Confirmed: Obama administration sunk $535 million in Porkulus funds in green-energy turkey
posted at 9:30 am on February 22, 2011 by Ed Morrissey
Not that there was much doubt about the question of the White House backing of Solyndra in California. The report from November, when I first wrote about the dissipation of more than a half-billion dollars, covered the facts well. In fact, let’s watch the original report from the local ABC affiliate one more time:
Congress has now confirmed the waste in a letter from the House Energy and Commerce Committee to Energy Secretary Steven Chu:
Solyndra, Inc. was supposed to have showcased the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s stimulus and green jobs initiatives, but instead it has become the center of congressional attention for waste, fraud and abuse of such programs.
According to a Feb. 17 letter signed by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, Michigan Republican, and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns, Florida Republican, to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the Fremont, Calif.-based solar panel manufacturer squandered $535 million of stimulus money. …
According to Biden’s speech, the $535 million loan guarantee was a smaller part of the $30 billion of stimulus money the administration planned to spend as part of its Green Jobs Initiative.
Obama made similar claims in a May 26, 2010 speech at the plant, but the 1,000 jobs he and Biden touted in their respective speeches failed to materialize.
Instead, Solyndra announced on Nov. 3 it planned to postpone expanding the plant, which cost the taxpayers $390.5 million, or 73 percent of the total loan guarantee, according to the Wall Street Journal.
It also announced that it no longer planned to hire the 1,000 workers that Obama and Biden had touted in their speeches and that it planned to close one of its older factories and planned to lay-off 135 temporary or contract workers and 40 full-time employees.
Gosh, who could have predicted that the Solyndra pork project might fail? Perhaps all of those Wall Street investors that avoided Solyndra for one obvious reason:
A closer look at the company shows it has never turned a profit since it was founded in 2005, according to its Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.
And Solyndra’s auditor declared that “the company has suffered recurring losses, negative cash flows since inception and has a net stockholders’ deficit that, among other factors, [that] raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a growing concern” in a March 2010 amendment to its SEC registration statement.
Just another object lesson in why government’s role shouldn’t be to pick winners and losers in a market. They’re usually no good at it. And in this case, we had two people — Barack Obama and Joe Biden — with no experience in private investment, management, or even energy production making those choices.
That’s a half-billion-dollar lesson that we’d all better heed in the future.
Blowback
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Green turkeys?. wtf….I prefer green eggs instead
hawkman on February 22, 2011 at 9:33 AM
This sh!t needs to stop. Holy hell
blatantblue on February 22, 2011 at 9:33 AM
Classic example of a command economy where economic decisions are made for political reasons. The political left will not learn, they refuse to learn, just as inner city gang members reject ‘the white mans education’ in public schools.
Skandia Recluse on February 22, 2011 at 9:34 AM
Yet Obama still wants billions for investing in the so-called “green economy”. Notice how none of the drive-bys ever ask him how many green jobs have been created, how much each job cost, or what the hell even constitutes a green job? Van Jones couldn’t even answer that and he was the Green Jobs Czar.
Doughboy on February 22, 2011 at 9:35 AM
Investigate further. Thre must be ties between Obama/Chu/Biden and the people behind this junk company. This is not some valiant attempt to find an unknown source of energy. It is graft, pure and simple.
promachus on February 22, 2011 at 9:35 AM
by Turkey you mean a front company that looted the public treasury in the name of enviro-social justice.
rob verdi on February 22, 2011 at 9:36 AM
Smart power?
pugwriter on February 22, 2011 at 9:36 AM
Follow the money. Someone made out like a bandit.
ctmom on February 22, 2011 at 9:37 AM
WTF!
artist on February 22, 2011 at 9:38 AM
shibbie thats a lot of wasted money! things like this is why i like economics so much more than politics! one makes sense and involves reason and the other doesn’t
dirksilver on February 22, 2011 at 9:38 AM
Now fork over more, slaves!
/Obama, Democrats, unions
Good Lt on February 22, 2011 at 9:39 AM
Green economy??? Looks more like a doo-doo brown economy to me. Ten will get you twenty a buddy of Obama’s accidentally ended up with a lot of that money…..
search4truth on February 22, 2011 at 9:40 AM
Just a rounding error in a $3.5 trillion budget.
Think about that!
rockmom on February 22, 2011 at 9:41 AM
read my mind!…and also made a much better post than i did!
dirksilver on February 22, 2011 at 9:42 AM
Can we ask Obambi and Biteme to pay us the money back? Why not?
odannyboy on February 22, 2011 at 9:42 AM
First Solar, just up the road, is one of those green companies that Biden has visited a couple times already and would have shut its doors already were it not for the massive influx of federal funding.
Over the past year a large number of so-called green energy companies have experienced layoff’s. In the private sector this is to be expected. If the product does not sell, if costs of production cannot be covered by sales, then the company has to change direction, trim its budget, innovate to survive or face closure. But, with the artificial federal funding given to individual companies they can stretch their fleecing of the public over several years, promising each year to get it right this time.
Command economies do not work, never have, never will. Why is our government trying to defy the obvious?
If there is a real need, and a market, some private entrepreneur will produce it, if allowed to do so and not taxed or regulated to death before the first product leaves the assembly line.
In the meantime, the charlatans will grab whatever free gubmint money they can lay their hands on…after all, it is all green.
coldwarrior on February 22, 2011 at 9:42 AM
Over a half a Billion dollars to one fledgling company and they still file for bankruptcy. Crips.
WisRich on February 22, 2011 at 9:45 AM
Considering the state of the Middle East and the oil prices, his dumb a$$ better start issuing permits and getting the oil flowing in the Gulf. I’m having a real hard time being told that this man is brilliant but that the reason everything he does hurts the country is due to ideology.
Cindy Munford on February 22, 2011 at 9:46 AM
Bastards
<blockquote>WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military says pirates killed four American hostages they were holding on a yacht off Somalia’s coast.
The U.S. Central Command says negotiations had been under way to try to win release of the two couples on the pirated vessel Quest.
Gunshots were heard; and when U.S. forces reached the yacht, they found four all four hostages had been shot.
rob verdi on February 22, 2011 at 9:47 AM
“Solyndra, If you have a half a billion dollars to throw away call us” or “Solyndra, If we can pull the wool over a Community organizer’s eyes, Just think what we can do to you.” and “Solyndra, The Green Initiative, For a Half a Billion Green taxpayer Dollars we will direct you to a cheaper product from China. Yes we will save you Green Dollars”. Or as Biden likes to say “This is some Big S***.
Guest1.1 on February 22, 2011 at 9:47 AM
The real scam is often in stock pump-and-dump schemes, that’s where they also need to investigate. We also need to change the law to make it clear that Congress and their staffs are not immune to insider trading laws.
slickwillie2001 on February 22, 2011 at 9:48 AM
Hey! It’s not Bidens or Obama’s money….so ask them if they really give a rats behind! They don’t!!!
capejasmine on February 22, 2011 at 9:49 AM
On all fronts Obama is doing his best to ruin the U.S.
albill on February 22, 2011 at 9:49 AM
I must admit I couldn’t be bothered finishing the article. However, I was prompted to ask the question: Why aren’t people in prison???
alwyr on February 22, 2011 at 9:50 AM
Paging Mr. Issa……Mr. Issa to the white courtesy phone, please.
search4truth on February 22, 2011 at 9:52 AM
How many BTUs does burning 535 million dollars produce?
What an investment! We actually would be better off with the E-Trade babies doing it for us…I mean REAL babies, too!
cartooner on February 22, 2011 at 9:53 AM
Doughboy on February 22, 2011 at 9:54 AM
Green economy?
How about the turd economy?
BuckeyeSam on February 22, 2011 at 9:54 AM
There will be no new permits issued in the Gulf or any other offshore area by this Administration. Their plan is to force the nation into so-called alternative energy sources no matter what the cost. It is a matter of dogma.
Over a decade ago when the ANWR “debate” was going on the Left told us that it would take a decade before we saw the first drop of ANWR oil. Same for oil sands/shale production. Had we started a decade ago, we’d be producing today. Had we had a common sense energy policy (drill here, drill now + all of the above) in place, by now we’d not be hostage to the Middle East, while using these fuels to cover the interim as we allowed private entrepreneurs to develop workable and common-sense alternative energy sources, as many of the major oil companies are doing and have been doing for the past decade.
But, instead, we are being held hostage by Washington far more than we are being held hostage by the Middle East oil producers.
This is no accident. It is planned policy from the Left.
coldwarrior on February 22, 2011 at 9:54 AM
How about the CEO of Solyndra, Inc.?
Solyndra was paid $535 million to lay off 175 workers (or over $3 million each). WE want our money back!!!
Methinks these “green jobs” subsidies need a sunset provision.
Steve Z on February 22, 2011 at 9:55 AM
Barry could have saved more energy just by telling his departments to maked sure their car tires were inflated properly. That would have cost us only about a nickle-ninety five
Limerick on February 22, 2011 at 9:55 AM
Tru dat capejasmine
Despicable
cmsinaz on February 22, 2011 at 9:56 AM
I think he’s doing his best to fix the country – he’s just failing epically at it because his ideas and his assessment of what the problem is are so farking stupid and wrong.
Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence and all that.
Good Lt on February 22, 2011 at 9:56 AM
Why isn’t the $2.7B Captain Morgan bailout more of an issue?
Bailout Madness: US Lawmakers Gave British Distiller Billions in Tax Dollars & Tax Breaks
slickwillie2001 on February 22, 2011 at 9:56 AM
WOW! $535,000 per job
faraway on February 22, 2011 at 9:57 AM
I know the answer before asking, but where’s the White House press corps on this? One of those a**hats should be asking Carney for a straight answer on this until the get an admission on this.
I thought Biden was watching all of this nonsense. Evidently, boondoggle recipients are able to “mess with Joe”–and quite effectively.
BuckeyeSam on February 22, 2011 at 9:58 AM
Half a billion dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You could build a public school building with that kind of money!
Shy Guy on February 22, 2011 at 9:58 AM
It is the preferred drink of the young Washington DC insider?
coldwarrior on February 22, 2011 at 9:58 AM
Moodys currently rates Solyndra’s debt at B+.
percysunshine on February 22, 2011 at 10:00 AM
Hey, let’s not get carried away….I mean, you would still have to find funding to pay the unionized teachers when they decided to show up.
search4truth on February 22, 2011 at 10:01 AM
O/T: (sorry)
This is just unbelievable: Spokesman on MSNBC says “murder of four Americans by Somali Pirates not terrorist related”
Rovin on February 22, 2011 at 10:08 AM
I understand who the culprit is. Don’t we get most of our oil from Canada and Mexico? That still doesn’t change the fact that prices are going through the roof and the entire world is going to pay. We need a Tea Party outbreak.
Cindy Munford on February 22, 2011 at 10:10 AM
Oh, they’ll just print mo money.
They are absolutely collapsing this economy. Why? when the stimulus passed was it a blank check for the socialist in chief? Serious question. Has a POTUS ever been given a blank check before?
Secondly, I am absolutely sick about the pirates. Somethings got to give.
ORconservative on February 22, 2011 at 10:10 AM
I wonder if the fact that the Americans were missionaries had anything to do with it?
Cindy Munford on February 22, 2011 at 10:10 AM
Heads need to roll for this. Prison time
OmahaConservative on February 22, 2011 at 10:12 AM
So of course you’d pump money into it!
roy_batty on February 22, 2011 at 10:12 AM
Did you get in at MM’s site yesterday?
OmahaConservative on February 22, 2011 at 10:13 AM
I almost got a job at Solyndra, and know many others who did. Do I feel sorry for these folks? November Foxtrot Yankee!
Amongst these folks were some of the most snarky liberal types I know, all of whom left a more stable semiconductor systems company to make a supposed killing on the Solyndra IPO.
When asked about the product, all I heard were “ifs” and not “whens” with regard to performance and production milestones.
One senior metrologist left Solyndra (or was thrown over the side) but persists in the industry at another green energy company called Nanosolar. I’ll bet he’s hoping no Marine Corps helos fly neear south San Jose.
Stimulus? More like the Kiss of Death.
SJBill on February 22, 2011 at 10:15 AM
A solar panel to nowhere.
Electrongod on February 22, 2011 at 10:15 AM
Ed has a couple of great observations in his summary of this abortion. This one sort of sums up most of what is wrong with the government – competence. We put Ivy League law school students (O’Bonehead) and cheesy self-promoters with no particular talent at anything (O’Biden) in charge of making business decisions on a huge scale.
And they suck at it. They have no experience in business, no education in business and no idea what they are doing.
Broadening out a bit, this is why having politicians “negotiate” with public employee unions is such a bad idea. It’s a complete mismatch, with no adversarial position taken. The unions are operating in a free environment.
Jaibones on February 22, 2011 at 10:18 AM
The “Spanish Experience” with “green jobs” repeats
J_Crater on February 22, 2011 at 10:22 AM
SJBill on February 22, 2011 at 10:15 AM
Do you know anything about a company called SoloPower?
ORconservative on February 22, 2011 at 10:24 AM
They need to prime the pump with another 50 or 100 billion.
And keep spending on education for training in no clear skills.
IlikedAUH2O on February 22, 2011 at 10:24 AM
Disgusting & infuriating, but hardly surprising.
ornery_independent on February 22, 2011 at 10:25 AM
That’s “green eggs and pork”, hawkman.
andycanuck on February 22, 2011 at 10:26 AM
Yeah, that’s the ticket…surely we didn’t give Solyndra enough money…if they only had another half a billion $$$$…blah blah blah…
ornery_independent on February 22, 2011 at 10:27 AM
This is why you had a pirate’s cabal of California VCs throwing big chunks of money behind the anti-Prop 23 effort.
They want to preserve their right to suck from the taxpayers’ wallet.
They see a giant gravy train of graft and preferences flowing from California’s AB32 greenhouse-fraud law, and will fight tooth and nail to keep anyone from derailing their gravy train.
JEM on February 22, 2011 at 10:28 AM
Jerry Brown and Andrew Cuomo could not be reached for comment.
*The largest numbers of union members live in California (2.4 million) and New York (2.0 million).
Rovin on February 22, 2011 at 10:28 AM
So not only did this NOT produce 1000 new jobs, there were 135 lobs LOST as well.
We are gonna need a new metric — jobs lost per stimulus $ spent.
Spit.
GnuBreed on February 22, 2011 at 10:28 AM
You can damned well bet that if the Democrats were still in control, you’d NEVER have hear another word about this fiasco.
GarandFan on February 22, 2011 at 10:29 AM
We need to start reporting these stories in a slightly different way, because $535M is just kind of obscure. Let’s divide that number by the US population (308M). So…
Solyndra cost YOU $1,737. Not your household, not your family, but YOU.
Make THAT the headline.
Less on February 22, 2011 at 10:30 AM
DOMESTIC SOLAR POWER MANUFACTURER FAILS:
Who could have predicted that users of electrical power would demand 24 hour/day, 365 day/year service?
Oh, wait…
BTW: Why do solar panels turn a large area BLACK? I thought this was supposed to be a GREEN technology? It turns out that they aren’t self-sustaining, either: the panels degrade in the presence of SUNLIGHT!!!
landlines on February 22, 2011 at 10:30 AM
I don’t understand how this could have happened.
Afterall, Chu did win the Nobel Prize in Physics.
pain train on February 22, 2011 at 10:32 AM
But I’m sure that they intended to, so all’s good, right?
/lib logic
ted c on February 22, 2011 at 10:32 AM
Re: ORconservative on February 22, 2011 at 10:24 AM
Sorry, no experience with them. My area of expertise is not photovoltaics. I’m a dinosaur of the electron and ion optics world of semiconductor device insepction systems. ;-)
SJBill on February 22, 2011 at 10:35 AM
Someone messed with Uncle Joe? And lived to tell the tale?
cyclown on February 22, 2011 at 10:37 AM
I did. csm.
Cindy Munford on February 22, 2011 at 10:38 AM
SJBill on February 22, 2011 at 10:35 AM
There was just a large loan announced to this company. It is a solar panel company. Which I find like firing money down a rat hole.
ORconservative on February 22, 2011 at 10:38 AM
Solyndra – Obama: Green (goose) Eggs and Ham!!
landlines on February 22, 2011 at 10:45 AM
I still want to see whatever happened to that business Obama visited that made solar powered attic fans. Bet that one is in the dirt too.
kens on February 22, 2011 at 10:51 AM
Who cares if they wasted half a billion dollars on this company!!!!
I hear the snow in Vail is nice this time of year…. /s
PatriotRider on February 22, 2011 at 10:52 AM
Everybody email the members of Congress about the Gulf drilling ban, we need to stabilize the oil market.
Cindy Munford on February 22, 2011 at 10:54 AM
sank
Tzetzes on February 22, 2011 at 10:59 AM
Fallon on February 22, 2011 at 11:11 AM
Depends. Is it all in One Dollar bills??
JohnGalt23 on February 22, 2011 at 11:20 AM
This is what you get when you hand the country over to a complete fraud. Barry couldn’t effectively manage a Burger King and we handed him the whole freaking country. We Americans are soooooooooooo stoooooopid. When will we learn?
UnEasyRider on February 22, 2011 at 11:22 AM
If you’re speaking in terms of the collective We then what’s your point? The collective We has no say and no sway in what Dear Leader and our current elected representatives do with our money when it is not put to us on a ballot. Be it the trillions for Obamacare or the trillions for Stimulus, foreign and domestic, … when have We ever held any sway over any of that?
They just shove it right where the sun don’t shine and tell us to Like It!
FlatFoot on February 22, 2011 at 11:22 AM
*sigh* It’s a pretty looking building off the 880 here in the Bay Area…pretty, soon to be empty and a massive shrine to incompetence and the hostile business climate in the State.
EasyEight on February 22, 2011 at 11:28 AM
Ethanol next….
Somebody!……………….. STOP THE INSANITYU
golfmann on February 22, 2011 at 11:33 AM
Let me be perfectly clear on this – the Solyndra stimulus payment was too small to be effective…
Besides, did I say “solar panels”?? I meant to say “high-speed rail”. Damn TOTUS…
bofh on February 22, 2011 at 11:40 AM
SANK.
Obama administration SANK $535 million in Porkulus funds in green-energy turkey
Sorry, Ed.. pet peeve of mine…
greggriffith on February 22, 2011 at 11:44 AM
Gee, Obama’s Mini-Me made the same sort of “mistake” recently.
Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to Chin
TheBigOldDog on February 22, 2011 at 12:01 PM
To paraphrase Charlton Heston: Solyndra green is bullshit!
kalel666 on February 22, 2011 at 12:37 PM
Their tech is weak… The competition is tough, and in a fair fight they would have never spent their own money beyond a quick look see. But gubment $ make all things possible… unless million$ prove otherwise.
-
RalphyBoy on February 22, 2011 at 12:44 PM
I would guess there are some Obama donors in there, so I think they were successful, in their minds. It’s just that their goal of buying votes is different from our goals.
PattyJ on February 22, 2011 at 12:51 PM
And yet Valerie Jarrett was just on TV telling us how 0bama is creating millions of jobs in “Green Energy”.
First time I’d ever seen Jarrett… She is a very odd looking creature, isn’t she?
LegendHasIt on February 22, 2011 at 1:18 PM
“Under my plan of a Cap and Trade, electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket”
Along with your taxes, depleting the treasury, ruining your standard of living,
heck, lets turn the clock back to the 14th century.
Kini on February 22, 2011 at 1:18 PM
Well it appears Obama and company are intent on doing exactly that.
And, across the globe, seems the religion of peace is intent on the same thing, only more so.
Coincidence?
coldwarrior on February 22, 2011 at 1:31 PM
Obama dumped 500 million into alGores Fiskars car. it should be s successful venture. For alGore.
seven on February 22, 2011 at 3:05 PM
Somebody’s buds got paid…that’s all that matters with these politicians.
Dr. ZhivBlago on February 22, 2011 at 4:16 PM
Ideology trumps business sense, or economic sense, or due diligence.
AnotherOpinion on February 22, 2011 at 4:22 PM
Gosh, that could have been millions they could have invested in the Wisconsin teachers
union, er…so they wouldn’t have to cut back on their contributions to theDemocratsWTF, er…the children’s future.chickasaw42 on February 22, 2011 at 4:45 PM
Wonder who in the Obama administration and/or Obama family is friends with the management/ownership of Solyndra? This level of blatant taxpayer theft doesn’t happen unless somebody is well-connected.
As for Barry’s “investments” in green energy, if he truly believes that these companies are worth putting money into, then why isn’t he “investing” his own millions in them, instead of pissing away ours?
AZCoyote on February 22, 2011 at 5:52 PM
It is king of like watching a bunch of monkeys trying to love a football watching both Democrats and Republicans perform their elaborate kabuki dance on how to get the country out of debt while still spending over a trillion dollars this year.
Here is an interesting take on the budget I found: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FawyVbB1m-c
Boils down the real question well.
King of the Britons on February 22, 2011 at 7:35 PM
I would disagree here Ed. The government has very close to a 100% track record of picking the wrong entity to back. That’s a pretty solid track record.
/of course that’s an even stronger reason why the government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers. it would be better if they just had a mediocre record.
AZfederalist on February 22, 2011 at 8:17 PM
J_Crater on February 23, 2011 at 3:58 PM
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