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Townhall...
Green – the Color of
Rotten Corruption
by Bob Beauprez
As if it were his private stash of fun-money, Barack Obama set aside
$80 billion of the Stimulus boondoggle to artificially pump up the
green-energy industry through a DOE administered program of grants and
loans. When three of the companies that received funding,
Solyndra, Beacon Power, and Ener1, each declared bankruptcy in rapid
succession, a rotten stench started to waft from the DOE and the White
House.
It quickly became apparent that there were numerous close connections
between many of these heavily government funded businesses and Obama
campaign supporters and operatives. While the
cronyism and corruption appeared extensive, until recently no one had
quantified the total extent of the cronyism and corruption that
existed.
Thanks to some extensive research by the Washington Post, the magnitude
of the scandal is now better defined. Here’s what the WaPo found:
$3.9 billion in federal grants and financing flowed to 21 companies
backed by firms with connections to five Obama Administration staffers
and advisers.
Sanjay Wagle, a venture capitalist and Barack Obama fundraiser in 2008,
went to work at the DOE in 2009, and guided $2.4 billion to companies
in which his former firm, Vantage Point Venture, had invested.
David Danielson, formerly of General Catalyst, joined a DOE mission to
fund breakthrough technologies and directed $105 million to three
General Catalyst portfolio firms.
David Sandalow was a highly compensated consultant in 2008 for Good
Energies, a venture capital firm, before becoming an Assistant
Secretary at DOE in 2009. SolarReserve, a Good Energies
investment, received a $737 million DOE loan.
Steven Spinner, got a job as an “adviser” at DOE after having been a
campaign fundraising bundler for Obama. Spinner’s wife worked for
the global law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati that
specializes in clean technology companies. WSG&R clients
garnered $2.75 billion in DOE loans, including the now infamous $535
million for Solyndra.
Steve Westly – an Obama campaign fundraising bundler in 2008 and 2012 –
was the founder of the venture capital firm, the Westly Group, and an
adviser to DOE Secretary Steven Chu. Westly Group portfolio
companies received $600 million in funding through the green-loan
program.
David Prend is Managing General Partner at the Boston based venture
capital firm, Rockport Capital Partners. Prend also chaired
a solar technologies advisory panel for the DOE, and had close ties
with Energy Czar, Carol Browner. The DOE pumped $550 million into
various Rockport Partners supported firms, not including Solyndra in
which Rockport Partners was a 7.5% stakeholder. The DOE also
funded electric-car battery company, Ener1 – a partner with Rockport
portfolio car company Think - with a $118 million loan.
Within weeks of Obama’s inaugural in 2009 and with the $800 billion
Stimulus already passed, the green-energy community was euphoric that
the new administration would soon be passing out billions like candy at
a Fourth of July parade. Wagle participated in a seminar in San
Francisco in February to coach and encourage green businesses to line
up at the federal trough. In spite of the economic woes already
in full swing, Wagle explained that, “The recession has actually
accelerated green policies” by creating an excuse for the Stimulus –
the Mother Lode for funding virtually anything that was some shade of
green. Wagle invoked Rahm Emanuel’s dictum that “a crisis is a
horrible thing to waste,” and explained that Obama was going to take
full advantage of the economic pain engulfing the nation to fund green
technologies.
Holly Kaufman, CEO of San Francisco based Environment and Enterprise
Strategies, also participated in the Green-Biz conference with
Wagle. Reminding the attendees that George W. Bush was gone
and with green-loving Democrats now in control of Congress and the
White House, Kaufman said they should now “get used to success” – a
quote she attributed to her good friend Nancy Pelosi. After what
green-enthusiasts believe were eight years of famine, the money spigot
was about to be opened full throttle according to Kaufman.
The White House pretends that it is merely coincidental that many of
their political appointees were closely connected to companies that
were the beneficiaries of millions and billions. These are “all
professionals with expertise in clean-energy science, finance or both –
but none of them play a decisional role in DOE awards and none of them
are in positions of regulating the industry,” according to White House
spokesman Eric Schultz.
But a former employee at the Office of Management and Budget, David
Gold, told the Washington Post that explanation doesn’t hold up.
“To believe those quiet conversations don’t happen in the hallways…is
naïve,” Gold said. “When you’re putting this kind of pressure on
an organization to make decisions on very big dollars, there’s
increased likelihood that political connections will influence
things.”
The one hour presentation that included Wagle and Kaufman at the 2009
San Francisco Green-Biz conference was rich with jokes and jabs over
the departure of the Bush Administration. Kaufman was elated that
unlike Bush, the Obama Administration was “committed to science and
transparency.” That might be what it’s called in San Francisco or
in Obama’s hometown of Chicago. But, in most of the rest of the
country – after three years of this stuff – we recognize it for what it
is….old fashioned greed, cronyism and corruption.
Our hope is that the various congressional committees and government
agencies investigating the DOE green loan scandal will doggedly do
their job. After the waste of billions, the taxpayers at least
deserve to know the truth of just how corrupt our government has become.
Read this and other columns at Townhall
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