The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) is a program designed to fund high-risk, high-reward projects that the private sector would not embark upon on its own. ARPA-E has as its mission reducing energy imports, increasing energy efficiency, and reducing energy-related emissions, including greenhouse gases. The program is meant to “focus on creative ‘out-of-the-box’ transformational energy research that industry by itself cannot or will not support due to its high risk but where success would provide dramatic benefits for the nation.” The House Committee on Science, Space …
In a damning report, The Washington Post details its investigation of President Barack Obama’s much-hyped green jobs program. Its findings? Politics, not policy, underpinned the White House’s calculations. From The Post report: Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama’s green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials. A centerpiece of the Obama Administration’s green jobs …
The Washington Post put together a handy infographic examining the distribution of $36 billion in Energy Department financing for renewable energy companies. Solar power generation companies were the largest beneficiaries of DOE’s “investments,” with twelve companies having received a third of the financing under the program.
How’s this for a waste of taxpayer money? According to Energy& Environment News, the Department of Energy is paying $230,000 for a website to promote career paths in the green energy sector–and it has, ironically, prohibited the listing of actual jobs in the industry. Here’s the report: The Department of Energy has awarded a $230,000 contract to the Association of Energy Services Professionals to develop a website on energy efficiency jobs — but the agency has prohibited the listing of actual position openings. Instead, the website will include information on what …
Americans have heard all about how the Obama Administration gave a $535 million loan guarantee to the now-bankrupt solar company Solyndra, but details are emerging about others who have won a windfall on the taxpayers’ dime. The latest example? President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., who secured a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, possibly through political connections. BigGovernment.com reports on the story which was uncovered by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his new book, Throw Them All Out: The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer …
Two new chapters in the Solyndra scandal were written today, one involving a potential bailout of the company and the latest regarding Congress’s move to subpoena the White House for related communications. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General is “is investigating more than 100 potential instances of criminal abuse of stimulus loan monies,” according to a Daily Caller report. The Washington Timesreports on the Solyndra subpoena: By a 14-9 party-line vote the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigative subcommittee authorized issuing a subpoena for any White House documents …
It’s yet another inauspicious announcement the Obama Administration didn’t want you to hear. Late on Friday, the White House announced that it ordered an independent review of loans made by the Department of Energy to energy companies after months of weathering criticism for its $528 million loan to the now-bankrupt Solyndra solar panel company. The White House’s independent investigation, though, isn’t the only one in town. The FBI raided Solyndra after it declared bankruptcy, and Congress is diving in with an investigation of its own. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who has …
If you’re concerned that the Solyndra scandal is hampering other energy initiatives, worry not. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is moving right along with its review of urinal efficiency. Not urologically speaking, of course, but in terms of the ceramic catch of nature’s call. The federal plumbing police last codified water efficiency standards for urinals back in 1998. According to statute, the DOE must allow states to toughen such requirements if the feds don’t do so within five years. Having thus waived pre-emption, the agency is now seeking information …
The Obama Administration has been knee-deep in scandal after green energy “model” Solyndra went bankrupt less than two years after receiving a $500 million loan guarantee from the federal government. Now, they are up against another controversy. Days before a recent deadline, the Department of Energy brazenly approved two additional loans for more than $1 billion for solar energy projects in the Obama Administration’s green jobs program. The latest ill-fated ventures include a $737 million loan guarantee to Solar Reserve for a 110-megawatt solar tower on federal land in Nevada …
Basking in the glow from the $535 million fire left when Solyndra crashed and burned, the Department of Energy is ready to subsidize additional hundreds of millions in loans to solar energy companies. The logic of this latest round is stunning: One company supposedly needs the government subsidy because its cost of production is so low; the other company supposedly needs the government subsidy because the government is buying its product. Solyndra, of course, is the poster child turned object lesson. After the company received loan guarantees (that now must …
