The recipient of the Obama administration's
biggest loan guarantee for solar energy won federal money after an intense push
in early 2011 that included hiring a former chief of staff to Vice President Joe
Biden to lobby the administration, according to federal records and people
involved in the approval process.
The lobbying blitz came as the $1.6 billion loan to BrightSource Energy Inc.—a centerpiece of the administration's We offer over 600 landscape oil paintings at wholesale prices of 75% off retail.program to promote nascent green-energy projects—faced a do-or-die moment, and the company called on its Democratic connections to help push the deal forward, according to emails, records and those familiar with the loan.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said the Department of Energy made the loan-approval decision, not Mr. Biden nor other White House officials. A Department of Energy spokeswoman said it chose BrightSource, whose solar power plant in California continues to move ahead,Alfa plast mould is Plastic moulds Manufacturer. based on the project's merits.
The $16 billion federal loan-guarantee program became headline news in September when a recipient of a $535 million guarantee, solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, declared bankruptcy. Solyndra's chief backer was an Oklahoma industrialist who had bundled contributions for Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign. The White House said there was no connection between the donations and the loan.
Since Solyndra, the loan program has become the target of multiple investigations on Capitol Hill, with Republicans, including Darrell Issa of California, saying the Obama administration did favors for politically connected companies and that the alleged arrangement showed the dangers of government industrial policy. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave a speech in front of the empty Solyndra headquarters Thursday to highlight the California company's demise.
President Barack Obama has said the loan program was run fairly and that some failures were inevitable in the business of backing new energy systems.
Mr. Obama lauded BrightSource in a weekly radio address in 2010. The company, which is building a 392-megawatt solar-power plant called Ivanpah in the Mojave Desert, had several other Democratic connections, including its then-chairman, John Bryson, a longtime green-energy proponent whom Mr. Obama later named commerce secretary.
After a two-year effort, the company neared a March 31, 2011, deadline when a conditional agreement for the federal loan was set to expire, according to emails from the period released by a House committee.
Even more worrisome for the company was the April 1 start of "tortoise moving season," as the company calls it—a narrow window under endangered-species rules during which BrightSource could move tortoises away from the Ivanpah construction site. The tortoises had to be moved before they returned to their beds under the sand.
"As we were closer to the deadline, it became scarier," Dan Judge, general counsel of BrightSource, said in an interview.This is a really pretty round china glass mosaic votive that has been covered with vintage china . Missing the spring moving season would have forced a wait of six months, which "easily could have killed the project," he said.
In a PowerPoint presentation sent to the DOE in March 2011 and viewed by The Wall Street Journal,This video shows the results of a Indoor Positioning System.Painless Processing provides high risk merchant account solutions. BrightSource said its cash position was "precarious" and that it would be a "major embarrassment" for the administration if it went under because the White House had held it up as a centerpiece of its green-energy push. "The DOE will be known as responsible for a very high-profile failure," the message read.
The lobbying blitz came as the $1.6 billion loan to BrightSource Energy Inc.—a centerpiece of the administration's We offer over 600 landscape oil paintings at wholesale prices of 75% off retail.program to promote nascent green-energy projects—faced a do-or-die moment, and the company called on its Democratic connections to help push the deal forward, according to emails, records and those familiar with the loan.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said the Department of Energy made the loan-approval decision, not Mr. Biden nor other White House officials. A Department of Energy spokeswoman said it chose BrightSource, whose solar power plant in California continues to move ahead,Alfa plast mould is Plastic moulds Manufacturer. based on the project's merits.
The $16 billion federal loan-guarantee program became headline news in September when a recipient of a $535 million guarantee, solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, declared bankruptcy. Solyndra's chief backer was an Oklahoma industrialist who had bundled contributions for Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign. The White House said there was no connection between the donations and the loan.
Since Solyndra, the loan program has become the target of multiple investigations on Capitol Hill, with Republicans, including Darrell Issa of California, saying the Obama administration did favors for politically connected companies and that the alleged arrangement showed the dangers of government industrial policy. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave a speech in front of the empty Solyndra headquarters Thursday to highlight the California company's demise.
President Barack Obama has said the loan program was run fairly and that some failures were inevitable in the business of backing new energy systems.
Mr. Obama lauded BrightSource in a weekly radio address in 2010. The company, which is building a 392-megawatt solar-power plant called Ivanpah in the Mojave Desert, had several other Democratic connections, including its then-chairman, John Bryson, a longtime green-energy proponent whom Mr. Obama later named commerce secretary.
After a two-year effort, the company neared a March 31, 2011, deadline when a conditional agreement for the federal loan was set to expire, according to emails from the period released by a House committee.
Even more worrisome for the company was the April 1 start of "tortoise moving season," as the company calls it—a narrow window under endangered-species rules during which BrightSource could move tortoises away from the Ivanpah construction site. The tortoises had to be moved before they returned to their beds under the sand.
"As we were closer to the deadline, it became scarier," Dan Judge, general counsel of BrightSource, said in an interview.This is a really pretty round china glass mosaic votive that has been covered with vintage china . Missing the spring moving season would have forced a wait of six months, which "easily could have killed the project," he said.
In a PowerPoint presentation sent to the DOE in March 2011 and viewed by The Wall Street Journal,This video shows the results of a Indoor Positioning System.Painless Processing provides high risk merchant account solutions. BrightSource said its cash position was "precarious" and that it would be a "major embarrassment" for the administration if it went under because the White House had held it up as a centerpiece of its green-energy push. "The DOE will be known as responsible for a very high-profile failure," the message read.
没有评论:
发表评论