DOE to Pour Another $32 Million into Floundering Solar Industry

On May 26, 2011, the White House posted this video praising Solyndra as a Recovery Act success story.

In August 2011, Barack Obama’s gleaming example of green technology – Solyndra – filed for bankruptcy. The solar panel manufacturer squandered $535 million of stimulus money in a little over a year.

Why Solyndra?
Top Obama bundler George Kaiser made multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was granted a $535 million loan from the government. And top Solyndra officials also made numerous visits — 20 — to the White House, according to logs and reporting by The Daily Caller. Solyndra officials in the logs included chairman and founder Christian Gronet and board members Thomas Baruch and David Prend. The company secured the $535 million loan despite the fact that it was widely known Solyndra was in deep economic trouble and had negative cash flows since its inception.

Kaiser said he did not use political influence or talk to administration officials about a massive government loan to Solyndra. However, the Solyndra investor made multiple visits to the White House in the week before the Department of Energy approved a $535 million guaranteed loan to Solyndra on March 20, 2009


(Solyndra)

But, Barack Obama had no regrets.

In fact the Obama Department of Industry sunk another $32 million into the contentious solar industry recently.
Watchdog.org reported:

The Department of Energy has doled out another $32 million to support the solar industry, a sector fraught with technology challenges and scandal – and nevertheless propped up with billions of taxpayer dollars during the Obama Administration.

This latest funding is dedicated to training a workforce of solar technicians, developing new technology and implementing a database to share performance data, the DOE announced in a press release last week.  The training goal is 75,000 workers by 2020 and an undisclosed amount of “other professionals” in other fields such as real estate, finance, insurance and fire and safety.

What the release didn’t say was that the Obama Administration has spent $150 billion on green initiatives between 2009 and 2014, yet the industry cannot survive without government giveaways, a Brookings Institution study found.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to spend even more money on job-training programs that are proven failures,” said Heritage Foundation energy expert David W. Kreutzer. “Industry will provide job-training where there are real jobs to be filled. The energy revolution in places like North Dakota and Texas has created hundreds of thousands of jobs—many of which required considerable technical skill—without a federally funded job-training program.”

Green giveaways were ramped up in 2009 with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRRA), which dedicated $51 billion to renewable energy. A portion of ARRA was used for solar company loan guarantees, like the bankrupt Solyndra ($535 million) and Abound Solar ($400 million).

Dear Reader - The enemies of freedom are choking off the Gateway Pundit from the resources we need to bring you the truth. Since many asked for it, we now have a way for you to support The Gateway Pundit directly - and get ad-reduced access. Plus, there are goodies like a special Gateway Pundit coffee mug for supporters at a higher level. You can see all the options by clicking here - thank you for your support!
Photo of author
Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

You can email Jim Hoft here, and read more of Jim Hoft's articles here.

 

Thanks for sharing!