The Truth About Solyndra

[Shady]

There's been a lot of misinformation spread about by the usual suspects in the forum lately. Trying to tie the Solyndra stimulus money approval to the Bush Administration. One wonders how, when the stimulus money given to Solyndra was part of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed in to law by Barack Obama, and authored by Democrats in 2009. But nonetheless, they continue to try to spread their misinformation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration restructured a half-billion dollar federal loan to a troubled solar energy company in such a way that private investors — including a fundraiser for President Barack Obama — moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of a default, government records show.

Even with the federal help, Solyndra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month and laid off its 1,100 employees.

AP

Those would be the same 1,100 employees that the President would have "permanent" jobs as a result of Solyndra's work.

Anyways, on to the good stuff...

WASHINGTON -- Solyndra officials were intensely pressuring Bush administration officials in early January 2009 to approve a government loan for the solar company before the Obama administration took power, according to new emails obtained by Fox News on Friday.

On Jan. 12, 2009, Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet sent an Energy Department official an email marked "urgent" expressing outrage that Bush officials had decided a few days earlier that while the loan application had "merit" it needed further study before officials could move forward with a taxpayer-financed loan.

AP

I see. So the Bush administration said the loan application had merit, but needed further study, specifically an independent market analysis. So what did the Obama administration do shortly after? Well, this...

Emails released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee suggest the Obama administration did later ignore or discount warning signs about the viability of Solyndra.

In one Aug. 19, 2009, email obtained by the House panel, it was clear to some administration officials that the solar company had shaky finances.

"While debt coverage is robust under stress conditions, the project cash balance goes to $62,000.00 in September 2011," said the email, which was prescient since the company did in fact go bankrupt in that very time frame.

But just days after that August 19, 2009, email, Obama officials approved the loan to Solyndra, with Vice President Joe Biden attending the company's ground-breaking via satellite.

AP

However, I think Jon Stewart really sums it up best!

Friendly Fire? Jon Stewart Blasts Obama Administration For Solyndra Scandal

"House Republican investigators found email evidence of repeated warnings about the company and its green energy projects, with one calling it “not ready for prime time” and others warning that it was doomed to run out of money this very month. And and and, there’s also evidence that one investor in Solyndra, George Kaiser, was also a fundraiser for Obama and made several visits to the White House in order to visit with several aides"

Video

[jbg]

Is the gist of this that the Obama Administration might not have evaluated it properly?

[waldo]

There's been a lot of misinformation spread about by the usual suspects in the forum lately.

yes, by you and you're continuing it with this thread.

What The Press Is Getting Wrong About Solyndra

so we're clear about your continued claims of lying - after your multiple board status digs at Obama (re: Solyndra), I threw up the most minimalistic innocuous comment suggesting the Bush admin advanced the Solyndra loan - which it did... out of 143 submissions, it advanced 16 loan guarantee projects, one of which was Solyndra. I thought you had proffered a back-handed apology with one of your latest status update messages - apparently not. I expect you to cease and desist in labeling another MLW member, myself, a liar. Failure to do so will result in a formal report to board authorities!

as for your intent to isolate the Solyndra issue to Obama:

CLAIM:

Bush Administration Rejected Solyndra's Application

FACT:

Same Panel Of Career Officials Approved The Loan Guarantee

- Bush Admin. Advanced 16 Projects, Including Solyndra, Out Of 143 Submissions.

as for the email claims you link to/make:

CLAIM:

Email Saying Deal Was "NOT Ready For Prime Time" Was Warning About Financial Risk

FACT:

The Email Did Not Voice Any Concerns About Risk Of Loan

- Email Concerned Timing Of Announcement, Not The Merit Of The Loan Guarantee

[jbg]

There was a bassett hound by the name of Waldo in my apartment building in New York City. I used to love to scratch his floppy ears on the elevator.

[waldo]

There was a bassett hound by the name of Waldo in my apartment building in New York City. I used to love to scratch his floppy ears on the elevator.

I admire your openness - I understand coming out is a most personal of choices... I wish you well in

dealing with possible ramifications - I trust there will be none... that enlightened thinking and views will prevail.

[Shady]

FACT: Solyndra was the very first loan guarantee approved by the Obama Administration.

FACT: They made the approval before waiting for the independent market analysis asked for by previous officials.

FACT: It blew up in their face.

[Shady]

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s visit to the Solyndra solar panel factory in California last year was choreographed down to the last detail — the 20-by-30-foot American flags, the corporate banners hung just so, the special lighting, even coffee and doughnuts for the Secret Service detail.

...

Barely a year later, Solyndra has become one of the administration’s most costly fumbles after the company declared bankruptcy, laid off 1,100 workers and was raided by F.B.I. agents seeking evidence of possible fraud.

...

Solyndra drew plenty of high-level attention. Its lobbyists corresponded frequently and met at least three times with an aide to a top White House official, Valerie B. Jarrett, to push for loans, tax breaks and other government assistance.

...

But industry analysts and government auditors fault the Obama administration for failing to properly evaluate the business proposals or take note of troubling signs already evident in the solar energy marketplace.

“It was alarming,” said Frank Rusco, a program director at the Government Accountability Office, which found that Energy Department preliminary loan approvals — including the one for Solyndra — were granted at times before officials had completed mandatory evaluations of the financial and engineering viability of the projects.

NYT

Yikes! Pretty damning stuff. But it gets worse for the Obama Administration.

The Energy Department’s senior staff has acknowledged in interviews the intense pressure from top Obama administration officials to rush stimulus spending out the door.

“We had to knock down some barriers standing in the way to get these projects funded,” Matthew C. Rogers, the Energy Department official overseeing the loan guarantee program, said in March 2009, just days before Solyndra got its provisional loan commitment. Mr. Rogers said Energy Secretary Steven Chu had been personally reviewing loan applications and urging faster action on them.

NYT

Interesting. So they had to quote "knock down some barriers standing in the way of getting these projects funded." Not much of a suprise. But another chapter in the book of Heckuva job Obamey.

[lukin]

Yikes! Pretty damning stuff. But it gets worse for the Obama Administration.

Interesting. So they had to quote "knock down some barriers standing in the way of getting these projects funded." Not much of a surprise. But another chapter in the book of Heckuva job Obamey.

I didn't realize how deeply Obama was involved. Thanks for posting facts , shady. Too bad many won't accept truth.

[BubberMiley]

FACT: Solyndra was the very first loan guarantee approved by the Obama Administration.

FACT: Any grant approval that happened immediately after the Obama Administration took office would have to have been put in process and advanced under the Bush Administration.

[waldo]

watch it BM, messing with a ShadyPremise has consequences... the narrative just has to be all about Obama! You can be most certain that if Solyndra had held some prolific success point, one rippled incessantly through the mainstream media, Shady would be front and center to declare the success all stemmed from and reflected upon Bush!

[Shady]

FACT: Any grant approval that happened immediately after the Obama Administration took office would have to have been put in process and advanced under the Bush Administration.

If you take the time to read the linked New York Times piece, the Bush Administration halted the process for an independent market analysis. The Obama Administration went ahead with the approval without said analysis. Nice try though.

[Pliny]

FACT: Any grant approval that happened immediately after the Obama Administration took office would have to have been put in process and advanced under the Bush Administration.

Yes, that's a fact. No doubt the urgency was brought to the attention of the Democrat controlled congress and Nancy and Harry were beeing lobbied to look at it, knowing full well Obama would make it a slam-dunk after moving into the White House. They just had to keep it on the table.

With the executives of Solyndra taking the fifth it will be awhile before we know how deep this penetrates into the White House.

Henry Waxman - Democratic Senator from California, has said that Solyndra execs were bubbly in July about the company and two weeks later it was filing for bankruptcy.

Anyway you look at it the Solyndra affair sounds like the stimulus is finally showing promise as it creates Obama's first shovel ready project and employs tens if not hundreds of lawyers.

[capricorn]

Anyway you look at it the Solyndra affair sounds like the stimulus is finally showing promise as it creates Obama's first shovel ready project and employs tens if not hundreds of lawyers.

"My next door neighbor's two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than this president," said Johnson, prompting the audience to laugh about this dog poop joke, according to CBS News.

Analysts and commentators have pointed out that Johnson’s joke on President Obama’s stimulus program and if it created jobs won the comedy award of the night, according to the Los Angeles Times. Charles Krauthammer of Fox News said that Johnson’s one-liner was the “best line” of the night.

"Had he said it early on, he might now be a top tier candidate," Krauthammer added.

However, CBS News pointed out that Johnson’s poop joke may have been traced to conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh’s quip earlier in the day.

"My dogs have created more shovel-ready work than Obama has (chuckling) just this week alone," Limbaugh said as quoted by CBS News. "The new puppy. Honest to God. More shovel-ready work for me this week than Obama has created all two and a half years."

The Los Angeles Times reported that Johnson commented on his newly-found popularity during a campaign stop in Florida Friday, noting his principles of small government, less taxes and more social freedom.

“Right now I am the most Googled name on the planet, because last night I came up with a witty sentence on dog poop.” Johnson joked as quoted in the Los Angeles Times.

http://www.thirdage.com/news/gary-johnson-joke-best-line-of-florida-gop-debate_09-23-2011

[Wild Bill]

If you take the time to read the linked New York Times piece, the Bush Administration halted the process for an independent market analysis. The Obama Administration went ahead with the approval without said analysis. Nice try though.

Yeah, nice try! This just looks like yet another case of politicians meddling in the marketplace, thinking they understand it enough to pick winners. They almost always fail, to the point where any success stories would have to be just from sheer chance!

Business and technology are totally different skill sets than politics and political science. The problem with most politicians is that first of all, they tend to be academics, with that academic arrogance that because they can read a book and then talk articulately about a subject that means they fully grasp it. Second, the more political power you accumulate the more you can start to think that your power will always mean that you will get your own way. This may be true with getting people to follow your ideas but it means diddleysquat with how well your ideas will WORK! Especially with real world things like business and technology. Money can only buy so much BS. Look at Bre-X!

Add to this that I think, at least at the level of national leaders like presidents and prime ministers, it is becoming well known that western countries like America, Canada and Europe/UK will never again have a strong manufacturing base of employment. That's gone forever! Warehouse and service jobs don't pay as much and we can't all be lawyers or corporate accounting controllers. A large segment of the population no longer has reasonably well-paying work available. What are they going to do?

The numbers of these "lost" workers is large enough to be a formidable political bloc. Politicians are going to have to respond to them if they hope to keep their jobs. In fact, politicians had better have some real success improving the lot of these "lost" workers or they may have a civil unrest problem on their hands!

To someone at Obama's level, the situation may look so bleak that a president may jump at the chance for some 'green' jobs in desperation, without bothering or caring to examine things in depth! It's too bad that for Obama as well that Solyndra has proven to be a disappointment.

Wonder how Samsung is going to work out for McGuinty? Or his MicroFit program? It's ben a while now and there's no sign of another Inglis or Camco coming back to Hamilton...

[Shady]

Yeah, nice try! This just looks like yet another case of politicians meddling in the marketplace, thinking they understand it enough to pick winners.

I completely agree. I wish it would stop, on all sides.

[sharkman]

I admire your openness - I understand coming out is a most personal of choices... I wish you well in

dealing with possible ramifications - I trust there will be none... that enlightened thinking and views will prevail.

Are you trying to be witty?

[jbg]

I didn't realize how deeply Obama was involved. Thanks for posting facts , shady. Too bad many won't accept truth.

As much as I don't like Obama and these kinds of favors, the fact is that they are rife on both sides. Look at GWB's relationship with Archer-Daniels-Midland.

[Yukon Jack]

I am looking forward to the day when I will be able to shake the shackles of the evil GASOLINE and ride my car from Winnipeg to Toronto to visit my son, at 25 km/hour in my solar panel equipped car. And hoping for a sunny day.

All will be good. All will be copacetic. All will be CO2 free.

Who needs CO2 anyways?

Just ask the plants. They have more brains than Al Gore.

[capricorn]

Who needs CO2 anyways?

Just ask the plants.

I would prefer to ask a human cause I won't get an answer by asking a plant.

Anyway, C02 and its impact on plants is part of the raging global warming debate. So I don't expect to get the truth in my lifetime.

[Shady]

Oh oh. Looks like more shenanigans.

Solyndra's lobbying not disclosed by DOE under stimulus guidelines

The Energy Department has not disclosed any lobbying by the embattled solar energy company Solyndra, despite its K Street firm indicating it had contacted the department regarding the stimulus package.

Under a policy first issued by the White House in 2009, federal agencies were required to disclose lobbying for stimulus funds. McBee Strategic Consulting, a lobby firm then under contract with Solyndra, said it had contacted the Energy Department in the first and third quarters of 2009 regarding the Recovery Act, according to records filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA).

Yet a review by The Hill of the more than 40 lobbyist contact disclosure forms regarding the stimulus posted online by the Energy Department reveals no contact between the department and Solyndra's lobbyists.

AP

I know, I know. It's Bush's fault!

[BubberMiley]

So I don't expect to get the truth in my lifetime.

At least not a truth you'd be willing to agree with.

[Pliny]

As much as I don't like Obama and these kinds of favors, the fact is that they are rife on both sides. Look at GWB's relationship with Archer-Daniels-Midland.

Although they are both guilty of crony capitalism to a degree, Obama was supposed to straighten all that out. Hope, change, transparency and all that. Turns out he's worse and America jumped form the frying pan into the Chicago firepit.

Edited September 25, 2011 by Pliny

[Pliny]

Oh oh. Looks like more shenanigans.

With Obama in office and a democrat controlled senate and congress who needs to lobby. It's just a matter of picking up the check.

Edited September 25, 2011 by Pliny

[Pliny]

I would prefer to ask a human cause I won't get an answer by asking a plant.

Anyway, C02 and its impact on plants is part of the raging global warming debate. So I don't expect to get the truth in my lifetime.

you might! But more than likely other issues will become more pressing and it will just fade into the netherland or morph into something more alarmist as these things so predictably do.

Edited September 25, 2011 by Pliny

[BubberMiley]

With Obama in office and a democrat controlled senate and congress who needs to lobby.

The Republicans control congress, and questions don't end with a period.