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Federal funds skew business investment during Obama termDisturbing revelations continue to emerge about how more than half a billion dollars of taxpayer dollars were shoveled into the Solyndra solar-panel boondoggle. It is becoming increasingly clear that the only “green” involved in this scandal is money. There is no compelling reason to empower the government to use public funds to engage in risky investments. There also is no reason to believe that government bureaucrats - especially political appointees, not usually known for their business acumen or technical expertise - are smart enough to pick winners in competitive business sectors. Energy Secretary...

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. Documents show the process involved two steps. First, the Chinese companies were folded into holding company...

President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., netted a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, through a loan guarantee issued by a former employee-turned Department of Energy official. It’s just one more in a string of eye-opening revelations by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his explosive new book, Throw Them All Out. The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle. Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack...

SCANDAL DEEPENS: Energy Department Pushed Solyndra To Wait To Announce Layoffs Until After Midterm Elections Zeke Miller Nov. 15, 2011, 11:34 AM Newly released emails from Solyndra executives show that the Department of Energy pressured the failed solar energy company to postpone announce layoffs until after the 2010 midterm elections. First reported by The Washington Post, the emails show a Solyndra investor warning the company against announcing layoffs before the Nov. 2 elections, because the company's loan draw for December had yet to be approved by the Department of Energy. Energy Secretary Steven Chu will testify before the committee on...

Where did green-energy cash go? Straight to campaign donors. Read more about Peter Schwiezer’s Throw Them All Out in the new Newsweek on sale Monday. When President-elect Obama came to Washington in late 2008, he was outspoken about the need for an economic stimulus to revive a struggling economy. He wanted billions of dollars spent on “shovel-ready projects” to build roads; billions more for developing alternative-energy projects; and additional billions for expanding broadband Internet access and creating a “smart grid” for energy consumption. After he was sworn in as president, he proclaimed that taxpayer money would assuredly not be doled...

The Obama administration on Thursday announced its plan for solar energy development, directing large-scale industrial projects to 285,000 acres of desert in the Western U.S. while opening 20 million acres of the Mojave for development. The Bureau of Land Management's "solar energy zones" are intended to make some of the desert's most sensitive landscapes less desirable for solar prospecting by identifying "sweet spots" that have already passed environmental requirements and therefore promise expedited permitting, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said. "These 445 square miles of zones are ... where development will be driven," Salazar said. The 17 solar energy zones...

The sister-in-law of John Podesta, President Obama's influential White House transition director, served as the lobbyist for a wind power firm that was just awarded a $135.8 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

Congressman's Son Lobbied For Failing Solar Panel Company How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project. The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization. If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down. Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra...

How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project. The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization. If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down. Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain. Two men with insight into the process...

How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project. The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization. If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down. Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain. Two men with insight into the process...

Happy Monday, Obama administration. According to a new tranche of emails obtained by ABC News, the political wreckage of the Solyndra scandal could get significantly more grisly before all is said and done. In one particularly incriminating note, a staffer at the White House's Office of Management and Budget candidly frets that "bad days" lie ahead : Emails released earlier this month show that at least one official of the Office of Management and Budget worried that Solyndra was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to ill-conceived government loans to green energy companies. “(W)hat’s terrifying is that...

The Obama administration engaged in a pattern of approving loans that were not qualified to receive taxpayer money, according to one Republican House chairman who says the development is as disturbing as the potential loss of billions of dollars in investments. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Relations Committee, said Sunday that the administration's approval of a loan guarantee for solar power company Solyndra -- which went belly up shortly after a half-billion dollar investment by the federal government -- is just one example of a "breach of protocol" in approving loans. Issa said the...

Scandal: As the Energy Department's loan chief leaves a sinking ship, the president says that people thought bailing out a failing solar panel maker was a "good bet." Next time play with your money, not ours. 'Hindsight is always 20-20," President Obama told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News. "It went through the regular review process. And people felt like this was a good bet." The administration has noted that private-sector biggies like Richard Branson also thought Solyndra was a "good bet." Joining the you-win-some, you-lose-some chorus is the CEO of General Electric, what the administration considers a "good company" but...

WASHINGTON — A senior Energy Department official pushed hard for the government’s $535 million loan to the California solar energy company Solyndra even after he had disclosed that his wife’s law firm represented the company and promised to recuse himself from matters related to its loan application, according to e-mails released by federal officials on Friday. The official, Steven J. Spinner, a senior member of the Energy Department’s loan guarantee oversight office and a 2008 Obama fund-raiser, inquired frequently about the progress of the Solyndra loan, urging the White House Office of Management and Budget to move more quickly on...

“I put responsibility on the president because this is obviously a step in the wrong direction,” Paul said. “We have just totally disrespected the Constitution.” The comments once again put Paul at odds with his Republican rivals over foreign policy and the war on terror in the latest indication of how his foreign policy views stray far from Republican orthodoxy even in a GOP that’s taken on an increasingly isolationist bent. Candidates like Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney — who included the president in a list of people he commended in a statement released Friday — have generally been supportive...

Occidental, Columbia, Harvard Law, a little light community organizing, a couple of years timeserving in a state legislature: That's what America's elites regard as an impressive resume rather than a bleak indictment of contemporary notions of "accomplishment." Obama would not have withstood scrutiny in any society with a healthy, skeptical press. Yet, like the high-rolling Wall Street moneybags, they failed to do due diligence. Three years on, nothing has changed. Obama is proposing to raise taxes because of some cockamamie yarn Warren Buffett has been peddling about his allegedly overtaxed secretary. Yet the court eunuchs of the media persist in...

Corruption: It turns out a recent recipient of the administration's largesse is from the House of Pelosi. The green energy scandal keeps picking up speed. Last week, the Energy Department completed a $737 million loan guarantee to Tonopah Solar Energy and an additional $337 million for Sempra Energy. On the surface, there's nothing suggesting either is improper. But just beneath the surface is the clear appearance of impropriety. Tonopah Solar is a wholly owned subsidiary of SolarReserve, which lists among its "investment partners" a company named Pacific Corporate Group. Again, on the surface, no hint of corruption. But an enterprising...

Solyndra, the California energy company gone bust, was so cash strapped in December, 2010 that they defaulted on a loan payment to the government.  That didn't bother the Obama Administration, though.  In fact, DOE officials amended the loan agreement, allowing Solyndra to draw another $67 million, and subordinated the taxpayer's credit position to that of private investors.  There was an abundance of information and reasons why the Solyndra loan should never have been approved in 2009.  But, the Obama White House rejected all the obvious warning signs preferring to pass out half a trillion dollars like party favors and to...

With a midnight deadline looming, the Energy Department has approved three more loan guarantees for solar energy totaling about $3.5 billion. Energy Secretary Steven Chu says the department has completed a $1.5 billion loan guarantee to Arizona-based First Solar Inc. for a 550-megawatt solar farm on federal land in Southern California and $646 million to Exelon Corp. for a 230-megawatt solar plant near Los Angeles. A third project, worth $1.4 billion, will support installation of about 750 solar rooftop panels in 28 states. snip

Update: The U.S. Department of Energy has just announced it has finalized $2.1 billion in loan guarantees for two First Solar photovoltaic power plant projects in California. And First Solar just announced it has sold the 550-megawatt Desert Sunlight project, which received a $1.46 billion loan guarantee to NextEra Energy Resources and GE Energy Financial Services. This is D-Day for First Solar and other renewable energy developers counting on billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees. In a matter of hours, the deadline for the United States Department of Energy to finalize those loans will pass. And as the clock...