Report: 80% of DOE Green Energy Loans Went to Obama Backers

A new book by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer details the startling extent of the cronyism that has pervaded President Obama’s “green jobs” push. According to Schweizer, 4 out of every 5 renewable energy companies backed by the Energy Department was “run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers.”

Those companies’ “political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy,” Schweizer explains. “It brought them returns many times over.”

Such is the inevitable consequence of large government interventions in private markets. Leaving aside the losses associated with transfers of funds from self-sustaining industries to ones that rely on government support, such interventions also encourage unproductive business activities by making “subsidy suckling” far more profitable than run-of-the-mill business expansions or product improvements.

More Q’s for SunPower, [Dem Rep George] Miller & Son
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47088

HUMAN EVENTS filed Freedom of Information Act requests on Oct. 21 to more deeply investigate a star-crossed California solar company championed by a Democratic Capitol Hill power broker and his lobbyist son.

The document request, made in partnership with Judicial Watch, the Washington-based government watchdog, was filed after weeks of unsuccessfully requesting answers to the questions about circumstances surrounding the $1.2 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy’s 1705 program applied for by San Jose, Calif.-based SunPower, which was approved hours before the program expired on Sept. 30.

The same day, SunPower received a $100 million contract from the Navy to provide electrical power to the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, in California, beating out 12 other proposals.

In support of the loan request, Rep. George Miller III, the co-chairman of the policy and steering committee for House Democrats, wrote a letter to the Department of Energy and led Secretary of the Interior Kenneth L. Salazar on an Oct. 14, 2010, tour of the company’s facility in Richmond, Calif.

The congressman’s son, George Miller IV is a founding partner and principal in the influence-peddling firm Lang, Hansen, O’Malley & Miller, which billed the solar company $176,000 in lobbying fees, starting in 2009.

The loan guarantee was designated to support a joint venture between SunPower and NRG Energy of Princeton, N.J., called the California Valley Solar Ranch. The ranch is currently being built by SunPower in the Golden State’s San Luis Obispo County.

Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, said he was happy for the opportunity to join HUMAN EVENTS in the investigation.

“This has all the hallmarks of a classic Washington scandal,” he said. “One would think that Messrs. Miller would want these documents out there as much as we do.”

The Freedom of Information Act requests were submitted to the departments of Treasury, Energy, Interior and Navy.

This is the same George Miller who is Pelosi’s right hand henchman and a bitter enemy of Central Valley farmers. He has been instrumental in pitting fishermen against farmers and using the phony Delta Smelt issue to shut down all farming. He has an ideological hatred of “trees growing in rows.” Or something. Or maybe he’s just evil.

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