Solyndra, the solar energy company that received $535 million dollars in stimulus plan loan guarantees, has filed for bankruptcy and is under investigation by the FBI. All the "feel-good" videos about all the "green jobs" success stories from President Obama's stimulus package could potentially become a liability for the White House.
Posted on the White House blog 5/26/10, just six months before Solyndra almost went bankrupt and was bailed out by a White House campaign bundler. 16 months later the company finally collapsed.
Solyndra execs will decline to testify at hearing Tue Sep 20, 2011 7:26pm GMT
Sept 20 (Reuters) - Solyndra LLC's chief executive and chief financial officer will invoke their Fifth Amendment rights and decline to answer any questions put to them at a Congressional hearing on Friday, according to letters from their attorneys obtained by Reuters.
In the letters sent to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, attorneys for Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison and CFO W. G. Stover said they advised their clients not to provide testimony during the hearings.
The bankrupt company's $535 million federal loan guarantee is being investigated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Harrison is represented by Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and Stover is represented by Keker & Van Nest.
Solyndra's offices were raided by the FBI two days after the company filed for bankruptcy, although the FBI did not say what prompted the raid. (Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
Crony Socialism: Obama Gives $737 Million to Solar Firm Linked to the Pelosi Clan Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 12:14 PM
It’s as if Solyndra never happened. The Obama Administration is giving $737 million to a Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve. PCG is an investment partner with SolarReserve. Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law happens to be the number two man at PCG.
Team Obama is spending $737 million to create 45 permanent jobs. The Hill reported, via Free Republic:
The Energy Department announced Wednesday that is has finalized a $737 million loan guarantee for a Nevada solar project.
The decision comes several weeks after a California-based solar manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration in 2009 filed for bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 workers, setting off a firestorm in Washington.
The $737 million loan guarantee will help finance construction of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a 110-megawatt solar-power-generating facility in Nye County, Nev. The project is sponsored by Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve.
Crescent Dunes is the latest solar project to receive a loan guarantee from the Energy Department in recent weeks. The department announced a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to Abengoa Solar for a solar generation project in California and a $150 million loan guarantee to 1366 Technologies for a Massachusetts solar manufacturing project earlier this month.
The Energy Department says the project will result in 600 construction jobs and create 45 permanent jobs.
Well, if they're too big to fail, then the fact that they are declaring bankruptcy only shows one thing... we didn't give tnem enough, you know, like Mr Tonko voting against helping the people of Rotterdam Junction because of the fact that it wasn't ENOUGH money.
Second Energy Department-backed company goes bankrupt By Ben Geman - 10/31/11 08:04 AM ET
A Massachusetts company that received a $43 million Energy Department loan guarantee last year filed for bankruptcy Sunday, a step certain to fuel criticism of federal green energy financing in the wake of the solar company Solyndra’s collapse.
Beacon Power Corp., which makes energy storage systems, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
Beacon Power had received federal loan guarantee to help build an energy storage plant in Stephentown, New York that began operating in January. The Treasury Department’s Federal Financing Bank provided the loan.
Beacon sought bankruptcy protection two days after the White House ordered an independent 60-day evaluation of the Energy Department's loan programs aimed at ensuring effective management and monitoring.
The review, conducted by a former Treasury Department official, will include examination of how Beacon’s project is performing going forward, and whether there are additional steps that can be taken to protect taxpayers, according to the Obama administration.
The Beacon bankruptcy comes roughly two months after the California solar panel maker Solyndra, which had received a $535 million Energy Department (DOE) loan guarantee in 2009, went belly up and laid off 1,100 workers.
Solyndra’s collapse unleashed a torrent of GOP-led attacks on the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program.
Solyndra and the broader loan guarantee program are under investigation in the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
“This latest failure is a sharp reminder that DOE has fallen well short of delivering the stimulus jobs that were promised, and now taxpayers find themselves millions of more dollars in the hole,” said Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the GOP’s point man on the Solyndra investigation and a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, in a statement to The Hill and other outlets.
“Unfortunately for the American taxpayers, I am deeply concerned that other DOE programs could follow which goes to the heart of the President's flawed economic program,” he said.
Stearns is chairman of the energy panel’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, which is expected to vote Thursday to subpoena internal White House communications about Solyndra.
Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said there are “many protections for the taxpayer” in the agreement with Beacon Power.
“The Department’s loan guarantee is for the project Stephentown Regulation Services, LLC, not the parent company, and the loan was set up in a way that ensures the Department is not directly exposed to the liabilities of the parent company,” he said in an email Monday.
The department also sought to contrast the Beacon Power project and Solyndra, noting that Solyndra stopped manufacturing operations when it went bankrupt, while Beacon Power intends to continue operating the New York energy storage plant.
“It is important to note that this plant itself, which is operational and generating revenue, is a valuable collateral asset. In addition, under the terms of our loan guarantee agreement, Stephentown Regulation Services, LLC currently has cash reserves and proceeds from the plant that it was required to hold as collateral on the loan,” LaVera said.
Beacon drew $39 million of the guaranteed loan to help finance the plant.
Beacon’s bankruptcy filing lists assets of $72 million and debt of $47 million, according to Bloomberg.
Solyndra Execs Reaped Bonuses Before Bankruptcy, Documents Show Published November 04, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Oct. 31, 2011: An auction sign is shown at bankrupt Solyndra headquarters in Fremont, Calif., before Wednesday's auction. Solyndra received a one half billion dollar loan guarantee from the government before filing for bankruptcy in Sept. 2011. Solyndra executives were awarded quarterly bonuses worth up to $60,000 apiece earlier this year as the California solar-panel company headed for bankruptcy, court documents show. Documents filed by the company in U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware show the well-paid executives at the firm were given bonuses in April and in July, just months before the company filed for bankruptcy in September and laid off 1,100 workers. The details add to the narrative of what was happening behind the scenes in the year leading up to the company's financial collapse, though congressional Republicans investigating the matter are looking for more details. After the Obama administration turned over 20,000 pages of documents earlier this week pertaining to Solyndra, House Republicans on Thursday night served the White House and vice president's office with a subpoena for more Solyndra documents. ......................>>>>....................>>>>>..............Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....-show/#ixzz1cprYx13t
Solyndra: Energy Dept. pushed firm to keep layoffs quiet until after midterms By Carol D. Leonnig and Joe Stephens, Tuesday, November 15, 10:46 AM
The Obama administration urged officers of the struggling solar company Solyndra to postpone announcing planned layoffs until after the November 2010 midterm elections, newly released e-mails show.
Solyndra, the now-shuttered California company, had been a poster child of President Obama’s initiative to invest in clean energies and received the administration’s first energy loan of $535 million. But a year ago, in October 2010, the solar panel manufacturer was quickly running out of money and had warned the Energy Department it would need emergency cash to avoid having to shut down...........................>>>>.........................>>>>.....................http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....wprss=rss_whitehouse
February 24, 2012 4:09pm Green company gets $390M subsidies, lays off 125 byJoel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer
A123 Systems, an electric car battery company once touted as a stimulus "success story" by former Gov. Jennifer Granhom, D-Mich., has laid off 125 employees since receiving $390 million in government subsidies -- but is still handing out big pay raises to company executives.
"[T]he company has laid off 125 employees and had a net loss of $172 million through the first three quarters of 2011," the Mackinac Center for Public Policy notes, observing that the company's primary customer, Fisker Automotive, is also struggling financially. "Yet, this month A123’s Compensation Committee approved a $30,000 raise for [Chief Financial Officer David] Prystash just days after Fisker Automotive announced the U.S. Energy Department had cut off what was left of its $528.7 million loan it had previously received."
This month has seen significant pay boosts for other A123 executives, as well:
Robert Johnson, vice president of the energy solutions group, got a 20.7 percent pay increase going from $331,250 to $400,000, while Jason Forcier, vice president of the automotive solutions group, saw his pay increase from $331,250 to $350,000. Prystash’s raise was 8.5 percent, going from $350,000 to $380,000.
"It looks like they are trying to pad their top people’s wallets in case something really bad happens," Paul Chesser, associate fellow for the National Legal & Policy Center, suggested.
The Department of Energy gave the battery company $249.1 million in grant money, while the Michigan government provided A123 with another $141 million in tax credits and subsidies, according to the Mackinac Center. http://campaign2012.washington.....dies-lays-125/394051
Looks like the obama administration is about as efficient as the bush administration was!!!
Different side.......same corrupt coin!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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