White House fast tracked review on Solyndra in order to hand out $500 million is stimulus money for political reasons
As if it weren’t enough that the Obama regime is embroiled in the Gunrunner scandal, it looks as if there is another potential scandal brewing in the White House. This one concerns Solyndra–the green energy company that Barack Obama made the centerpiece of his green energy policy which recently filed for bankruptcy after receiving $500 million in stimulus money.
Solyndra received $500 million in taxpayer stimulus money even though George Bush had refused to grant them a guaranteed loan because the company was too risky. In addition to Barack Obama granting Solyndra the stimulus money it appears as if the Obama regime may have fast tracked the loan in order to provide a photo-op for Joe Biden and a backdrop and the regime’s new green energy policy, which led to an incomplete review and eventually to the closing of the plant.
Emails seem to reveal the review board being pressured by the White House to complete the process on the White House’s schedule:
The August 2009 e-mails, released exclusively to The Washington Post, show White House officials repeatedly asking OMB reviewers when they would be able to decide on the federal loan and noting a looming press event at which they planned to announce the deal. In response, OMB officials expressed concern that they were being rushed to approve the company’s project without adequate time to assess the risk to taxpayers, according to information provided by Republican congressional investigators.
One e-mail from an OMB official referred to “the time pressure we are under to sign-off on Solyndra.” Another complained, “There isn’t time to negotiate.”
“We have ended up with a situation of having to do rushed approvals on a couple of occasions (and we are worried about Solyndra at the end of the week),” one official wrote. That Aug. 31, 2009, message, written by a senior OMB staffer and sent to Terrell P. McSweeny, Biden’s domestic policy adviser, concluded, “We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews.”
And the reason for this? The emails reveal the priorities of the Obama regime:
There was interest in when a decision would be made because of its impact on whether an event involving the vice president could be scheduled for a particular date or not, but the loan guarantee decision was merit-based and made by career staffers at DOE,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.
So the White House gave $5oo million to Solyndra for purely political reasons in order to grant Barack Obama a public relations opportunity so that he could push his radical agenda and he did all of this by fast tracking the process and now the American taxpayers are on the hook.
Back in June Barack Obama made a call for a new partnership between the government and private corporations in which government would “co-invest” in these corporations–a partnership that I find very troubling indeed, as I laid out in this post–and now we are finding out that Barack Obama was already involved in a partnership with a private corporation, and we can see how well that worked out for the American taxpayers.
Trackbacks
- The White House pressured a General to change his testimony before the Congress in order to protect a campaign donor « America's Watchtower
- Solyndra scandal: Barack Obama put a campaign donor ahead of the American taxpayers « America's Watchtower
- Solyndra scandal: Crony capitalism at is worst « America's Watchtower
- Solyndra: Barack Obama ingored a legal brief which questioned the legality of the Solyndra loan « America's Watchtower
- Solargate: The Department of Energy urged Solyndra to hold off a layoff announcement until after the 2010 midterm election « America's Watchtower
- Solargate: Energy Secretary Steven Chu wishes he had a do over « America's Watchtower
- Barack Obama says no to the Keystone Pipeline « America's Watchtower
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I don’t know how much longer Obama and gang can get away with this sh*t! But then I suppose if the MSM continues to shield for him he will survive yet another storm. If this was Bush the liberal media would be calling for his head on a pike. Like you I will watch as the story unfolds—maybe with the republicans have control of the various House committees the truth will be revealed.
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The double standard in the media is glaring and they are helping him to get away with this.
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I am getting really tired of hearing how something else, yet again, had to be pushed thru without really being checked out. I guess I could start with pushing Barrack Obama thru without vetting. From there we have Obamacare, the stimulus, cash for clunkers, well, it just always has to be done post haste. We can’t take the time to read thru a bill or check out a candidate…what is the big hurry? After the fact we find out all that is wrong and we are stuck with it. It is unbelievable that a government could operate that way….what am I saying, it is NOT operating like it should. Think this could be the problem? Do you think maybe the goverment has problems? Surely not. What are they going to say this time? They made a mistake or mispoke or some lowly worker is the one that messed up? What will be the excuse this time? Amazing. I am, once again, shaking my head.
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The reason for the hurry is simple; he wants to do things before the American people can find out what he is up to. By the time they figure it out it will be too late.
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Dang, Steve, you beat me to it again. I was planning on hitting this subject tomorrow. Maybe I will anyway. There is a lot to say on this fiasco. It may turn out to be a bigger scandal than Gunrunner only because the media is taking an interest this time.
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C of F, I think there is more than enough space for you to post tomorrow. The more said the better. Yes, I agree it could be bigger, only difference is no one has died, that we know of, yet!
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I agree with Lou here; there is plenty of room for you to jump on this as well. I did a quick post on this and I am sure that you will probably cover it in more detail than I did. I look forward to your post.
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So did the FBI raid Soylndra to gather evidence or to make evidence go away?
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That is an interesting point. Anymore we have to wonder, don’t we?
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That is a great point and one that I hadn’t thought of!
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Here is something interesting I noticed when digging around on this (and I have not seen this pointed out in the press anywhere yet).
Taxpayers went from superior rights of lien in 2005 to NO rights in 2009 thanks to a rules change at the request of Obama’s DOE. Here is the source, which was an analysis of the many faults the loan program in general, not specific to Solyndra
“The Energy Policy Act of 2005 states that taxpayers’ rights ‘shall be superior to the rights of any other person with respect to the property.’ In the December 2009 amended rule, this provision was… leaving taxpayers extremely vulnerable by stripping their right of first lien and allowing other lesser creditors to recoup repayment of their debt before the federal government.”
Click to access tcs-taxpayer-risks-with-the.pdf
I dug up the 2009 rule change in the Federal Register:
Click to access FR-1703-Dec4.pdf
That means Obama’s billionaire gas and oil buddy (lesser creditor) gets in line first to collect, while the taxpayers may be on the hook for the full $500,000,000. The Obama DOE requested a rules change that in effect managed to privatize the gains and socialize the losses of a very risky venture. Was this a coincidence?
Change We Can Believe In, indeed.
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I would say that he will continue to get away with his crimes because in my opinion, the fix is in. Obama has been given a free pass because those that have corrupted the system consider him an ‘earner’ for their own interests.
The American people are treated as nothing but pawns and those that follow that corrupt bastard are complicit in his crimes.
Barack Obama is nothing more than a cheap corrupt Democrat machine politician, a criminal if you will, self aggrandizing in his ideology, unable to recognize his own malignant narcissism – but that is the way of corrupt budding dictators….WM…WM
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