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President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., netted a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, through a loan guarantee issued by a former employee-turned Department of Energy official. It’s just one more in a string of eye-opening revelations by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his explosive new book, Throw Them All Out. The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle. Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack...

Environmentalists are torn over the high cost of breaking reliance on fossil fuels. Industrial-scale solar development is well underway in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The federal government has furnished more public property to this cause than it has for oil and gas exploration over the last decade — 21 million acres. In the fight against climate change, the Mojave Desert is about to take one for the team. "I have spent my entire career thinking of myself as an advocate on behalf of public lands and acting for their protection," said Johanna Wald, a veteran environmental...

With the rise of independent media, the secrets of the American nomenklatura are coming into clearer focus, the shameless exploitation of the good will and treasure of the people increasingly put on view for all to see. 1. The media and the Democrats are joined at the hip and have created a "hereditary celebrity class" One of the fastest ways to celebrity and fortune (besides perhaps going on Dancing with the Stars, being adopted into the Hilton or Kardashian families and making a porn video) is to be the child of a politician or a well connected political operative. If...

It has to do with a “green energy” company called BrightSource Energy Inc., which develops solar energy products (or intends to someday, anyway). In 2010, BrightSource was in deep trouble. It was $1.8 billion in debt and was losing money hand over fist–a $71.6 million loss on a mere $13.5 million in revenue. A company destined to go down the drain, one would think. But no! The Obama administration bailed out BrightSource to the tune of a cool $1.4 billion in loan guarantees. How could that possibly have happened? Well, start with the fact that the principal investor in BrightSource...

President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., netted a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, through a loan guarantee issued by a former employee-turned Department of Energy official. It’s just one more in a string of eye-opening revelations by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his explosive new book, Throw Them All Out. The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle. Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack...

Where did green-energy cash go? Straight to campaign donors. Read more about Peter Schwiezer’s Throw Them All Out in the new Newsweek on sale Monday. When President-elect Obama came to Washington in late 2008, he was outspoken about the need for an economic stimulus to revive a struggling economy. He wanted billions of dollars spent on “shovel-ready projects” to build roads; billions more for developing alternative-energy projects; and additional billions for expanding broadband Internet access and creating a “smart grid” for energy consumption. After he was sworn in as president, he proclaimed that taxpayer money would assuredly not be doled...

LOS ANGELES – A relative of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and one of his former cabinet secretaries are part of a private investment group that could score a lucrative payoff if regulators approve a sprawling solar-energy complex near the Mojave Desert Preserve. The personal connections have raised questions about possible favorable treatment for a project being touted as a breakthrough in the development of solar power. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime environmental activist who is the cousin of first lady Maria Shriver, and former state Environmental Protection Secretary Terry Tamminen were named senior advisers at VantagePoint Venture Partners last year....

A costly proposed solar power plant in Ivanpah, California, touted by President Obama as a "green jobs" initiative, is being sued by environmentalists. Nichola Groom of Reuters reports:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A U.S. conversation group has sued the federal government over its approval of a major solar power plant in the California desert, the latest in a string of challenges to the nation's renewable energy goals from the environmental community.

San Jose-based SunPower, Silicon Valley's dominant solar panel manufacturer, on Monday announced three power purchase agreements with Southern California Edison to deliver 711 megawatts of solar power. The deal, one of the largest for photovoltaic solar power in the United States, would produce enough power for about 460,000 California homes. "This is an unprecedented time for solar photovoltaic," Marc Ulrich, the utility's vice president of renewable and alternative power, said in a statement. "We're seeing growth in technological advances and manufacturing efficiencies that result in competitive prices for green, emission-free energy for our customers." ... California's three largest utilities have...

U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday touted his administration's energy policy agenda, predicting that his clean energy programs will create "hundreds of thousands" of new American jobs by 2012. Meanwhile, he painted an ugly, contrasting picture of the GOP energy agenda, arguing that Republicans would only boost the nation's dependence on foreign oil and keep special interest groups in control. "We can go back to the failed energy policies that profited the oil companies but weakened our country," the president said in his weekly radio address, proving that he's not done attacking the GOP this midterm election season. "Or we...

LOS ANGELES — The Obama administration has given preliminary approval for $1.4 billion in loan guarantees for a massive solar-energy project in California's Mojave Desert. U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Monday that BrightSource Energy was in line for the financing help to build solar-energy plants to power 140,000 homes. ... Environmentalists want the complex relocated because they say it will harm protected desert tortoises. BrightSource has made design changes in an attempt to alleviate environmental concerns.

Reporting from El Centro, Calif. - Across the desert flatlands of southeastern California, dozens of companies have flooded federal offices with applications to place solar mirrors on more than a million acres of public land. But just as some of those projects appear headed toward fruition, environmental hurdles threaten to jeopardize efforts to further tap the region's renewable energy potential. The development of solar-power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation's dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming. In addition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has urged that...

A proposed solar energy project in the California desert that caused intense friction between environmentalists and the developers of renewable energy has been shelved. BrightSource Energy Inc. had planned a 5,130-acre solar power farm in a remote part of the Mojave Desert, on land previously intended for conservation. The company, based in Oakland, Calif., said Thursday that it was instead seeking an alternative site for the project. The Wildlands Conservancy, a California environmental group, had tried to block the solar development, as had Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who proposed that the area become a national monument. The land...

In what is touted to be the largest solar deal in the world, Pacific Gas & Electric today announced that it has expanded a series of solar-power contracts with Oakland's BrightSource Energy for a total of 1,310 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 530,000 California homes during peak hours. Peak hours in the state are usually from noon to 7 p.m. The power purchase agreements, which will now include seven power plants, add to a previous contract the two companies struck last April for up to 900 megawatts of solar thermal power. The deal with PG&E means BrightSource now...

Commentary: Only solar energy can give us what we'll needSANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Some of the smartest minds in the world gathered last week at the Aspen Institute in Colorado to discuss the environment. Bottom line: We are wasting a lot of time, money and effort on ineffective ways to address climate change. We need better policies and plans -- now. Everyone agreed, from the chief executive of Duke Energy Corp. and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to the leader of the Evangelical Environmental Network. We're not energy-efficient and the challenges of becoming so are bold and...

Earlier this month, we asked you to call your U.S. Representatives to show support for the national Omnibus Public Lands Bill, containing wilderness desig- nations for over 700,000 acres in California. (If you haven’t called your representative yet, please do so now.) Now we have an opportunity to get even more of California’s wild desert places formally designated as wilderness — the highest protection our public lands can receive from the federal government.All you need to do is write a quick, heart-felt note to Sen. Dianne Feinstein mentioning why you love wild desert places in general, and mentioning a few...

WASHINGTON -- California's Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy. Feinstein said Friday she intends to push legislation that would turn the land into a national monument, which would allow for existing uses to continue while preventing future development.

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 500,000 acres in the Mojave Desert would be off-limits to wind or solar energy production under legislation Sen. Dianne Feinstein intends to introduce. The land is coveted by companies seeking to develop alternative energy, setting up a potential clash with one of the more powerful members of Congress. The land would seem ideally suited for solar energy production. Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on the property, but such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public, said...

Southern California Edison said it has wrapped up the world's largest-ever agreement to buy electricity generated by solar power, a series of generators in California's eastern deserts that could eventually supply more than 800,000 homes. The utility, which serves Riverside County and the sprawling southern California territory outside of the city of Los Angeles and San Diego County, hopes the first of seven plants will begin operating in 2013, the company said in a press release Wednesday morning. The Rosemead-based utility counts nearly 5 million customers in Riverside and a half-dozen other California counties. BrightSource Energy Inc. of Oakland would...