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“Without much fanfare, the Department of Energy (DOE) recently updated the list of loan guarantee projects on its website,” the Institute for Energy Research noticed on Wednesday. ”Unlike in 2008, when Barack Obama pledged to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer funds toward renewable energy projects, there were no press conferences or stump speeches.” Uh-oh. Why weren’t there any celebrations? President Obama loves a good celebration. Why, we just found out about the super-secret star-studded bash he held after his inauguration. Maybe it’s because the IER divided the $26 billion spent on “green jobs” by the...

While hindsight may always be 20/20, foresight should be pretty clear in many instances as well. The Fisker failure was one of these times. Many saw the folly in spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to support the green debacle. In fact, the Associated Press has reported that even the Obama Administration had warning of the Fisker loan risks back in April of 2010 when the Energy Department began emailing their concerns. Congress will be holding hearings starting today to address the scandalous waste of taxpayer money on Fisker. Reuters states one of the goals of the hearing, "'The...

By itself, Terry McAuliffe’s failure to announce his resignation as chairman of GreenTech Automotive Inc. would not raise many eyebrows. But when the news was reported last week — four months after McAuliffe quietly resigned — it added to questions about the gubernatorial candidate’s ties to the electric car company he founded in 2009, and claims he has made about it on the campaign trail. McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee by default, promotes himself as a job-creating entrepreneur. He has used GreenTech to try to burnish that image. He should have a clear explanation why GreenTech chose Mississippi, not Virginia, for...

Turn over any green-energy rock, and wiggling underneath will be the usual creepy mix of political favoritism and taxpayer-funded handouts. Add to this the Clintons, Mississippi and a murky visa program, and you've got a particularly ripe political embarrassment for Terry McAuliffe. Everyone remember The Macker? Best Friend of Bill. Chairman of Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign. Famed money-tree shaker. Former Democratic Party chief. Failed 2009 contender for the Virginia governorship but now back as the party's nominee for that position in this fall's election. Oh—and in Mr. McAuliffe's words—"a Virginia businessman" intent on "creating jobs." Or at least that was...

April 3, 2013 Feds look closer at cash source in McAuliffe car scam By Kenric Ward | Watchdog.org GONE AND DOWNSIZED: Though it’s still listed as their corporate address, GreenTech Automotive and Gulf Coast Funds Management moved out of their spacious headquarters office next to the Ritz Carlton in McLean. (Photo: Pamela Mullin) MCLEAN, Va. — A federal program that awards U.S. citizenship to foreigners in exchange for business investments is under increasing scrutiny as the assets of a Chicago company were frozen by the Securities and Exchange Commission.A Watchdog investigation found that Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe and...

President Obama ’s alternative energy “stimulus,” administered through hisDepartment of Energy by previous SecretarySteven Chu, had already become a joke because of the failures and foibles of so many recipients of Recovery Act funds. But now – as though officially commemorating the absurdity of this historically bad U.S. government program – one of its bankrupt beneficiaries has changed its name from one of simplicity to one of mockery. Electric vehicle battery maker A123 Systems has changed its name to B456 Systems. Incorporated. Reporting the development, headline writers across the nation rubbed their eyes, double-checked the wire information, and then...

Bad Data: As yet another Solyndra looms, a new government report shows that by the government's own broad definition of a green job, more can be found in a coal mine than near a solar panel. The second annual Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report on "Employment in Green Goods and Services," released Tuesday, will be the last, allegedly a casualty of the same sequestration that claimed the White House tours and may doom the Easter egg hunt on the White House lawn. That is probably a good thing, for if it were published as a book, it would deserve...

This comes as no surprise to Hot Air readers, who learned about the value of the Obama administration’s $150 million subsidy investment of LG Chem last fall. After furloughing its workers at their Grand Rapids plant without having a single one of their batteries installed in a consumer vehicle, the local NBC affiliate produced this report on the way taxpayer money got spent:

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration's electric car efforts took another hit on Wednesday after a federal inspection found a South Korean advanced battery maker never scaled up U.S. production despite receiving $142 million in federal grants. A Holland, Mich., factory owned by LG Chem Ltd., part of LG Corp., was half-funded by a government grant and estimated to add some 440 jobs building battery cells for General Motors Co.'s Chevrolet Volt and other vehicles. When demand for the plant's batteries didn't meet expectations, the company filled orders with cells made at a factory in South Korea, leaving the Michigan plant largely idle,...

SolarCity US DOE loan approval fails According to news reports, US-based solar installation firm, SolarCity will not be able to complete and comply with documentation deadlines of September 30th to be considered for a US Department of Energy loan, previously announced. Earlier this month, the DOE had made a conditional commitment for a partial loan guarantee to SolarCity for PV system installations on residential and other buildings at US military bases. The US$344 million loan would go towards 371MW of new solar power generation capacity. The project, code named SolarStrong, will be led by SolarCity, with USRG Renewable Finance acting...

“Employees at bicycle shops have green jobs,” economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth points out in a Capital Research Center study. “So do workers at antique dealers, at the Salvation Army used clothing recycling centers, and at used record stores, because used items count as recycled goods.” Furchtgott-Roth testified at a congressional hearing in June that examined the definition of “green jobs.” “As a witness at the hearing, I explained that, because the white paper cup placed before me on the table had a ‘Power to Save Energy’ logo, employees who produced it had green jobs,” she recalls. “The product met the BLS...

Is Obama Always Faithful to our Marines? The current political winds in Washington, DC, have dictated that less will be spent on the various Branches of the Armed Forces of the Unites States. Case in point: the Commander-in-Chief has decided to fire 20,000 of our U.S. Marines. In an article published by San Diego, California's North County Times, ironically on Thanksgiving Day, Military Affairs reporter Gretel C. Kovach cites; "The Corps is shrinking by 20,000 Marines, to 182,100." The North County Times also cited that America's premier fighting force is; "scraping to repair or replace battle-worn equipment." In spite of...

Welcome to a magical world in which the scientific challenges to green energy have been resolved and renewable energy makes economic sense for the United States. Even in such a highly theoretical country, it is unlikely that green energy projects would make much headway due to a ‘green versus green’ regulatory structure where local environmentalist groups battle alternative energy projects, contend two authors in a recent Heritage Foundation presentation of their new book. “Most of the research for this was funded actually by the Department of Energy in a 2010 grant to look at [alternative] energy,” says Ryan M. Yonk,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A $500-million "green jobs" program to train U.S. workers for new jobs and help spark recovery from the great recession has fallen far short of its goals, according to a report from the Labor Department's internal watchdog released on Friday. As of June 30, fewer than 31,000 people who went through training programs got green jobs, only 38 percent of what had been projected, the department's Inspector General said in the report. Of those workers, less than 12,000 kept these jobs for more than six months, a mere 16 percent of what organizations that got grants had...

Chatham County’s plan to use a $300,000 energy grant for a green jobs training program was abandoned after savings failed to live up to expectations and a materials purchase violated federal requirements. After installing efficient lighting, window inserts for improved insulation and a geothermal system, Chatham reduced annual energy costs by an estimated $60,000, instead of the $340,000 decrease that had initially been expected. The Georgia Energy Finance Authority grant, funded by the federal stimulus, had to be amended after some lighting improvements violated a “Buy American Act” provision and no longer qualified for reimbursement.

"President Obama as the return of manufacturing jobs to America, and green ones at that. The facility was estimated have produced 15,000 batteries a year and added hundreds of jobs. So far, 200 workers are being paid to do nothing." "Workers placed on furlough are eligible to collect unemployment for that week, but that’s not the only government subsidy that is used to sustain LG Chem’s work force. Of the 200 employees at the plant, half are being paid via Recovery Act funds. 40 percent of the company’s $133 million expenditures have gone to foreign companies, mostly South Korean" "federal...

President Obama has declined to outline a second term agenda. He doesn't say what he would do about the fiscal cliff that looms in just a couple of months. He hasn't addressed the glaring challenge of an aging population and entitlement spending that is careening toward insolvency. (On the contrary, he has significantly hastened the emergency by piling on new entitlement spending.) He hasn't proposed policies to improve the economy. He promises nothing more on Iran than to maintain ineffective sanctions. We can glean this much: He'd like to hire 100,000 new teachers and he wants to raise taxes on...

....So far, 36 companies that have received federal support from taxpayers have either gone bankrupt or are laying off workers and are heading for bankruptcy. This list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher. The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:...

A Danish wind turbine company whose subsidiaries received over $50 million in U.S. stimulus dollars announced on Friday it has cut more than 800 jobs in the United States and Canada this year and may be forced to lay off another 800 employees in North America. This is yet another green energy company that received wasteful stimulus funds and does not even have anything to show for it. According to Reuters, Vestas, the wind turbine maker, saw its order intake go down by 24 percent during the first half of the year.

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Waltham-based electric car battery maker A123 Systems, which has received hundreds of millions in state and federal funding, expects to default today on certain debt payments and could be headed for bankruptcy, according to a document the company has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission."No assurance can be given that the company will be able to avoid restructuring, reorganization or a bankruptcy filing," the troubled firm said in a filing yesterday. A123 Systems said it expects to miss its October interest payment on $143,750,000 worth of 2016 corporate notes. The company said it also expects to miss a payment...

I missed this last week, but hey, who doesn't love being regaled with yet another example of the many ways in which the government's unceasing market interference continually goes awry? The federal government never seems to tire of fancying itself a venture capitalist with our tax dollars, no matter how many instances of hilarious ineptitude are thrown back in their face. (As ever, I only laugh to keep from weeping.)On Friday, Reuters reported that a foreign wind manufacturer with plants in the United States has decided to lay off upwards of 800 workers, due largely to uncertainty over the looming...

Remember this moment from the Romney-Obama debate last week? Mitt Romney hammered Barack Obama on green-energy subsidies and the futility of government intervention designed to distort markets:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO ROMNEY: Â… to oil, to tax breaks, then companies going overseas. So letÂ’s go through them one by one.First of all, the Department of Energy has said the tax break for oil companies is $2.8 billion a year. And itÂ’s actually an accounting treatment, as you know, thatÂ’s been in place for a hundred years. NowÂ…OBAMA: ItÂ’s time to end it.ROMNEY: And in one year, you provided $90...

The Internal Revenue Service urged a bankruptcy judge to reject solar panel maker Solyndra LLC’s bankruptcy plan Wednesday, saying it amounts to little more than an avenue for owners of an empty corporate shell to avoid paying taxes. “The undeniable conclusion is that tax benefits drive this plan,” attorneys for the IRS wrote in a bankruptcy pleading. What’s more, government attorneys said that as far back as 2010, owners had “planned meticulously” to be able to use Solyndra’s net operating losses to offset future tax liabilities. “The only reason for the shell corporation to exist post-confirmation is to enable its...

Because the Obama Department of Energy's loan-guarantee program for renewable energy startups and technologies has been such an unmitigated and resounding success, most particularly their well-trumpeted "investments" in solar-panel manufacturers, the federal government's good common sense and dispassionate judgment have proved it to be a leading force in encouraging the research and development that has made these environmentalist-preferred technologies such viable and competitive substitutes for traditional energies. What's more, these promising new industries have created untold productive, private-sector jobs, and the taxpayer has seen a healthy and enriching return on their initial "investments.""Just kidding ... that didn't happen. Multiple of...

Michigan would have 10,540 fewer jobs in 2025 if Proposal 3 passes in November, according to a new study on the renewable energy mandate proposal. The study, done by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Beacon Hill Institute in Massachusetts, also concluded that Prop 3 would lower disposable income in Michigan by $1.42 billion; reduce net investment in the state by $147 million and impose net costs on the Michigan economy of $2.55 billion. "Our study also indicates that even if voters reject Proposal 3, Michigan residents will still bear some of these costs," David Tuerck, one of...

Wind energy equipment manufacturer Siemens Energy Inc. will lay off 615 workers in Iowa, Kansas, and Florida in part because Congress has not renewed a tax credit for wind energy, the company said Tuesday. Siemens said the biggest job losses will come in Fort Madison, Iowa, where 407 workers at a wind-turbine blade factory will be out of work. About 220 workers will be retained at the plant to support ongoing operations, spokeswoman Melanie Forbrick said in a statement. About 146 workers are affected in Hutchinson, Kan., leaving 152 still working. In Orlando, Fla., about 62 workers will lose their...

Extraordinarily smart people at the California Air Resources Board have taken to using the term "leakage" as they go about devising the experimental cap and trade system for reducing greenhouse gases. Homer Perez, head boiler mechanic at Pacific Coast Producers' tomato cannery off East Main Street in Woodland, might use a word that is more familiar to the rest of us: "layoff." The cannery has been operating under one owner or another since the 1920s. A cooperative of 16 growers in Yolo, Solano and Sutter counties owns it now. Perez has worked there for 28 of the past 29 years....

The Michigan Environmental Council exaggerated in a press release the number of jobs that would be created by the renewable energy ballot proposal when it erroneously cited how a Michigan State University report calculated jobs. The Michigan Environmental Council’s press release said that the Michigan Energy, Michigan Jobs renewable energy ballot proposal would create 74,495 jobs. However, the report never said it would create 74,495 jobs, but instead said it would create that many "job years." It's an important distinction in economic analysis that the MSU report acknowledges. For example, a person hired by a green company who worked for...

Several months ago it seemed that not a day could pass without someone, somewhere making fun of GM's biggest post-bankruptcy flaming failure to date: the Chevy Volt (gross and net of channel stuffing). Of course, since it was all in the name of ecological progress and carbon footprint reduction, most media observers let it go as merely one of the peculiar hurdles on the way to an utopian future in which America would no longer rely on crude imports from evil petroleum cartels. The time has come to redirect ridicule to that other $102,00+ MSRP object of electric aspiration, and...

Former Evergreen Solar CEO Richard Feldt’s five-bedroom, two-plus acre Hingham pad is on the market for $9.9 million, nearly $1.4 million more than what the company’s Devens factory sold for earlier this year. The Bare Cove Lane property also boasts four bathrooms, a pool, stone terrace and 200 feet of frontage on Hingham Harbor, according to a real estate listing. “The natural light is incredible. The views are spectacular. The finishes and millwork are masterful,” the listing says. “Rarely does a home of this caliber become available for sale.” Feldt, who left Evergreen Solar in 2010 to become CEO of...

Those who understand that America is now on the wrong track cannot reasonably vote for Obama in November, because he is absolutely unwilling to change, perhaps even ideologically incapable of changing, course. Evidence abounds. First, consider his disastrous economic record and his rejection of any semblance of a course change. He and his economic advisers told us his stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent. It didn't. He didn't consider for a second that his policies exacerbated the economic crisis. He blamed Bush and said that if anything, he -- Obama -- hadn't spent enough. He demanded more stimulus packages...

A Chinese auto parts company, Wanxiang, has come to the rescue of cash-strapped A123 Systems, an American high-tech lithium-ion battery maker and centerpiece of the Obama administration’s “green jobs” revolution. Wanxiang can acquire up to an 80% of the company in return for an investment of up to $450 million. The recipient of a $249 million “green technology” grant from our federal government, A123, believing their own (and everyone else’s) hype about the millions of electric vehicles that would soon be filling the nation’s highways (it will happen, but not soon) set about proving an old adage: stupidity and waste...

Full Title:**********************$1.3 billion in ‘clean energy’ subsidies produce 288 permanent jobs, quadruple cost of electricity in Nevada Reid-sponsored National Clean Energy Summit pushes more subsidies as key to Nevada’s futureLAS VEGAS — As U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid prepares to host his fifth annual National Clean Energy Summit on Aug. 7, a Nevada Journal examination of Nevada’s renewable energy sector shows that over $1.3 billion in federal funds funneled into geothermal, solar and wind projects since 2009 has yielded and is projected to yield just 288 permanent, full-time jobs. That’s an initial cost of over $4.6 million per job.Despite...

The Department of Health and Human Services last week announced it had awarded a $5.9 million grant to a University of Chicago Medical Center program tied to Michelle Obama and run by Eric Whitaker, one of President Obama’s closest friends. The Urban Health Initiative, which received the award, was originally based on a smaller program launched during the last decade by Michelle Obama, who was an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center before she departed to become first lady. The UHI is headed up by Obama basketball and golf buddy Whitaker, who has known the president since Obama’s...

Another undercover operation by Project Veritas, which is led by investigative video specialist James O'Keefe, has revealed what labor unions truly believe about the billions of dollars that go toward the alleged "greening" of our energy usage.They're "bull****" http://www.theprojectveritas.org/node/138Those were the words that came out of the mouth of John Hutchings, a legislator for New York's Broome County, who is also a construction market representative for the Laborers International Union for upstate New York. He is also an executive officer of the Central New York Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, according to his bio....Project Veritas actors, who portrayed leaders of a make-believe...

Number 25 on a very long list of Obama's misdeeds: The Obama administration gave $535 million to Solyndra, claiming that it would create 4,000 new jobs. However, instead of creating those 4,000 new jobs, the company went bankrupt. It was later revealed that the company’s shareholders and executives had made substantial donations to Obama’s campaign, and that the company had also spent a large sum of money on lobbying. In April 2012, CBS News reported that Solyndra had left a substantial amount of toxic waste at its abandoned facility in Milpitas, California. After Obama gave Raser Technologies $33 million to...

Another green company backed by an Obama bundler just bit the dust. After announcing earlier this year that the company would lay off 200 of its 300 employees, solar manufacturer Amonix Inc. closed its operation in North Las Vegas leaving taxpayers in the red by $20 million. Editor's note: We've updated this piece with research from the RNC below, entitiled:  "The Big Payback: Where It All Began," which details the massive payoffs directed to Obama supporters using taxpayer dollars in the guise of "stimulus." “Just seven months after California-based solar power company Amonix Inc. opened its largest manufacturing plant, in North Las Vegas,” reports...

WASHINGTON, DC - Project Veritas, the group headed by James O'Keefe and known for their undercover video operations on ACORN, NPR and voter fraud, has released a new video that exposes waste and corruption behind stimulus-funded "Green jobs." "The purpose of our investigation is to illustrate that many of the jobs being championed -- and funded -- by the Obama administration are merely paper positions that come at great expense to the American taxpayer," says O'Keefe. "Digging holes just to fill them up again is not meaningful work, nor does it produce economic output for a recovery. Giving people jobs...

Not only that, but these Union bosses are seeking taxpayer funding for jobs that simply require someone to dig a hole and another person to fill it back in. They know it’s “bullsh-t” and even admit it on tape. James O’Keefe and Project Veritas keep hitting it out of the park with these fantastic reports:

A state program awarding 12 grants totaling $67 million in taxpayer dollars created only a third of the projected jobs. The Centers of Energy Excellence (COEE) program was supposed to create 1,746 jobs by the end of 2012. Yet according to the latest 21st Century Jobs Fund Annual Report, only 588 of these jobs had been created as of February 29, 2012. "The definition of insanity is having our state government continue to selectively fund areas of the private economy and be surprised that the outcomes aren’t good," said Wendy Day, president of Common Sense in Government. Former Gov. Jennifer...

Industrial Policy: For a $9 billion investment, the administration created just over 900 new, permanent jobs. We could've had 20,000 jobs building a pipeline with not a dollar of taxpayer money being wasted. According to the report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, Section 1503 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the stimulus), the part that covers green energy projects got some $9 billion in stimulus cash for 2009-11 and created a whopping 910 direct jobs — those involved in the ongoing operation of the wind and solar projects...

Left-leaning politicians and earth-saving environmental zealots have touted the “new economy” and its new “green jobs” as the solution to what ails us. So, what exactly is a “green job?” As you will see, the Big Government has defined “green jobs” in such a way that nearly everything can be considered a “green job,” which means no matter what happens, the Big Government can claim success. Virtually any new job is essentially a “green job.” Why? Because Big Government says so...

On the day it closed, Solyndra said it was laying off 1,100 full-time and temporary employees. But 1,861 workers lost their jobs as the solar panel manufacturer shut its doors, according to U.S. Labor Department documents provided to The Bay Citizen under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents also show the Fremont-based company increased production in 2011, even though it failed to sell all the panels it made the previous year. By the time it closed last August, Solyndra had an unsold inventory of more than 23 megawatts – enough solar panels to power about 23,000 homes. Analysts said...

Kermit the Frog established his legacy convincing millions of impressionable youth that "it's not easy being green." Unfortunately for the once famous frog, the Obama Administration has made poor Kermit look like a liar and burst the generational myth – apparently, it is a whole lot easier to be green than Kermit would have had us all believe. In a June 6 hearing to delve into exactly how the Administration comes up with all those green jobs they claim to have saved-or-created, Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee probed the essential question, "Just what...

Published on Jun 1, 2012 by mittromney Two years ago, President Obama went to Solyndra and touted it as an example of his initiative to create jobs. Today, the company is bankrupt and the building stands empty as a symbol of the failure of President Obama's

Republicans are scoffing at Democrats’ attempts to explain why President Barack Obama’s failed green-tech investments are unimportant but Mitt Romney’s few failures at Bain Capital, an otherwise wildly successful private equity firm, are a scandal. Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter tried out the new tactic during a May 30 appearance on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown,” when she was asked about the president’s support for Solyndra. “The president’s not picking winners and losers, he’s making strategic investment to promote clean energy,” she said. “Mitt Romney’s role at Bain Capital was to make profits for his investors and for himself. … There...

AP Photo Mitt Romney arrived at the shuttered headquarters of Solyndra Inc. this morning, a surprise visit that was shrouded in secrecy and part of the presumptive GOP presidential candidate’s attack on President Obama’s record on jobs creation.“Two years ago President Obama was here to tout this building and this business as a symbol of the success of his stimulus,� said Romney, stepping off a bus and onto the public sidewalk in front of the Solyndra buildings just outside Silicon Valley. “Well you can see that it’s a symbol of something very different today.� Read More About Solyndra from ABC’s...

SOLYNDRA For Sale Property Size Total building area is approximately 411,618 square feet (excluding mezzanine) o Manufacturing area: 287,448 square feet single story o Office building: 37,210 square feet two-story o Mechanical Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) area: 86,960 square feet usable o Expandable to 739,232 square feet Building Highlights • Highly visible world class manufacturing facility • Frontage along Interstate 880 and Kato Road • Headquarters style office area constructed to LEED Gold Standards • Construction completed in October of 2010 • The total electrical service: 22 Megawatts • Facility is backed up by 2 diesel generators each with 2...

I’m away, so this is a good time for Guest posts. Here Tony explains that we need lots of electricity even while we sleep. I didn’t realize our electricity needs were so high at night. The lowest power use each day is still as much as 60% of the peak. That’s the base load at 3am, and solar panels and wind farms just can’t provide it. We can burn the odd $500 billion building hundreds of solar plants, but even then, we would have to go “medieval” for about 8 hours each night. Candles anyone? — Jo Guest post by...