angeles Times in early October 2011, BP subsidiary BP Wind Energy also took advantage of a provision, the production tax credit set to expire at the end of 2012, that had “previously been extended by President Obama’s politically unpopular 2009 stimulus,” and was the recipient of a tax credit for their wind farm in Kansas.

The Times goes on, “The wind industry has been heavily reliant on federal tax credits as it expands,” noting the investment tax credit for new wind projects popularity: “It has awarded more than $8.4 billion in renewable-energy tax credits since 2009, with roughly $6.7 billion going toward wind projects alone, according to U.S. Treasury award data.”

BP Solar unit of BP PLC (based in London) received $11.7 million in 48C credits, despite the fact that this project is creating jobs overseas, aligning them to others on my radar that are outsourcing so called green jobs: First Solar and Sun Power.

This too, was another brainchild of the Recovery Act: the Advanced Energy Manufacturing (48C) Tax Credit, "a $2.3 billion program that provides a 30 percent tax credit for investment in advanced energy manufacturing facilities." However, the records by the Appollo Alliance (Winning the Race, March 2010) –– the left-wing organization which help craft the 2009-stimulus package –– reflect that  "41 percent of the funds awarded through the Stimulus’ 48c Advanced Manufacturing Program went to foreign based companies which were awarded on average $20 million versus $11 million for U.S. companies."

Jim Rogers, Chairman of Duke Energy: DNC Host and Obama Donor 
 
A party wouldn't be complete without a wealthy host: Jim Rogers, the chairman of Duke Energy, the nation’s largest electric power company, whose participation at the Democratic convention was vast:  a contributor, creditor, host, and even a speaker. Rogers appeared on the DNC stage as a "grandfather, to lay the groundwork for a cleaner, more sustainable future."

Two intriguing articles (with different perspectives, of course) highlight Mr. Rogers’ politics and energy, The Huffington Post and The Washington Free Beacon, both expanding on the fact that Rogers had once told The Wall Street Journal this spring, “If you’re not at the table, you’re going to be on the menu.”

Rogers is a registered Democrat, and while prior to 2008, he and his wife had contributed to Republican candidates; they now give more generously to Democratic politicians, including President Obama. Meanwhile the Duke Energy Political Action Committee was also a Republican supporter in the past, yet the tide turned in 2010.

What is indisputable is that Rogers, “labeled a hypocrite amongst environmentalists" (so says The Huffington Post piece), is not on the menu like the taxpayers; he's at Obama's green table indeed, and happens to be one of the major players in this green energy scheme. In fact, Rogers was even on the short list to become President Obama’s Energy Secretary.

An illuminating analysis by the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) came out in August 2011, noting Duke Energy, along with General Electric and General Motors' “appetites for government giveaways,“ and how Duke got a healthy dose from Obama's 2009 stimulus package.

Evidently, all three support cap-and-trade policies (although the NLPC says, "it appears GM has left the US Climate Action Partnership," you'll find many more green-energy corruption players on that list), a disastrous piece of legislation that if passed will cripple our economy; yet guarantee them huge profits.

In 2009, the DOE awarded Duke Energy a $200 million stimulus smart-grid grant to support projects in the Midwest, and $4 million for smaller projects in North and South Carolina. Further, Duke was the recipient of a $22 million DOE grant (although I read somewhere that it was more like $90 million) for it's Notrees Windpower project in Texas, for which General Electric is supplying the wind turbines.

GE, another top 2008 Obama donor, and recipient of over $3 billion of Obama green cash, even as its CEO Jeffrey Immelt is the chairman of President Obama's Job Council, landed over 26 percent of the turbine manufacturer contracts from the billions of wind energy grants that blew out of the stimulus package in February 2010.

According to The Washington Free Beacon, Duke Energy also received, "A $350,000 grant to assist General Motors in the development of the Chevrolet Volt."  Well, it seems that Vice President Joe Biden will have to change his current campaign slogan, "bin Laden is still dead, and GM is on life support." Oh and that Chevy Volt, another Obama green investment failure, has a new deep-pocketed customer: the Pentagon, which means taxpayers; again.

Center for American Progress: The CAP Connection

While Steve Spinner left his post at Center for American Progress (CAP) around the same time he resigned from the DOE, both Tom Steyer and Duke Energy have strong and expensive connections to this left wing think tank.

CAP, on my green corruption radar since 2010, is closely aligned with the White House, and John Podesta (CAP founder and former president) was the co-chairman of the Obama-Biden transition team. Tony Podesta, on the other hand, is a principal at the Podesta Group, which he started with his brother John, another large green entity, as Marita Noon (Townhall.com columnist) and I pointed out when covering their connection to the $737 million SolarReserve DOE loan, via our Special Seven Series, which we concluded last month.

Obviously, CAP and the Podesta bothers are heavily implicated here, as they have much to gain from renewable energy investments and anti-oil policies. Both Tony Podesta and his wife Heather, a Washington power couple, are frequent White House visitors who enjoy high rank in lobbying power, and Democrat bundling as well.

In Closing

So the next time President Obama pledges to end corporate welfare for oil companies or any other industry for that matter, he may consider checking his party's suppliers and program lineup first; in other words, his back pocket.

Article first published as President Obama's Green Cronies Made DNC Cameo: Beneficiaries of Billions of Taxpayer Money on Blogcritics: The Solyndra saga is one big piece of evidence that President Obama’s clean energy is dirty.

Stay tuned...

As I mentioned at the end of my Abound Solar report, this piece of the green corruption scandal will cause your head to explode! Beacon Power Corporation is one of the three renewable energy projects funded with $16 billion worth of excessively risky loans by the Department of Energy (DOE), which have since gone bankrupt.

I also covered the July 18th House Oversight hearing that revealed (amongst other things), shady email practices by former DOE Loan Advisor Jonathan Silver.

In fact, this is Part Four of DOE “Junk” Loans and Cronyism, exposing the 90 percent that have "meaningful" ties to President Obama and other high-ranking Democrats –– or both! As previously pointed out, there were 460 applications submitted, and only 7 percent were winners. It turns out that 21 firms represent the 26 projects (the 7%) that were funded by the DOE's 1705 Loan Guarantee Program, of which 23 were "junk" rated.

Of course if you ask the DOE, they were all based on "merit."

Beacon Power Corporation is on that DOE “junk bond" portfolio with one of the worst ratings –– CCC+ conducted by S&P in April 2010 that incorporated their anticipated $43 million loan guarantee.

As revealed in the March 20, 2012 House Oversight investigation, “Before its demise, Beacon Power relied on funding from the federal government. DOE gave Beacon Power over $25 million in grants. However, the largest investment came when DOE announced a conditional $43 million loan guarantee to Beacon Power on July 2, 2009, to create a 20 megawatt flywheel energy storage plant in Stephentown, New York.”

Despite the fact that S&P ran two default scenarios with dismal conclusions, and its own internal analysis, the DOE “ignored these warnings and finalized the loan guarantee in August 2010.” And, as predicted, just over a year later, Beacon went bust!

Unlike Solyndra ($535 million) and Abound Solar ($400 million), it wasn’t a huge loan, yet as you will see, this story consists of at least $170 million of taxpayer money –– not exactly chump change. Nonetheless, like Solyndra (Ener1 and SpectraWatt, to name a few) Beacon Power had the nerve to pay their executives bonuses in the midst of their fall. According to ABC News, “In March 2010, the Massachusetts energy storage company paid cash bonuses of $259,285 to three executives in part due to progress made on the $43 million energy loan” –– and the ink wasn't even dry yet.

The Infamous Washington Fixture, Jim Johnson

Most of you may be familiar with Beacon Power, maybe even the details I have just outlined. But did you know that Beacon Power is connected to the infamous Washington insider, James A. Johnson? Also known as Jim Johnson, “a fixture of establishment Washington, with ties to Wall Street and "a major presence in Democratic politics for more than two decades."

Wall Street was a major supporter of Obama in 2008. Despite the president's anti-Wall Street rhetoric and contrary to popular perception, they are still giving "big cash" to Obama's 2012 reelection bid. Johnson came from Lehman Brothers and serves on the Board of Directors of the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., both top 2008 Obama donors that have also cashed in on "green" (renewable energy government money) –– Goldman Sachs with their DNA all over this green corruption scandal.

But there’s more…

Johnson “was listed as a campaign fundraising bundler for Obama in the 2008 race and committed to raising $200,000 to $500,000 for the upcoming [2012] presidential race,” as reported by The Washington Post in 2011. The Post goes on, "Johnson had supported Obama as a young senator," and "personally donated $55,400 to Obama’s two presidential campaigns, including a $35,800 check listed on Aug. 29 [2011] to Obama’s reelection effort."

Furthermore, Johnson headed Obama’s vice presidential selection committee in 2008. However, news surfaced that Johnson resigned his Obama VP vetting role amidst criticism over his part in the Countrywide Financial scandal. Ironically, during the 2008 presidential campaign, Team Obama condemned Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign for its Countrywide connections.

Johnson is no stranger to scandals. This is the same Mr. Johnson that ran Fannie Mae for almost a decade (1990 to 1999), as Vice Chairman to Chairman and CEO, another scandal of epic proportions that “centers around Johnson!" This plot, from what I gather, “helped sink the American economy,” costing taxpayers about "$153 billion, thus far.”

A scandal –– as articulated by a 2011 New York Times Op-Ed by David Brooks, stemming mainly from the book Reckless Endangerment –– that implicates "dozens of the most respected members of the Washington establishment.” Whereas, “Johnson and other executives kept $2.1 billion for themselves and their shareholders. They used it to further the cause –– expanding their clout, their salaries and their bonuses.” Yet, “only two of the characters in this tale come off as egregiously immoral. Johnson made $100 million while supposedly helping the poor,” while former Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank kept his head in the sand.

Can anyone tell me why there have been no indictments here?

Johnson is not immune to “controversial executive compensation decisions in recent years” either that not only included those in the private sector, but inside Fannie Mae. As reported by The Washington Post back in 2008, “The accounting manipulation for 1998 resulted in the maximum payouts to Fannie Mae's senior executives –– $1.9 million in Johnson's case –– when the company's performance that year would have otherwise resulted in no bonuses at all.”

Still, these executive bonuses have been off President Obama's "attack radar," as are the energy firms that received government funding from his administration, which are implementing the same shameful bonus rewarding practices.

Perseus Energy & Technologies Portfolio: Three Green Stimulus Sweetheart Deals, Two Went Bust; Also Stands to Benefit from Nat Gas Act

While Mr. Johnson escaped Obama’s VP vetting table, he made it to Obama’s green-energy table. In 2001, Johnson joined the private banking firm Perseus, LLC (a $2 billion private equity fund in Washington) as the Vice Chairman. However, his executive biography is no longer on the Perseus site, but can be found at his Goldman Sachs bio (and I have a hard copy).

Beacon Power Corp. and Evergreen Solar, Inc. are Perseus portfolio companies listed as Energy and Energy Technology investments, of which both were winners of stimulus money and went bankrupt.

The Beacon Bust

As mentioned, Beacon Power Corp. received over $25 million in DOE grants and a DOE loan for $43 million that was announced in July 2009, and solidified in August 2010 –– only to go bust in October 2011.

The Beacon Bust connection is not limited to Mr. Johnson. As revealed in the House Oversight investigation, and told by The Daily Caller in 2011, “Beacon Power’s CEO and president [F. William “Bill” Capp]" and other executives donated generously to Obama and other Democratic Party candidates.

We've established Johnson as a 2008 Obama bundler, and is reported be bundling for the president again, while personally donating to both of Obama's campaigns. However it's important to note that "Perseus officers have donated $120,700 to Obama and the Democratic Party’s top three fundraising committees since the 2007-08 election cycle."

The Evergreen Solar Shut Out

Evergreen Solar, Inc., now Evergreen Solar (China) –– “one of the Obama administration’s pet ‘green energy’ projects" –– apparently received "stimulus funds, grants, tax-credits, low-interest loans and subsidies." However, we don't know exactly how much or when. But we do know that in 2008, Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick made a speech to congratulate the expansion of Evergreen Solar in his state, touting the partnership as “what we must do to grow our economy and save our planet.” Further, we know that Evergreen collected a "$58 million financial aid package from the Patrick-Murray administration to support Evergreen’s $450 million factory."

The problem with tracking just how much taxpayer money Evergreen collected is that at the time their bankruptcy was publicized in August of 2011, the data went missing from federal records. Nevertheless, in April 2009, the White House announced Evergreen as a “green jobs creator," claiming that the Recovery Act was working  –– they were noted as a beneficiary of federal ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), stimulus funds,” as dug up by David Mastio at the Washington Times.

Also, Governor Patrick cited Evergreen Solar as receiving stimulus money, while the state of Massachusetts had put out a press release, naming Evergreen Solar’s involvement with a project funded by the stimulus. Evergreen Solar put out its own press release in October 2010, noting that their panels were all compliant with the ARRA and could be used by projects funded by the stimulus.

A few news publications did pay homage to some of the stimulus awards while broadcasting Evergreen Solar’s demise –– they filed for bankruptcy in August of 2011, reporting 800 USA job losses, while moving their "green jobs" and entire company to China.

How much taxpayer money did Evergreen Solar take down the bankruptcy tubes (or to China)?  News Busters Tom Blumer, "unreported and impossible to track," best answers that question.

VPG Gets ATVM Loan and Green Car Cronyism

In March 2011, the Vehicle Production Group (VPG Holdings LLC), "a Miami start-up that is manufacturing wheelchair-accessible cars and taxis” received a $50 million ATVM loan from the DOE.

October rolled around, and "Surprise! Another Obama bundler benefits from 'green-tech' subsidies." Finally, The Washington Post connected the green corruption dots to the infamous Mr. Johnson, “An investment firm whose vice chairman has been an adviser and fundraiser for President Obama saw one of its portfolio companies win approval this year for $50 million in loans from the administration’s clean-energy loan program.”

However, the other two –– The Beacon Bust and Evergreen Solar Shut Out –– were sorely missed by the media, a piece of the green corruption scandal that I've been sitting on for over a year now.

With seventeen companies listed on the Perseus Energy & Technologies Portfolio, I'm sure if we dug deeper, we'd fine more than three. On the other hand, there is one that struck me –– Clean Energy Fuels Corp., T. Boone Pickens’ alternative energy company. I remember digging up some research about Pelosi and Pickens.

Oh yeah, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi owns stock in that company, and Clean Energy Fuels Corp. stands to be the biggest beneficiary of passage of the Nat Gas Act that, so far, was voted down by the Senate in March of this year. This is another piece of legislation that will not only benefit those listed here (Mr. Johnson too), but others like George Soros, another major Obama connection and green corruption player –– both noteworthy stories, but for now we'll stay in the "green car cronyism" lane.

Johnson's firm Perseus was the winner of one of the five ATVM loans that were finalized by the DOE –– part of the DOE loan program, totaling over $34.7 billion of taxpayer money. Of those five, three have close Obama connections. In the summer of 2010, right after I began to follow the "green" stimulus money, I covered two of them. Eventually others took notice like iWatch in late 2011, "Energy's risky $1 billion bet on two politically-connected electric car builders."

They include Fisker Automotive for $529 million to build cars in Finland (haven't a few gone up in flames and what about those layoffs?), which is a Kleiner Perkins investment where John Doerr and Al Gore are partners. Doerr by the way, is not only an Obama donor, but is positioned on Obama's Job Council and had influence on what went into the energy-sector of the 2009-simulus package. Meanwhile Telsa Motors that received $465 million (as of late, had some design problems) is an investment of the "Green Bundler with the Golden Touch," Steve Westly (The Westly Group). Mr. Westly, of course, is a DOE Advisor.

Both of these firms are part of what I call the "elite green group" –– those Obama cronies raking in billions of taxpayer money through a multiple of green-government subsidies approved under the Obama administration, mainly from the 2009-stimulus package. This is a group that I have referenced in various parts of this scandal, and I will eventually expose a complete compilation, in order to grasp the extent of favoritism at play here.

But for now, I'll continue with the DOE “Junk” Loans and Cronyism, exposing the 90% that have "meaningful" ties (bundlers, donors, etc) to President Obama (at least 16) and other high-ranking Democrats –– or both, four to Senator Harry Reid alone!

Although, I have completed some of these "green" cronyism, corruption cases, exposing President Obama's clean-energy dirt piece by piece –– General Electric and Abound Solar here on Blogcritics, there is much more. In fact, Marita Noon, columnist at Townhall.com, and I have chronicled the Special Seven: Abengoa Solar, First Solar, Nevada Geothermal Power, Ormat Nevada, SolarReserve, BrightSource Energy, and NextEra Energy Resources (Genesis Solar project).

Next up is the Solyndra Saga –– once the poster child for the president's clean-energy initiative, quickly morphed into the template for Obama's "green corruption" scandal (political payback). Yet, as most concluded a while ago, Solyndra is only the tip of this "corrupt" iceberg.

I hope the Obama Team has life jackets.

First published on Blogcritics Magazine, and it made top billing in politics:

Beacon Bust Tied to Obama Bundler and VP Hunter, the Infamous Washington Fixture, James A. Johnson

At least three green stimulus sweetheart deals went to companies of Jim Johnson’s private banking firm Perseus, where two went BUST, taking over $100 million of taxpayer money down the bankruptcy toilet and USA jobs to China...

Now at Green Corruption –– the place where this entire scandal is being exposed piece by piece until the 2012 election.

We are about to close with the final two installments of this Special Seven series––the renewable energy (mainly solar) firms that not only received billions in Department of Energy (DOE) loans and federal grants, but those that received “preferential treatment” from the Department of Interior to lease federal land in a no-bid process, meaning that they were approved without “adequate vetting.” Whereas the review process for establishing an oil and gas lease on federal land can take up to five years, some of these favored green-energy projects were pushed through in less than a year.

Our first five chapters on Solar Reserve, BrightSource Energy, Nevada Geothermal, Ormat Nevada (the two Nevada companies were featured in one report), and First Solar; revealed a convoluted and tangled trail of political ties in each of these green-energy crony-corruption cases.

This chapter looks at the Spanish company Abengoa that received more than $2.8 billion in loans and grants—making them the second largest recipient of the $16 billion doled out through the DOE 1705 loan guarantee program.

From the introduction of this serialized book, the thumbnail says:

Abengoa has two solar projects: Solana and Mojave Solar. Solana’s Fitch rating is BB+. Just before Christmas, 2010, the company received $1.45 billion from the DOE for a solar thermal plant, to use parabolic trough technology in Gila Bend, AZ. Mojave Solar’s rating was BB. Yet the company received $1.2 billion in September 2011 for its solar assembly collection project in San Bernardino County, CA. Abengoa has connections to California’s Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein.

In addition to the two solar projects listed above, Abengoa also has a biofuel project located in Kansas, which Fitch rated CCC, that got a $132.4 million loan in August 2010.

As a report on Abengoa from the Institute for Energy Research says: “It’s true, a loan guarantee is not the same thing as an explicit subsidy. So long as Abengoa Solar doesn’t default on its loans, the US taxpayer hasn’t kicked in anything. Nonetheless, the whole reason Abengoa Solar had to get the guarantee from the government is that no private lender thought the risk was worth it. It is not ‘costless’ for the US taxpayer to be on the hook in this fashion.”

So how did such a poorly rated, non-American company get billions in US taxpayer loan guarantees? Can you say “crony corruption?” In short, Abengoa has a cadre of cronies in high places which includes Al Gore, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and, of course, President Obama—plus, many others whose names you’ve probably never heard of.

Friends in high places

In 2007, Gore’s UK-based Generation Investment Management (GIM) bought a stake in Abengoa. He has extolled Abengoa for years, visiting “the largest solar platform in Europe” (operated by Abengoa) in October 2008 and delivering a high-powered speech at the company's Spanish headquarters in October 2010. GIM Advisory Board Member Mario Molino also serves on Abengoa’s Advisory Committee. GIM was started in 2004 by Al Gore and several Goldman Sachs’ big wigs, including David Blood, Mark Ferguson, and Peter Harris. (Note: Goldman Sachs was a top Obama donor in 2008.)

Bill Richardson is who got me chasing this whole green-energy crony-corruption scandal in the first place as my column addressing his crony capitalism is how I got connected with Christine Lakatos—who’s been researching this for years. Here in the middle of the Abengoa story is my former governor! Richardson has long been a supporter of solar energy, giving now-defunct Schott Solar $16 million in New Mexican state funds—so it is appropriate that he be involved here, too. Under President Clinton, Richardson served as the Secretary of Energy—leading the DOE—for three years. President Obama tapped Richardson to be his Secretary of Commerce but personal scandals kept him from passing the vetting—he withdrew his nomination. (Remember, John Bryson—former CEO of BrightSource—did become Secretary of Commerce.) With this vast résumé, Abengoa CEO Manuel Sanchez Ortega, felt that Abengoa was “extremely fortunate” to have Richardson’s “extensive knowledge of the renewable energy sector and his background in public policy” join Abengoa’s Advisory Board in March of 2011—which is reportedly a paid position. Richardson’s policies while Governor benefitted Abengoa. One of Abengoa’s DOE loans came through after Richardson joined the Advisory Board.

My introduction teased California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s involvement in Abengoa. Admittedly, direct connections are minor: she wrote a letter to the DOI on behalf of Abengoa asking the DOI to speed up the permitting process for accessing private land for DOE loan guarantees. One of the projects is in California, so advocating for it would seem reasonable. However, her husband, Richard Blum, is Chairman and President of Blum Capital, an equity investment management firm with investments in bio-fuel companies and Abengoa has a bio-fuel company—though, so far, no Blum investments in Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass of Kansas, LLC have been found. Feinstein has been accused of arranging to have the US Navy buy bio fuels from her husband, so a connection to Abengoa would not be unexpected. Feinstein is no stranger to conflict of interest and PG & E may be the bigger player in this story, as they are one of her largest campaign donors (2010 & 2012), and they have a contract to buy California’s required renewable energy from Abengoa—along with five other projects that got DOE loans. One last Feinstein/Abengoa link: Fred Morse—Senior Advisor of US Operations for Abengoa. Dr. Morse, who interestingly was a member of the New Mexico CSP Task Force, donated $1000 to Feinstein.

 
                             The "Green Corruption" Plot Thickens with Pacific Gas & Electric 

According to The Washington Free Beacon... Pacific Gas & Cronyism: Politically connected utility plays corporate bully, makes bank on green energy

PG&E maintains a strong political presence in Washington, D.C., having spent $81.4 million on lobbying since 2008. The company’s political action committee has given nearly $380,000 to Democrats since 2008, more than double the amount it gave to Republicans during that same time. PG&E corporate officers and board members have given tens of thousands of dollars to President Obama and other Democrats since 2007.

The company is actively involved in California politics as well, primarily in support of Democrats. In 2010, PG&E gave more than $1 million to Democratic candidates, and more than $645,000 to the California Democratic Party. Gov. Jerry Brown (D) received $31,580.

Former PG&E employees currently hold, or previously held, high-ranking government positions at the state and federal level, furthering the company’s influence.

Further, remember those condemning emails exposed by the House Oversight Committee during their May 2012 hearing when questioning John Woolard, CEO of BrightSource. Whereas, Woolard had emailed Matt Rogers, who was then Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy for the Recovery Act and played a significant role in disbursing funds to renewable energy companies. That particular email stated, "Darbee at PG & E talked directly to Obama about the program's challenges and the bad situation it puts him in." Now, "Darbee" refers to Peter Darbee, then-CEO and chairman of Pacific Gas and Electric, and it looks like he had communications with the president, it just remains to be seen how many times and about how many of these energy projects. 

After all, "in large part due to statutory requirements under California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard," PG& E has an "invested interested" in getting these renewable sources going. "PG&E is the sole purchaser of power from a number of green energy projects financed with taxpayer dollars. Six solar projects [Abengoa and BrightSource are just two] that will sell power to PG&E have received a combined $5.5 billion in taxpayer-backed DOE loans, nearly one-third of the total funding allocated for the program in the stimulus package."



                                                               Back to Abengoa
 
Lobbyists

Fred Morse provides a perfect transition to the lobbyists and their connections, as Morse is a lobbyist for Abengoa with DOE roots. Morse was Executive Director of the White House Assessment of Solar Energy as a National Resource, serving in the Nixon, Carter, and Regan administrations and is thought of as Abengoa’s most credentialed conduit to policymakers. He currently sits on the board of various solar industry groups.

While Morse may be the “most credentialed conduit,” he is not the most interesting story. The "most-interesting" moniker would have to go to either Mark Rokala or Santiago Seage—you decide.

Before joining Abengoa, Seage was a partner with McKinsey & Company (another 2008 Obama donor)—where Jonathan Silver, the former executive director of the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program, started his career and Matt Rogers, a former senior adviser on the Recovery Act, was an executive. When Rogers left the DOE in September 2010, he returned to McKinsey & Company at their San Francisco office.  A handful of McKinsey & Company executives sit on Obama’s Jobs Council. Making the connections more provocative, we find that Silver held parties for Gore.

Abengoa’s lobbying efforts are headed up by Mark Rokala, a founding member of Cornerstone Government Affairs—which has received $870,000 from Abengoa in lobbying fees. Rokala came to Cornerstone from the PMA Group, which was shuttered in 2008 following a pay-to-play scandal—in which late Democratic Rep. John Murtha directed $137 million in government contracts to PMA clients, which in turn donated $2.37 million to Murtha and other Democratic congressmen who sat on the appropriations committee. PMA’s president, Paul Magliocchetto, is serving a 27-month federal sentence for illegal campaign contributions. Rokala has been a lobbyist for more than 20 years, the last seven in energy policy, and has served as legislative assistant for a Democrat senator.

Abengoa spent $540,000 on lobbying efforts for just 2011, with $160,000 going to Cornerstone Government Affairs.

Jobs

More than $80 billion was earmarked for green energy in the 2009 stimulus package—which was sold to the American people as a means to stimulate the economy and create jobs. So, what kind of bang for our buck did we get from the $2.8 billion we gave to Abengoa? The Institute for Energy Research reports “the DOE’s own fact sheet claims that the Solana project has created 1,700 temporary construction jobs, while yielding a permanent 60 jobs ‘created or saved.’ Simple division shows that the $1.45 billion guarantee therefore works out to $824,000 per job (when we include the temporary construction ones), and a whopping $24.2 million per permanent job ‘created or saved.’ The numbers are similar for the more recent Mojave Solar project. For a guarantee of $1.2 billion, the DOE estimates it will create 830 temporary construction jobs, and will ‘create or save’ 70 permanent jobs. This works out to $1.33 million per job (including temporary ones), and $17.1 million per permanent job.”

The report from the March 20, 2012, hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee looking into the green-energy, crony-corruption debacle says this about the loans to Abengoa: “A single Spanish firm, Abengoa…reveals excessive risk. … making this concentration of investment in one  company  speculative and highly questionable.”

What is truly questionable is why did the DOE take “excessive risk” in giving $2.8 billion to a Spanish firm? The answer is friends in high places. Abengoa got a good return for its investment. They spent hundreds of thousands in lobbying fees, hired some big guns like former Governor Bill Richardson, and made friends with the likes of Al Gore—and what do they get in return? $2.8 billion in American taxpayer dollars.

What have your friends done for you lately?

Author’s note: Thanks to Christine Lakatos, the Green Corruption blogger, for research assistance.

•  First published August 4, 2012 by Marita K. Noon @Townhall.com
• Also on...
• News New Mexico ––  Why did the DOE take “excessive risk” in giving $2.8 billion to a Spanish solar firm?
• The Strident Conservative –– DOE Took “Excessive Risk” In Giving $2.8 Billion To Spanish Solar Firm
• EPA Abuse –– Why did the DOE give $2.8 billion to a Spanish solar firm?
• USAction News –– How Democrats Say “Crony Corruption” in Spanish: Abengoa

This is Part Five of the Special Seven Series, Obama's Green-Energy, Crony, Corruption brought to you by Marita Noon and Christine Lakatos with the final installment to be published this week. However, we are just getting started –– stay tuned because there is much more Green Corruption to be exposed...

What struck me from last week's Oversight Committee hearing over "the Administration’s Bet on Abound Solar,” and its cost to the taxpayers, wasn’t the fact that Abound blamed China for its demise, a very misleading “jobs chart” used as Obama campaign propaganda, or the “from shovel ready to Shanghais” visual aide. It was Jonathan Silver, former DOE loan advisor, whom in 2010, became a “person of interest” –– along with at least a dozen other “DOE Insiders” –– in my “green corruption” research, of which I will be exposing in the very near future.


Jonathan Silver, Former Executive Director of the Loans Programs Office at the Department of Energy (DOE)

Silver, who resigned in early October 2011, amidst the "Solyndra $535 Million Saga" (FBI raid and all) –– even testifying in September 2011–– was also one of the “stars” of the May 16, 2012 House Oversight Committee hearing. This was part of the BrightSource Energy story that Marita K. Noon and I wrote about a few weeks ago. Yet, we were not the only ones that picked up on the details surrounding the email exchange between the CEO of BrightSource John Woolard and Silver, during the time they were seeking final approval of their $1.6 billion DOE loan.

Woolard, on behalf of John Bryson (then-BrightSource chairman, who later became Obama’s Commerce Secretary) reached out to Silver, asking for “help” with a drafted email, which was intended for White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley. The email included other requests: “the need for a commitment” as well as “guidance and support” from the White House, however, according to testimony from Woolard, it was never submitted.

Well, I had wondered, did Silver ever help edit that email? Oh yes he did –– "modest edits" from his private email account, which was made known during Silver's testimony last Wednesday. We also discovered that Silver has known John Bryson for many years, and has visited the White House over 70 times. Those visits did include a couple (or a few?) meetings with Energy Secretary Chu and Mr. Daley. However, Silver informed the Committee that the discussions at the White House were "general" in nature, mainly about the "logistics" of the DOE loan program, and not specific to any deal.

But more compromising Silver emails surfaced during the July 18th Oversight hearing, introduced by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in his opening statement, and expanded upon during the course of the hearing. A remarkable hearing that revealed “shady” email practices by Mr. Silver and others "inside" the DOE.

Emails disclosed that just days prior to Silver’s September 30, 2009 interview with an array of DOE officials, for the DOE advisory role that he was about to embark on, including Steve Isakowitz, chief financial officer at the DOE, Matt Rogers, a senior adviser on the Recovery Act, and a few others, Silver invited Isakowitz and Rogers to a party he and his wife were hosting to promote Al Gore’s environmental advocacy group, the Alliance for Climate Protection.

“At the risk of seeming presumptuous, I want to mention that my wife and I are holding a small event for Al Gore at our home this coming Thursday evening, October 1,” Silver wrote to Isakowitz. Silver went on to explain that Gore would be speaking about his Alliance for Climate Protection and a projected called RePower America.

According to email transcripts provided by The Washington Free Beacon, Silver continued, “Repower America advocates and invests in energy efficiency, clean renewable energy sources, a unified smart energy national grid and clean air technology, and I thought you and/or Matt Rogers might find the conversation interesting. You are both welcome to join us.”

Isakowitz replied, “Thanks for the invite but I need more details.” Of which Silver later responded, “It’s a reception (not a fundraiser, although that is the obvious longer-term goal) at our home." “I expect there will be about 40 people or so, generally folks we know who are interested in this issue and have the capacity to write significant checks and a couple of others with professional involvement in the topic.”

Ultimately, Isakowitz declined to attend the event.

More astonishing, Silver seemingly had a “habit” of using his personal email account to “handle” DOE business, where he would forward emails from his DOE account to his personal email, and then respond from his personal email account. Now, Mr. Silver reasoned that it was out of “convenience,” however; this practice clearly violates the Federal Records Actof 1950.

When questioned by (R-SC) on how pervasive this practice was; Silver responded with, "Not terribly," then followed, "I received tens of thousands of emails while I was in the program." Congressman Gowdy then inquired about the percentage. Silver stated, "I don't know the answer to that..."

But what I do know is that "ultimately" the decisions to issue loan guarantees –– the majority of which were “junk rated,” including Abound Solar –– “fell on the shoulders of the DOE.” Chairman Jordon goes on, “To a large degree this decision [the Abound risky loan] rested with the two individuals testifying here today, the former and current heads of the DOE’s loan program office: Mr. Silver and Mr. David Frantz,” both of which strenuously defended, and even praised the loan guarantee program throughout the hearing.

"These two political appointees at the front lines of the loan program were responsible for safeguarding taxpayers from undue risk, and they failed in that task," Jordon went on. In the case of Silver, Jordon insisted, “Instead of protecting taxpayers, evidence has emerged that he actively aided companies in pushing through their loan guarantees, despite the risk to taxpayers.”

During House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa's (R-CA) opening statement, he too expressed his grave concern over the email practices within the DOE, of which he declared, "Jonathan Silver and others were scheming to ensure that the right people got their loan guarantees, and in fact many of the emails are clearly outside the element of pure merit and public accountability.”

Also, "for nearly two months" the House Oversight Committee has been requesting that Secretary Chu come back to testify and explain developments uncovered by the House investigation, and thus far “Chu has been unwilling” to show.

After Issa acknowledged Mr. Silver and his attorney’s cooperation, he expressed his frustration over the Obama administration's attempt at blocking their "legitimate discovery.” Issa expanded, "The DOE specifically tried to prevent us from getting these documents, asking Mr. Silver’s attorney (ordering him effectively) to deliver the documents to them so they could limit and redact them –– so they could decide what Congress was entitled to."

Silver’s background is quite impressive, as Ranking Member Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) will attest to. As noted by Barron's Magazine (in 2010), Silver had been a managing partner at Core Capital Partners in Washington. "Coincidentally, one of his colleagues there was Tom Wheeler, a 2008 Obama bundler." Even Peter Schweizer, in Throw Them All Out, recorded Silver's association to Wheeler, adding that Silver formerly served in the Clinton administration, and that he is a “strict partisan when it comes to his own campaign contributions, the recipients have all been Democrats.” Plus, I guess in between those Al Gore parties, –– Mrs. Silver “served as a financial director for the Democratic Leadership Council.”

Silver has held key positions in business, finance and government, including McKinsey & Company –– another 2008 Obama donor –– and its Global Institute, a firm that seems to have acquired quite a few White House positions under the Obama administration. Even Silver’s former “DOE cohort” Matt Rogers came from McKinsey & Co., and after Rogers left the DOE in September 2010, he returned to McKinsey & Co. at their San Francisco Office.

Which brings me to an interesting observation; where have all the DOE advisors and officials gone? You know, the “DOE Insiders” that I referred to at the beginning of this article, where plenty of “VC Guys” and “Gore Acolytes” held key positions –– a dozen on my radar, where at least ten are connected to billions of green-government subsidies.

Ironically, many have fled since their 2009 appointment, even Steve Isakowitz and Matt Rogers as well as Steve Spinner, Cathy Zoi, Kristina Johnson and others –– a vital piece to the Green Corruption scandal, which will be tackled once I get through the DOE “junk bond” Portfolio.

Side Note: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers was a big winner of government clean-energy funds, where Al Gore is a partner with his buddy John Doerr –– both campaigned for Obama in 2008. Billionaire Doerr, not only helped shape what went into the energy section of the 2009 economic stimulus package, but sits on members of President Obama’s Job Council, and served on the President Obama’s 2009 Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB).

Gore's Kleiner Perkins is a firm that I began to unravel in 2010, stressing that over 50 percent of their Greentech Portfolio secured all kinds of loans, grants, and special tax breaks –– placing them in an "elite green society;" yet it’s a firm to eventually revisit, because since 2010, they have tripled their "investments" and there is much more to expose.

Abound Soar

Although Jonathan Silver stole my attention in the recent House Oversight hearing that ironically seemed to be lacking in committee members, Abound Solar deserves some notoriety. Abound is now the third major bankruptcy recorded from the $16 billion 1705 Loan Guarantee Program –– and they won't be the last. A DOE portfolio, where "23 of the loans were rated Junk grade due to their poor credit quality, while the other four were rated BBB, which is at the lowest end of the investment grade of categories.”

To get you up to speed on Abound, just over two years ago, during his weekly radio address, President Obama touted Abound Solar as a huge jobs creator project, stating that it would create "2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs" between Abound's two plants in Colorado and Indiana. Then in December of 2010, Abound Solar was awarded a $400 million loan guarantee from the 1705 DOE Loan Guarantee Program, despite the fact that in November 2010, it was rated “B” by Fitch: highly speculative, worse than Solyndra’s rating of BB-. And in July 2011, Abound was awarded $9.2 million loan from the Export-Import Bank, you know, the federally funded bank that makes riskier loans financed with taxpayer money.

Since the end of February of this year, troubling Abound reports circulated; massive layoffs and a compelling case for a pay to play scheme surfaced, causing more energy headaches for the DOE and the White House. When March came, the House Oversight investigation confirmed that cronyism most likely ruled the Abound loan. May rolled around with another green energy Oversight hearing, including the appearance of then CEO Craig Witsoe, explaining Abound troubles, but no mention of a bankruptcy on the horizon. Because two months later (Jun 28, 2012), Abound went down!

This was after Witsoe, in December 2011, made sure to inform American taxpayers that his company was the “anti-Solyndra." Well, the silver lining may be that the taxpayer loss will only be about $70 milllion, but what about that $9.2 million?

During the course of the hearing, Abound blamed China for their demise. As reported by The Washington Times, Witsoe told the committee, “With over $30 billion in reported government subsidies, Chinese panel makers were able to sell below cost and put Abound out of business before we were big enough to pose a real competitive threat to China’s rapidly growing market share.”

However, Witsoe forgot to mention, “While cheap imports from China have crippled much of the U.S. solar panel market, Abound’s problems appear to have been rooted in the quality of its own products, the competitiveness of its business model and its inability to retain top talent,” as documented this month in The Daily Caller by Todd Shepherd, an investigative reporter for Colorado Watchdog.

Cronyism Abounds

Congressman Jordon asserted (as he has done at previous green energy hearings), "The close political and financial ties many of these companies had to the Obama administration are remarkable," and Issa labeled it as a "scandal, that will go on..."

Yet, the House Oversight Democrats perceive a different scenario; Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), called the Republican questioning "an alleged conspiracy in search of the facts." Meanwhile Congressman Kucinich "sees no scandal at all," and was more concerned about China's "solar panel selling plot" than the DOE's shady email practices.

In full disclosure, according to Bloomberg (confirmed during this hearing), Abound Solar "is also backed by Invus Public Equities Advisors LLC, which was co-founded by Raymond Debbane, who has donated to Republican candidates including Representative Darrell Issa." Also, "Abound, formerly known as AVA Solar won part of a $60 million grant" under the Bush administration.

Well, I wasn't born yesterday. The Republican Party is not immune to crony capitalism. In the summer of 2010, I covered a high profile venture capitalist who got his foot in the green door under the Bush administration, a firm I will revisit due to their close relationship to the Obama administration. However, there is a much larger cronyism, corruption scandal going on here, as presented in my April 2012 release, Department of Energy junk loans and cronyism; and plenty more to expose in the coming weeks.

Through months of analysis of just one DOE program (the 1705 Loan Guarantee, created by the Obama administration via the 2009 stimulus package), I found that over 90 percent have meaningful ties to President Obama (at least 16), and other high ranking Democrats, or both. Senator Harry Reid alone is connected to four. This study included the March 2012 House Oversight investigation coupled with years of my personal research.

Still, the Abound loan didn’t come without its share of Democrat political ties, as illustrated within the pages of the House investigation, released March 20, 2012:

Abound Solar has ties to Democratic politicians at the federal level and the state level in Colorado. Bohemian Companies, LLC, founded by Pat Stryker, became an early investor in Abound Solar (at the time AVA Solar) in October 2008. In addition to the initial funding, the CEO of Bohemian Companies, Joseph Zimlich, has served as both a director and a board member of Abound Solar. Pat Stryker is a major Democratic donor who Forbes included on its 2011 list of top liberal spenders. In 2008, Stryker donated $50,000 and bundled $87,500 for President Obama’s 2009 inauguration, and has given $35,800 to the 2012 Obama Victory Fund. Abound Solar also developed ties to Congressional Democrats. The company hired then Democratic Congressman Paul Kanjorski’s nephew Russell as its vice president for marketing. Abound Solar supported the 2009 cap and trade bill in the House of Representatives and funded an advertisement thanking then-Colorado Democratic Congresswoman Betsy Markey for her vote in favor of the bill. At the state level, then Democratic Colorado Governor Bill Ritter strongly supported Abound Solar and its application for a DOE loan guarantee. When Energy Secretary Chu visited Colorado, Governor Ritter handed Secretary Chu a letter urging him to approve Abound Solar’s loan guarantee because it would allow the company to expand and hire new workers.

No jobs here; not even a CEO.

No Smoking Gun Found at Abound; What About those "Burnt" Emails?


While this piece of the clean energy dirt received little media attention, a few reports have claimed, “no smoking gun found at the Abound hearing,” which leaves me pondering if maybe they skipped the hearing and went to a “Silver Gore Party.”

What about those "burnt" emails found at the Abound scene?

Chairman Issa appeared on Fox News the day after the July 18th hearing, and summed up a few key points that he had sternly addressed during the hearing. When asked about Abound, here is what Issa had to say, “Thanks for covering yet another failed solar project –– one that again went outside the bounds and the rules for making the loan, and the American people are paying for it.”
Issa went on, “I think the most important thing that we saw was the discovery of Jonathan Silver and his various other Department of Energy employees deliberately producing an outside web of private emails in which they exchanged documents, strategized on how to get these loans approved, and so on…”

What do you think they are doing?

Issa’s answer, “I say it was pretty transparent, they’re being opaque…by circumventing these systems, they’re taking things out of what is statutorily required to be there…”

As we wait for additional green energy House Oversight hearings, anticipating more Silver Emails to surface out of the abyss, stay tuned. Marita over at Townhall.com, and I will be completing the final installment of the Special Seven series, and I will be preparing to expose the Dozen DOE Insiders.

Next though, is the other DOE loan that went bankrupt, besides Solyndra –– The Beacon Bust, another DOE risky loan worth $43 million of taxpayer money. And you'll never guess which Obama bundler is connected to that one.

This is Part Three of DOE “Junk” Loans and Cronyism, exposing the over 90% that have “meaningful” ties to President Obama and other high-ranking Democrats –– or both! Plus, layoffs, pay to play, cronyism and a lack of disclosure make Abound Solar another good example of the green corruption problem. More at the Green Corruption blog, and tons more in the works, like the DOE Insiders, including the fact that at least a dozen are tied to firms that received billions of (taxpayer) stimulus dollars.

(L-R) President and CEO of the Center for American Progress John Podesta, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu

So far our chronicle of the green-energy crony-corruption story, has focused primarily on the connections the players have to President Obama. This chapter stars Senator Harry Reid. When looking at the whole story, it’s important to note that Senator Reid “led passage of the $814 billion stimulus bill and worked to include the loan guarantee program to help finance clean-energy projects”—projects to which, as we will show, he is connected.

In a DOE press release, Reid actually bragged about how he included the green loan guarantee in the stimulus bill: “As I led passage of the stimulus bill, I worked to include the loan guarantee program to help finance clean energy projects” that will “bring us closer to energy independence.”

We’ve already unveiled two of these expensive and politically explosive projects through our Special Seven series––those that received the touted loans as a part of the stimulus bill (even though they were rated as “non-investment” grade) and grants, as well as “special” Department of Interior treatment. As the “Special Seven” moniker indicates, there are more companies and/or projects to reveal.

Before we start on the new information, here’s a highlight of the previous players’ specific connections to Senator Harry Reid—the focus of this chapter.

Last week, we exposed BrightSource Energy that received a $1.6 billion DOE loan. BrightSource’s executives donated almost $4000 to Reid’s 2010 campaign, including $2400 from the CEO John Woolard, who in September 2010, along with Peter Darbee, then Chairman of PG & E, hosted a fundraiser for the majority leader in his corporate offices.

The week before, we uncovered the fact that a couple of SolarReserve (with its $737 million loan) board members are big Democrat donors, including contributions to Obama’s 2008 campaign as well as Senator Reid. The Washington Free Beacon divulged, “…Nevada Geothermal, Ormat Nevada, and SolarReserve—are located in Reid’s home state. Executives from all three companies have donated to Reid and his fellow Democrats, contributing more than $58,000 since 2008.”

However, what you are about discover is that the two projects we’ll profile in this chapter have similar direct ties, some sly connections to the Senator, and some stinky consequences.

Nevada Geothermal Power 

First we’ll look into Nevada Geothermal Power (NGP) as recent news exposes that its power is dimming. NGP may be the next green-energy bankruptcy.

Here’s the NGP thumbnail presented in the introduction to the green-energy crony-corruption story:

Nevada Geothermal Power (NGP) holds leasehold interests in six geothermal projects located in the Western United States. They hold a BB+ rating and received a $78.8 million loan, guaranteed by the DOE, in September of 2010. Executives from NGP contributed in 2008 to Harry Reid’s campaign. 

Additionally, since 2009, NGP was the recipient of more than $69 million in federal grants, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. 

The New York Times reports: “Reid was instrumental in securing that financing for Nevada Geothermal.” The NYT noted: “Mr. Reid has taken the nascent geothermal industry under his wing, pressuring the Department of Interior to move more quickly on applications to build clean energy projects on federally owned land and urging other members of Congress to expand federal tax incentives to help build geothermal plants, benefits that Nevada Geothermal has taken advantage of.” You might think Reid has altruistic motives, such as creating jobs for his state, however, as the NYT points out: “Mr. Reid has received some support from the industry, in the form of at least $43,000 worth of campaign contributions from the geothermal industry since 2009, according to an analysis of federal campaign finance records.” The “campaign contributions” could be why, in a 2010 press release, he declared “Northern Nevada is the Saudi Arabia of geothermal energy.” 

Despite the flowery rhetoric, at the time the DOE approved the conditional loan guarantee in September 2010, they were well aware of NGP’s “well-documented” financial difficulties. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (HOGRC) called the loan a “bailout”—which “violated the spirit and, quite possibly, the letter of the law” and provided “an opportunity for private industry to exit an investment, deleverage and transfer the extraordinarily high default risk to taxpayers.”

Less than a year after the loan was issued, leading accounting firm Deloitte & Touche did an audit of NGP and concluded: “significant doubt” about Nevada Geothermal Power’s “ability to continue as a going concern.” The company’s vital signs are not looking good: it “has incurred net losses over the past several years, has an accumulated deficit of $44.0 million and an anticipated inability to retire its long-term liabilities.”

The project continued to have “operational and financial problems.” In the October 2011 NYT article, it states: “Executives expressed confidence that they can recover” and that “the government investment is not at risk.” As CEO Brian D. Fairbank stated: “We’re doing OK.”

During Fairbank’s “Green Energy Gamble” May 16, 2012 testimony before the HOGRC, he spoke “about the many good things occurring at Blue Mountain” and stated that they “remained bullish on the future of geothermal resource potential” at Blue Mountain. However, the future of Nevada Geothermal is looking dim, it still faces financial problems, and the company’s internal auditors have questioned whether it can stay in business.

The audit report states: “NGP has incurred $98 million in net losses over the past several years, has substantial debts and does not generate enough cash from its current operations after debt-service costs.”

With the audit completed in March 2012, one as to wonder how much did Fairbanks actually know about the status of NGP during that May 16 testimony when he claimed he “remained bullish?”

Another angle, in that DOE press release, both Secretary Chu and Senator Reid praised the potential job creation of the NGP project. Chu said: “Our support for the Blue Mountain project is part of the Administration’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions while creating clean energy jobs,” and Reid: “clean energy projects like Blue Mountain geothermal that will put Nevadans back to work...” In conflict with these claims, the HOGRC report states: “It was known to him [Secretary Chu] at that time [of the press conference], however, that the loan would not create a single job, but instead would simply refinance an existing loan, despite DOE’s claim that it would create over 200 jobs”

Instead of using the loan as Title XVI, Section 1602 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, requires: “Recipients shall use grant funds in a manner that maximizes job creation and economic benefit,” the loan was used to pay off a creditor. According to the Washington Times report, “At the time the Energy Department announced its conditional approval of the guarantee, Mr. Issa said NGP would have defaulted on a loan from TCW Asset Management Co., then its primary lender, ‘had DOE not swooped in to save the failing company with taxpayer money.’ A committee report said the loan did not finance any new construction and ‘did not help to create a single job.’”

So, Senator Reid received money from the geothermal industry, he, apparently, then pressured the DOE to fund projects in Nevada based on the false promise of job creation—which he knew was not accurate at the time. Instead of creating jobs, Reid’s advocacy actually “bailed out” his cronies—that is really corrupt.

Ormat Nevada 

But the story continues. As we reported in the introduction, Kai Anderson, a lobbyist for NGP’s partner corporation, Ormat Technologies, Inc., is a former Senate aide to Harry Reid. Ormat’s CEO Paul Thomsen is another former Reid aide. Additionally, according to the Washington Times, “Mr. Fairbank denied knowing or lobbying Mr. Reid, but the House Oversight Committee said Ormat Inc., which was paid $80 million to build NGP’s Blue Mountain plant, has ‘strong ties’ to the senator.”

The thumbnail of Ormat in the introduction reads as follows:

Ormat Nevada is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ormat Technologies, Inc., whose website touts “green energy you can rely on.” They have an S&P rating of BB and received $350 million in partial loan guarantees. Ormat’s lobbyist Kai Anderson and Director of Policy and Business Development Paul Thomsen were both former senate aides to Harry Reid and donors to his campaign.

The May 2012 HOGRC report expands the connections: “During Senator Reid’s 2010 reelection campaign, Thomsen starred in a campaign ad for Senator Reid to advertise the benefits of Ormat’s loan guarantee for Nevada. In addition to Anderson and Thomsen, Ormat’s President, Yoram Bronicki, gave thousands in political contributions to Senator Reid. The strong ties between the company and the Senate Majority leader raise questions about whether the DOE acted in the best interests of the American people when it approved the loan guarantee.”

Yoram Bronicki is the son of Ms. Yehudit Bronicki (also known as Dita). She is CEO and Director of Ormat Technologies. In addition to the $350 million loan guaranteed by the DOE with John Hancock in aggregate principal amount, Ormat Technologies’ projects received more than $200 million in various DOE grants.




The 2010 campaign ad, starring former Reid staffer Thomsen, heralded “Geothermal means 16,000 Nevada jobs… Harry Reid saw the potential before just about anybody else.” With projects like NGP, it seems those jobs have never materialized and the reason Harry Reid was such a soothsayer is the same reason a fortune teller tells you what you want to hear: you are holding the money. With the geothermal industry “contributing more than $58,000 since 2008” and, in just these two stories, receiving $700 million in loans and grants, they’ve gotten an amazing return on their investment. In the bad economy, the best way to grow your money just may be to invest in green energy—just make sure you have friends in high places.

All this, and it does nothing to “bring us closer to energy independence.” Geothermal—and wind and solar—power generates electricity. America is already electricity independent. We have enough coal, natural gas, and uranium to power us for centuries! We even export coal, we have so much.

So why are we killing good-paying jobs in the coal industry, preventing thousands of union jobs the Keystone pipeline would create, and potentially putting thousands out of work with a pending ban on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas extraction, for the supposed jobs in green energy—when we are already electricity independent? These green-energy projects can only raise the cost of electricity and waste public money, while the energy sources the administration’s efforts are killing or blocking can actually reduce costs—without taxpayer investment.

The green-energy crony-corruption story is explains it all.

Author’s note: Thanks to Christine Lakatos, the Green Corruption blogger for research assistance.

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and much more...

This is Part Three of Obama's Green-Energy, Crony Corruption and The Special Seven, a collaboration between Christine and Marita and exposed first at Townhall.com. In case you missed any of the explosive parts.
Part Two: More Obama Green Energy Corruption covers BrightSource Energy ($1.6 billion DOE loan)
Part One: Obama’s Green-Energy, Crony-Corruption covers SolarReserve ($737 million DOE loan)
The INTRODUCTION gives an overview of the Special Seven: Eco Scare Scams Raise Obama Campaign Cash

Also, on the Green Corruption Blog, exposing this entire scandal.