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Politics : The Solyndra Scandal -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carolyn who wrote (488)	6/5/2012 11:29:49 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1400

Solar Firm's Big Push for U.S. Loan BrightSource Energy Hired Former Biden Chief of Staff, Worked Other Democratic Contacts as Financing Deadline Neared smaller Larger By ALICIA MUNDY and RYAN TRACY BrightSource Energy Inc. via Bloomberg News A rendering of BrightSource Energy's solar-electricity plant in the Mojave Desert. The recipient of the Obama administration's biggest loan guarantee for solar energy won federal money after an intense push in early 2011 that included hiring a former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden to lobby the administration, according to federal records and people involved in the approval process. The lobbying blitz came as the $1.6 billion loan to BrightSource Energy Inc.—a centerpiece of the administration's program to promote nascent green-energy projects—faced a do-or-die moment, and the company called on its Democratic connections to help push the deal forward, according to emails, records and those familiar with the loan. White House spokesman Eric Schultz said the Department of Energy made the loan-approval decision, not Mr. Biden nor other White House officials. A Department of Energy spokeswoman said it chose BrightSource, whose solar power plant in California continues to move ahead, based on the project's merits. The $16 billion federal loan-guarantee program became headline news in September when a recipient of a $535 million guarantee, solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, declared bankruptcy. Solyndra's chief backer was an Oklahoma industrialist who had bundled contributions for Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign. The White House said there was no connection between the donations and the loan. Since Solyndra, the loan program has become the target of multiple investigations on Capitol Hill, with Republicans, including Darrell Issa of California, saying the Obama administration did favors for politically connected companies and that the alleged arrangement showed the dangers of government industrial policy. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave a speech in front of the empty Solyndra headquarters Thursday to highlight the California company's demise. Enlarge Image Close Associated Press An endangered tortoise at the plant's site. President Barack Obama has said the loan program was run fairly and that some failures were inevitable in the business of backing new energy systems. Mr. Obama lauded BrightSource in a weekly radio address in 2010. The company, which is building a 392-megawatt solar-power plant called Ivanpah in the Mojave Desert, had several other Democratic connections, including its then-chairman, John Bryson, a longtime green-energy proponent whom Mr. Obama later named commerce secretary. After a two-year effort, the company neared a March 31, 2011, deadline when a conditional agreement for the federal loan was set to expire, according to emails from the period released by a House committee. Even more worrisome for the company was the April 1 start of "tortoise moving season," as the company calls it—a narrow window under endangered-species rules during which BrightSource could move tortoises away from the Ivanpah construction site. The tortoises had to be moved before they returned to their beds under the sand. "As we were closer to the deadline, it became scarier," Dan Judge, general counsel of BrightSource, said in an interview. Missing the spring moving season would have forced a wait of six months, which "easily could have killed the project," he said. In a PowerPoint presentation sent to the DOE in March 2011 and viewed by The Wall Street Journal, BrightSource said its cash position was "precarious" and that it would be a "major embarrassment" for the administration if it went under because the White House had held it up as a centerpiece of its green-energy push. "The DOE will be known as responsible for a very high-profile failure," the message read. BrightSource's investors include Google Inc. GOOG -1.41%and NRG Energy Inc., NRG +2.31%which put up a combined $468 million. But the vast majority of its $2.2 billion funding comes from the loan guarantee. There were also high stakes for utility Pacific Gas & Electric, PCG -0.96%which wanted BrightSource's electricity to meet a California renewable-energy mandate. BrightSource spent more than $500,000 on lobbying in the third quarter of 2010 through the second quarter of 2011, according to federal records, on behalf of the loan program and its own loan. The records show that $40,000 of the BrightSource lobbying money went to Bernie Toon, who was chief of staff to Mr. Biden, then a U.S. senator, in the 1990s. Other companies beyond BrightSource and Solyndra received large U.S. loan guarantees. But BrightSource faced a severe time constraint, owing to the tortoise-related deadline,and risked becoming a victim of fallout from the Solyndra deal. After the DOE learned in late 2010 of Solyndra's deepening troubles, the agency grew more cautious about making large solar-power loans. On March 9, 2011, just days after being hired, Mr. Toon went to the White House with three BrightSource executives, according to Senate and White House records. There he visited a former colleague, Alan Hoffman, now the top aide to Mr. Biden, whose office was working on green-energy programs, the records show. The White House didn't make Mr. Hoffman available for comment. The company's message to the administration, according to Mr. Judge, was that by allowing the BrightSource deal to languish, "you are kind of shooting yourselves in the foot in terms of your own policy" of promoting green energy. Mr. Toon was hired because he had previously lobbied for BrightSource contractor Bechtel Corp. and was familiar with the project, BrightSource said. Reached for comment, Mr. Toon said he couldn't talk about clients. Another visit came March 15, when BrightSource executives went to the White House for a meeting with the Office of Management and Budget, which also was reviewing the loan, White House records show. A top Washington energy lawyer with Perkins Coie LLP accompanied the BrightSource team. And the company drew up plans to have its chairman, Mr. Bryson, lobby a friend, then-White House Chief of Staff William Daley. On March 7, the company sent the DOE's loan-program director a proposed letter from Mr. Bryson to Mr. Daley requesting White House intervention, according to emails viewed by the Journal. It read, "We need a commitment from the WH to quarterback loan closure" by March 18. The loan-program director, Jonathan Silver, responded within hours by urging BrightSource to tone down the letter and cut the "quarterback" line. A few hours after that, Mr. Silver assured BrightSource that its deal was "on track" to close March 17, according to the emails. The company said it decided not to send the Bryson letter after those discussions. Mr. Silver didn't respond to messages seeking comment. The loan was approved April 5 and Mr. Toon's lobbying contract ended. BrightSource says its project is on schedule after it spent some $56 million on the tortoise relocation. The company has long-term contracts to sell the power it generates to PG&E and Edison International's Southern California unit. The BrightSource technology, which uses mirrors rather than cheaper solar panels to concentrate the sun's heat, is already in use, although not at the huge scale proposed for the Mojave Desert project. The company cancelled a planned initial public stock offering in April, citing poor market conditions.

To: Carolyn who wrote (488)	6/6/2012 10:04:21 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1400

Green power corrupts Power corrupts, even at highest levels of government. Even in the White House. That's the message from the government's energy loan guarantees, as revealed by a little-reported House Government Reform and Oversight subcommittee hearing last month. At issue was the approval of loan guarantees for BrightSource Energy, a politically connected corporation whose chairman, John Bryson, became Obama's secretary of Commerce last October. John M. Woolard, president and CEO of BrightSource Energy, testified that his company's $1.6 billion loan guarantee for a solar power plant "was awarded completely on the merits of the project." But Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, produced an email from Woolard to Energy Secretary Steven Chu's senior advisor, Matt Rogers, that hints the White House might have been involved. Dated January 4, 2010, the email states that Peter Darbee, CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric, had himself spoken to President Obama: "Darbee at PG&E talked directly to Obama about the program's challenges and the bad situation it puts him in." By "bad situation," Darbee meant that his company needed solar power to comply with California's law to produce 20 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2017 (later raised to 33 percent by 2020). Woolard also wrote to Rogers: "Please don't distribute this, but I thought you might want to know there is a large group in NYC focused on this transaction and DOE ability to execute. Things are not good and there is a sizeable group of private equity and investment banks writing a letter to Chu about the status of the program and the inability to get loans through -- can you suggest a good time to talk?" Coincidentally, the following month, Chu announced conditional loan guarantees of $1.37 billion for BrightSolar to build three utility-scale solar power plants on federal land in the Mojave Desert, to be the largest solar power electricity generating complex in the world. But conditional loan guarantees don't equal loans. Over a year later, in March 2011, BrightSource still had no loan. Woolard asked Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Energy Department's loan guarantee program to review a draft email from Bryson (then-chairman of Brightsource and future Obama official) to William Daley, then-chief of staff to Obama. "Either email or call when you can with suggestions," Woolard wrote. The email stated, "The Whitehouse [sic] needs to focus on finalizing the loan guarantee for what would be the largest solar thermal project in the world. BrightSource Energy's Ivanpah project was conditionally approved by DOE more than one year ago and is in the very final stages of being formally completed ... We need a commitment from the WH to quarterback loan closure between OMB and DOE by March 18." Chairman Jordan said to Woolard, "You're asking the guy who's in charge of making the final decision to proofread an email that your chairman is going to send to the White House chief of staff. And you say there's no political involvement?" In another coincidence (or not), the loan received final approval in April 2011, a month after Silver viewed the "proofreading request." The draft email to Daley had served its purpose without even being sent. After all, if a political appointee knows that the White House chief of staff is concerned about a loan in his portfolio, he will quickly deal with it. So BrightSource has its government loan, and PG&E has committed to buying BrightSource's expensive solar power, instead of cheap natural gas, in order to fulfill California's renewable electricity generation requirement. With energy loan guarantees and subsidies, crony corruption is the only way to play the game. That's why Congress should eliminate them.

To: Carolyn who wrote (488)	6/10/2012 8:51:49 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1400

To: Carolyn who wrote (488)	6/10/2012 8:52:27 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1400

Zing! Liberal Media Slams Obama As “Dazed And Confused” Posted by Andrea Ryan on Saturday, June 9, 2012, 11:30 AM The leader of our country is “dazed and confused”. At his press conference Friday, Obama delivered what the Liberal media described as a “stuttering”, “uncertain”, word-searching mess from a president “dazed and confused”. That’s because our dazed and confused president is a mess. And he created an even bigger mess for himself with his embarrassing press conference. Even Liberal Washington Post couldn’t re-craft his senseless, “meandering and stuttering performance”…and they didn’t even try, entitling their summary, “‘Uhhh,’ the president’s ‘uhhh’ press conference was ‘uhhh’ terrible”. The Washington Post reported, If you are president of the United States and you don’t have anything to say, don’t have a press conference to say it. If you’re the president of the United States and by Thursday it’s widely believed you’ve had one of the worst weeks of your presidency, take Friday off, and specifically avoid having a press conference. Anytime you are president and you’re speaking in public at an ill-timed press conference after a bad week, try to have something to say, and do a good job in saying it. I watched the whole thing, but it’s not easy to think of one useful thing that he had to say. And what he said, he said very poorly. Was it just me, or did the president seem a little dazed and confused? He should have had a cup of coffee before the press conference. And one more thing that’s a pet peeve. The president says “uhhh” too much. When I was a cable television news extra during the ‘90s and early 2000s, you learn early to purge your presentation of “uhhh.” Saying “uhhh” suggests uncertainty and is distracting. (And in my case, when it was accompanied by a Southern accent, it was even worse.) I don’t know what the president had in mind, but his own meandering, stuttering performance could not have done him any good with any audience. What was he, uhhh, thinking? Perhaps the president and others are huddled in an after-action review meeting in the Oval Office right now. It appears no one at The White House wants to give the president bad news or an honest critique of his performance. Somebody should print this post and slide it under the Oval Office door immediately. Even Obama’s teleprompter has nothing to say. But, President Narcissus thought he could magically mesmerize the country once again merely with his tide-receding, Earth healing presence. But, his game is up. The Liberal media isn’t filtering his nonsense into anything remotely sensible, anymore. He’s on his own with all his uhhhh-ing and thought-searching pauses to defend his mess of Socialist failures. Hat tip: flownover

To: Carolyn who wrote (488)	7/17/2012 1:59:14 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1400

Energy Dept. 'Unable to Locate' $500,000 in Equipment Bought With Stimulus Money By Penny Starr July 16, 2012 cnsnews.com (CNSNews.com) – An audit conducted by the Energy Department’s Office of Inspector General was "unable to locate" $500,000 worth of equipment purchased with stimulus money by a recipient of funds distributed through the deparment's “Advanced Batteries and Hybrid Components Program,” according to an audit report published by the OIG. The DOE said it would not be "appropriate" to release the name of stimulus-money recipient where the $500,000 worth of equipment could not be located. The program was given nearly $2 billion in stimulus funds "to support the construction of U.S. based battery and electric drive component manufacturing plants." As of June, DOE had "expended" about $1.2 billion of that money and had made grants to "30 for-profit manufacturers," according to the July 10 audit report. One of the three “conclusions and observations” the OIG made in the report is that more should be done to “ensure recipients adequately safeguard equipment purchased with federal funds,” the audit states. “We were unable to locate equipment purchased by one recipient totaling about $500,000,” the audit states. In an expanded section of the audit entitled “Safeguarding Assets,” it states: “While recipients were required to have property accountability systems in place, one of the three recipients we reviewed had not maintained records detailing information such as the location of equipment purchased with Recovery Act funds. “In the absence of detailed inventory records, we attempted to locate property using information contained in invoices," the audit states. “However, despite the assistance of recipient officials familiar with the premises and knowledgeable about the purchases made, we were unable to locate 20 of the 37 equipment items sampled. “The missing items were valued at approximately $500,000,” the audit states. The other two “conclusions and observations” in the audit were: --"Better define regulations governing the retention of documentation supporting procurement decisions. Regulations currently require for-profit recipients to follow best commercial practices, but do not define such practices. One recipient in our sample had purchased about $24 million in equipment and services without adequately documenting purchasing decisions." --"Obtain and review required audit reports to ensure the sufficiency of internal controls and compliance with laws and regulations. Of 28 program recipients, 8 had not submitted required reports." This is the second audit conducted by OIG on the program. The first was in April 2010. The office said a “follow-up” audit was necessary, in part, because it wanted to evaluate “circumstances related to an allegation received by the Office of Inspector General that an employee of one recipient had unduly influenced procurement decisions and violated conflict of interest provisions.” But, the second audit concluded: “Based on our test work, we were unable to substantiate the allegation related to a potential conflict of interest.” When asked by CNSNews.com for the name of the “recipient” that could not account for the $500,000 in equipment, the following statement was provided by the OIG: “The focus of the audit was based on Department of Energy’s policy and implementation. It is not appropriate to disclose company names.”