When news of the Solyndra bankruptcy came out, $500 million in taxpayer losses sounded like a huge sum to be foolishly gambled on what the financial experts knew was a bad bet from the gitgo. We are now learning that the half billion dollar Solyndra boondoggle is small change compared to the losses that are out there. Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News reports that there are 11 more failed “green” energy companies which squandered $6.5 billion in taxpayer money. Further, it again appears that cronies and pals of Obama and Dingy Harry were first in line at the trough. One more surprising part of this story is that Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News is now on her 3rd major expose of Obama malfeasance. She was the reporter who originally exposed the Solyndra and Fast & Furious scandals. See Ms. Attikisson’s report below:
CBS News’s Sharyl Attkisson, the reporter who originally broke the Solyndra story, notes that 11 other failed clean energy companies besides Solyndra received approval for $6.5 billion in taxpayer monies. Beacon Power, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, Eastern Energy, and Solyndra have all gone bankrupt. Others, such as Nevada Geothermal Power, a company that was personally touted by Sen. Harry Reid, is facing serious financial problems and warned of “multiple potential defaults” in its new SEC filings. Still, despite the fact that the company had already been struggling to “pay the bills,” Ms. Attkinson reports that Nevada Geothermal Power received $98.5 million in Department of Energy loan guarantees.
The CBS report also cites First Solar, a company that Breitbart News editor Peter Schweizer reported on extensively in his bestselling book, Throw Them All Out, as having been approved for billions in government loans. In 2011, First Solar won the inauspicious title as having been the biggest S&P loser in 2011. Moreover, First Solar has strong ties to Mr. Obama’s top fundraisers. As Mr. Schweizer reported for Breitbart News, Obama bundler Bruce Heyman was with Goldman Sachs which, along with billionaire Ted Turner, are among the largest investors in First Solar. So far, Mr. Heyman has already raised $366,884 for Mr. Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. And Schweizer’s says in 2008, Mr. Turner’s companies donated more than $1 million in campaign contributions to Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign. Whether these political contributions helped First Solar land its whopping $4.7 billion in loan guarantees, the appearance at least of cronyism is certainly strong.
According to CBS News, the Department of Energy also knew that Beacon Power, a “green energy storage company,” was an all-but doomed investment that had received an embarrassing “CCC-plus” rating from Standard and Poor, making it little more than a “junk bond.” Economist Peter Morici told CBS that investments with that kind of rating have roughly a 70 percent chance of failing over the long term. Still, despite knowing how poor an investment Beacon Power was, the Obama Administration dumped $43 million of taxpayer dollars into it.
Read the entire article here. HT Big Government
