Free Republic

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...

Organizers of a national transit advocacy conference have chosen the Twin Cities as the host site for their fall 2014 event, which is expected to draw roughly 1,000 rail enthusiasts and transit planners from across the country. The "Rail-Volution" board of directors approved a joint proposal from the Counties Transit Improvement Board, the Metropolitan Council and the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Organizers say their next step is to find a Twin Cities conference site. The timing is no coincidence. In 2014, the Green Line -- currently more commonly known as the Central Corridor light-rail transit line -- will begin taking...

Solyndra’s CEO labeled President Barack Obama’s administration “The Bank of Washington.” Chris Gronet offered the description in an internal email one year before the company collapsed in 2010, costing taxpayers roughly $500 million. “The Bank of Washington continues to help us!” he wrote in the October 2009 e-mail, which described several government programs and incentives. The email bolsters GOP claims that Obama’s support of green-tech companies amounted to “crony capitalism.” Several White House officials had close ties to green-tech companies, and many green-tech executives have donated to Obama’s political campaigns.

Another green company backed by an Obama bundler just bit the dust. After announcing earlier this year that the company would lay off 200 of its 300 employees, solar manufacturer Amonix Inc. closed its operation in North Las Vegas leaving taxpayers in the red by $20 million. Editor's note: We've updated this piece with research from the RNC below, entitiled:  "The Big Payback: Where It All Began," which details the massive payoffs directed to Obama supporters using taxpayer dollars in the guise of "stimulus." “Just seven months after California-based solar power company Amonix Inc. opened its largest manufacturing plant, in North Las Vegas,” reports...

For those who only hear about these failing companies one by one, the following is a list of all the clean energy companies supported by President Obama’s stimulus that are now failing or have filed for bankruptcy. The liberal media hopes you’ve forgotten about all of them except Solyndra, but we haven’t. Evergreen Solar SpectraWatt Solyndra (received $535 million) Beacon Power (received $43 million) AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy Nevada Geothermal (received $98.5 million) SunPower (received $1.5 billion) First Solar (received $1.46 billion) Babcock & Brown (an Australian company which received $178 million) Ener1 (subsidiary EnerDel received $118.5 million) Amonix (received...

California is broke and broken. Its freeways and roads are crumbling. Many cities—like Stockton, which declared bankruptcy two weeks ago—are straining under hundreds of millions in bond debt and unfunded pensions for retired public workers. In the face of a slow-motion fiscal train wreck, why would state lawmakers commit to spending $5.8 billion in state and federal funds on the first phase of a high-speed rail line that practically nobody wants in part of the state where practically nobody lives? The state Senate on Friday narrowly approved legislation to start work on a 130-mile stretch of rail between Madera and...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- California lawmakers approved billions of dollars Friday in construction financing for the initial segment of what would be the nation's first dedicated high-speed rail line, eventually connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco. The state Senate voted 21-16 on a party-line vote after intense lobbying by Gov. Jerry Brown, Democratic leaders and labor groups.

A "green" energy company that received tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers while promising 70 jobs by the end of this year has created only three and received strong criticism from environmental and fiscal groups across the political spectrum. Mascoma Corp., a New Hampshire-based business, was awarded a grant of $20 million from the state of Michigan as part of the Centers of Energy Excellence program in 2008 and amounts totaling up to $100 million from the federal government over the last few years to build a plant in Kinross, a small town in the Upper Peninsula. The company...

The California High-Speed Rail project is absurd on the face of it, which gives reasonable people reason to wonder – “What in the world are they thinking?” Gov. Jerry Brown says . . .

Xcel Energy Inc. will seek to phase out subsidies for solar power and spend more to help customers conserve energy in Minnesota. The Minneapolis-based utility said Friday that it will reduce spending on its popular Minnesota Solar Rewards program to $2.5 million in 2013 -- half its current level -- before its elimination. The program has helped 560 Minnesota homes and businesses install solar arrays since 2010. Xcel Energy Inc. will seek to phase out subsidies for solar power and spend more to help customers conserve energy in Minnesota. The Minneapolis-based utility said Friday that it will reduce spending on...

Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing to fast-track California's $69 billion high-speed rail project by easing legal scrutiny under the state's landmark environmental law, this newspaper learned Friday. The proposal, which the Legislature would have to approve this month as part of launching the state's biggest-ever construction project, does not change the California Environmental Quality Act. But Brown's plan, while angering environmentalists, would have two major consequences. First, it virtually takes away the final bullet in the chamber that project opponents were hoping to use to kill high-speed rail: a court-ordered injunction halting construction. Second, the proposal adds to a growing...

Mitt Romney decried what he said was the Obama administration's economic failures and cronyism outside the headquarters of a defunct company that Republicans have upheld as the very symbol of those shortcomings. The presumptive presidential nominee stood for an impromptu press conference outside the headquarters of Solyndra, the now-bankrupt solar energy company that had been the beneficiary of a federal loan, which, Republicans contend, was doled out as a political favor. "It's a symbol not of success but of failure. It's also a symbol of a serious conflict of interest," Romney said outside the headquarters, a destination which wasn't made...

The California High-Speed Rail project already has raised enough red flags to justify stopping the proposal in its tracks, so to speak. . . In light of critics' continuous detailed inspection of its every plan and the looming legal proceedings, what should we make of a new policy that the rail authority is considering – destruction of its email records after 90 days? Were we the suspicious type, we might conclude the rail authority has something to hide. . .

If California starts building a 130-mile segment of high-speed rail late this year as planned, it will enter into a risky race against a deadline set up under federal law. The bullet train track through the Central Valley would cost $6 billion and have to be completed by September 2017, or else potentially lose some of its federal funding. It would mean spending as much as $3.5 million every calendar day, holidays and weekends included — the fastest rate of transportation construction known in U.S. history, according to industry and academic experts. Over four years, the California High-Speed Rail Authority...

If California starts building a 130-mile segment of high-speed rail late this year as planned, it will enter into a risky race against a deadline set up under federal law. The bullet train track through the Central Valley would cost $6 billion and have to be completed by September 2017, or else potentially lose some of its federal funding. It would mean spending as much as $3.5 million every calendar day, holidays and weekends included — the fastest rate of transportation construction known in U.S. history, according to industry and academic experts.

Deep-pocketed environmental groups are collecting millions of dollars from the federal agencies they regularly sue under a little-known federal law, and the government is not even keeping track of the payouts, according to two new studies. Under the Equal Access to Justice Act, or EAJA — which was signed into law by President Carter in 1980 to help the little guy stand up to federal agencies — litigants with modest means who successfully show government agencies wronged them can get their legal fees back from the taxpayer. But the act also covers 501(c)(3) nonprofits, including environmental groups that aggressively sue...

An 11th-hour Republican Vikings stadium plan that would have paid for the state’s share with general obligation bonds was declared dead late Thursday morning, and in its wake House GOP leaders pledged to hold a long-awaited floor vote next Monday on the stadium bill authored by Rep. Morrie Lanning and Sen. Julie Rosen. House leaders said they also hope to vote on their 2012 bonding bill Monday. GOP leaders said that serious questions about using general obligation bonds to pay for the state’s portion of a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings have forced them to drop the plan, which...

The Pentagon is about to waste $1.5 trillion, 38% of entire defense budget for a "virtual flying piano". That may sound preposterous, and it is. Unfortunately, it is also true. Foreign Policy Magazine discusses the sad saga of The Jet That Ate the Pentagon. This month, we learned that the Pentagon has increased the price tag for the F-35 by another $289 million -- just the latest in a long string of cost increases -- and that the program is expected to account for a whopping 38 percent of Pentagon procurement for defense programs, assuming its cost will grow no...

(Reuters) - California lawmakers should not approve Governor Jerry Brown's budget proposals to provide additional funds for the state's pricey planned high-speed rail system, the state's budget watchdog agency said in a report on Tuesday. The report by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office said the California High-Speed Rail Authority has "not made a strong enough case for going forward with the project at this time." Funding beyond proceeds from state debt and $3.5 billion from the federal government to build the statewide high-speed system is "highly uncertain," the report said. Mary Nichols, chairman of California's Air Resources Board, said a...

The plan to build the California bullet train is almost certain to be approved Thursday by the state's high-speed rail authority at a board meeting in San Francisco, but the project is facing a less certain future in Sacramento. The rail authority has long insisted that it needs to move as quickly as possible, starting construction on an initial $6-billion segment of track through the Central Valley this year to meet the terms of a federal grant that covers more than half of the initial project. But that push by the authority, labor unions and the Brown administration for quick...