One foot on a banana peel, the other in the grave. That’s where Fisker Automotive and SoloPower find themselves, struggling for survival despite generous government handouts in the form of loan guarantees and tax breaks. Should either company take a turn for the worse, a tombstone in Heritage’s “Green Graveyard” …
Competition is good—but only when it encourages a “race to the top.” That’s true in business and among the states as well. Competition can encourage policy innovation. For example, Pennsylvania carefully (but reasonably) regulates hydraulic fracturing, and it is reaping the benefits as companies create jobs by safely extracting oil …
Opponents have called it “another Solyndra waiting to happen.” An estimated $2.6 billion offshore wind project near Massachusetts could be awarded a $350 million Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee and a 30 percent federal tax credit, according to recent reports. The much beleaguered 468 megawatt, 130 turbine Cape Wind …
Despite billions of dollars in unused loan authority remaining under the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office, negative publicity surrounding the loan guarantee programs (which offer taxpayer dollars to government-approved companies) has tampered with applications, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. More than $51 billion in …
President Obama is touring the country and campaigning against the spending cuts under sequestration, such as cuts to energy research. The Department of Energy (DOE) itself has claimed that it may have to “curtail vital programs” and furlough employees in light of sequestration. The Heritage Foundation has already identified wasteful …
Colorado-based Abound Solar has been ordered to remove and bury in cement thousands of leftover solar panels “deemed unsellable” by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). The company must also clean up other hazardous waste at a number of facilities statewide, according to the Northern Colorado Business …
As Part One of this series explained, bankrupt or not, Solyndra continues to dig deeper into taxpayers’ wallets. This entry examines two contracts the government awarded to the law firm Morrison & Foerster to assist in the cleanup of the failed Solyndra experiment. These examples reveal an alarming trend, one …
Bankrupt or not, Solyndra continues to dig deeper into taxpayers’ wallets. Over the past year, the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Justice (DOJ) have doled out approximately $2.5 million in taxpayer money to clean up the aftereffects of the failed Solyndra experiment. Apparently in the midst of all the paperwork, …
In a recent interview with Platts Energy Week TV, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), incoming chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, discussed his plans to revise government loan programs that he claimed don’t do enough to boost innovative green energy projects. “Right now they’re not doing enough to encourage …
While there’s speculation over which federally supported green energy company may be the next to declare bankruptcy, plenty have already gone belly up. In one of the most extensive compilations to date, Heritage has identified 19 bankrupt green energy companies—unable to make it even with the $2.6 billion in financial …
