Obama’s Green Energy Loans Will Make You See Red

By Dr. Jason B. Whitman, Policy Committee Chairman

At this point, everybody is well aware of the $535 million debacle that is Solyndra. In fact, Chris Mays, a member of my National Policy Committee, wrote a short policy statement regarding Solyndra that may be found here. As it turns out, Solyndra may well be just the tip of the iceberg.

Fox News is reporting

An energy company that received a $43 million loan guarantee through the same federal program that backed Solyndra has followed the path of the failed solar firm and filed for bankruptcy.

Beacon Power Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The company, which develops energy storage systems based on what are known as “flywheels,” had received the federal guarantee for a 20-megawatt energy storage plant in Stephentown, N.Y., back in August 2010

Chalk up another federally-backed, Obama loan to the taxpayer’s liabilities. It appears the liabilities on the taxpayer’s balance sheet are probably going to continue to escalate as more  alternative energy entities with government-backed loans fail.

Congress is rightly focusing their energy on Solyndra, as it may prove to have direct connections to the Obama White House, but Republicans need to continue to investigate the other billions of dollars in DOE loan guarantees. A prime example is EnerDel, a company that CBS News is reporting seems poised to run out of juice shortly

A company whose subsidiary received $118 million in stimulus grant money from the U.S. Department of Energy to build new electric car batteries has now been removed from trading on NASDAQ.

EnerDel got an Energy Department grant in early 2010 for battery manufacturing in Indiana but the stock of EnerDel’s parent company, Ener1, fell from $4.04 in 2010 to just 9 cents on Thursday. By Friday NASDAQ had pulled the company from its listing leaving the stock at $0.00.

When a company is removed from trading on an organized exchange and is forced to trade on the OTC market, that is usually a bad sign for the company’s viability. What is truly infuriating about EnerDel is the fact that the company has so far spent $53 million in stimulus funds while “the company reports that stimulus funds support 33 jobs”. Yes, you read that correctly. Fifty-three million dollars for 33 jobs.

Look for more infuriating details of these poorly-made loans to emerge in the coming months. President Obama and his Department of Energy need to be held accountable to the American people for these failed “investments” in alternative energy that don’t stand a chance, while at the same time regulating actual energy producers out of business.

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