Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 09/14/2011 1:27:51 PM PDT by dead
The latest batch of e-mails documenting the Obama administration's involvement in a $535 million federal loan to bankrupt solar company Solyndra has liberals scrambling to point fingers at an array of perceived villains. Whether fairly or not, Republicans are using the flawed investment to attack the whole lot of government-led green investments. Here's what Democrats are saying to push back:
Solyndra misled us
As Politico's Darren Samuelsohn notes, blaming the solar company has become a favored talking point on the Hill. "Democrats argue they were lulled into complacency by Solyndra executives who said all would be well once they restructured operations. They say they didn’t really start paying attention until this month’s FBI raid on the company and its late August bankruptcy protection filing." Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, adds "The reality is no one outside the company had any idea they were in such dire straits.”
Bush approved of Solyndra too
Stephen Lacy at Climate Progress emphasizes that "the loan guarantee came together under both administrations" noting that "The Bush team tried to conditionally approve the Solyndra loan just before President Obama took office." In January 2009, Lacy notes that "in an effort to show it has done something to support renewable energy, the Bush Administration tries to take Solyndra before a DOE credit review committee before President Obama is inaugurated." Pushing back against the claim, Philip Klein at The Washington Examiner notes that a committee background memo stipulates that "a recommendation for approval" was "premature at this time.” Politico adds that "Democrats also noted that Schwarzenegger attended Solyndra’s groundbreaking."
We wouldn't be in this mess if we had passed cap and trade
Tom Friedman at The New York Times says "I wasn’t surprised to read that the solar panel company Solyndra, which got $535 million in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy to make solar panels in America, filed for bankruptcy protection two weeks ago and laid off 1,100 workers... There is only one effective, sustainable way to produce “green jobs,” and that is with a fixed, durable, long-term price signal that raises the price of dirty fuels and thereby creates sustained consumer demand for, and sustained private sector investment in, renewables."
It's China's fault
notes Stephen Lacy at Climate Progress: "Armed with tens of billions in loans from the Chinese government, Chinese solar companies have scaled at a rate unthinkable only a few years ago. At the end of this year, there will likely be 50,000 MW of manufacturing capacity in place around the world, with much of that new capacity being developed in China and other Asian countries. (In the year 2000, there was only 100 MW of production capacity world-wide.)" The Washington Post's Ezra Klein pushes back, slightly, against the idea, saying "it wasn’t China that caused Solyndra to go belly-up — the company had invented a solar panel that didn’t use silicon, unlike its competitors, and foundered after silicon prices plummeted."
The latest is that this was started in Bush’s admin...
But OBAMA OWNS THIS 100%
He pushed it through and trumpeted it as HIS SUCCESS with this as part of HIS STIMULOUS BILL.
The are all OBAMA SUPPORTERS
WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?
Ding~! Ding~! Ding~!
There is probably more truth to that then they would care to admit (..or be found out)
I bet they were all betting big bucks on Obama's promise of Cap and Trade. I bet they would have made a fortune. ~!!
Yeah Friedman is a nincompoop. If ONLY gas were fixed at $10/gallon, then we’d be clamoring for solar power. Do these people really think this, or are they intentionally putting us on?
Solyndra misled us As Politico’s Darren Samuelsohn notes,
Nobody mentions the fact that Price Waterhouse looked at this business plan prior to them opening the doors should not be ignored.
Yes. Yes. Yes. But where, exactly, did the half-billion go?
"The results of the Congressional probe shared Tuesday with ABC News show that less than two weeks before President Bush left office, on January 9, 2009, the Energy Department's credit committee had voted against offering a loan commitment to Solyndra.
Even after Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, analysts in the Energy Department and in the Office of Management and Budget were repeatedly questioning the wisdom of the loan. In one exchange, an Energy official wrote of "a major outstanding issue" -- namely, that Solyndra's numbers showed it would run out of cash in September 2011..."
"It's people... you've got to tell them... Solyndra is people!"
You can bet that after a few million for the building, a few Mil for exec bonuses (boni?) and a few mil for payroll and misc costs, MANY mil went under the table into RAT and union coffers as kickbacks.
Libs have always wished for high gas prices so that America would be forced to convert to “green” energy and ride subways to work every day. Well, gas prices are high, and there still is no justification for converting to “green” energy.
"Obama 2012"
The whole point of increasing energy prices is to reduce individual freedom. That’s the whole agenda in a nutshell.
“But OBAMA OWNS THIS 100%”
Not exactly-—IF he can keep his lsm munchkins publicizing the LIE that Bush did it.
Y'know, aruanan, there's enough english on your comment to qualify you for a job on the Obummer 2012 campaign's propoganda team.
Exactly. The whole ‘green economy’ was predicated on Cap and Trade and extremely high energy prices in a global warming world.
The real scandal is not the $550 million pounded down the Solyndra rat hole, nor the other $758 million pounded down other similar ventures that have went belly up recently in a lower profile fashion.
The real scandal is the TRILLION plus dollars we have paid in higher gasoline bills due to Obama’s no drill/no development policy on oil and the resultant skyrocketing energy prices his moratorium has forced on Americans
I am wondering if the SEC should get involved here too- if they invested $$ based on Obama promises of Cap and Trade being passed ...
I bet they set this up so that they would have made billions if cap and trade passed
Not only did the Bush administration NOT APPROVE the loan, their forecast was that the company would be bankrupt by 9/2011.
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