Solargate: Solar Trust was awarded $1.2 billion in stimulus money, but files for bankruptcy

  Another day, another Solargate/stimulus failure; this one involves a company called Solar Trust and it might be the largest failure to date as this company was awarded $1.2 billion in loan guarantees before it filed for bankruptcy earlier today. When the loans were announced Energy Secretary Steven Chu celebrated the fact that this was the “largest amount ever offered to a solar project” and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar haled this an “historic moment in America’s new energy frontier” during the groundbreaking only one year ago. It doesn’t look so historic now, and nobody is celebrating this ill advised decision anymore.

  At this time it is not known how much of the awarded money was actually paid out to Solar Trust, but that doesn’t even matter because these companies undergo a review process to determine whether or not they are a good risk before the money is awarded, and with Solar Trust filing for bankruptcy only one year after the loan guarantee one can conclude only one of two things: either the Obama regime knew this was a risky investment and decided to award the money  for the political reason of advancing the green energy initiative, or the Obama regime rushed the process (there is precedent here with Solyndra)and granted the money before the review was completed, again for the political reason of pushing his green energy initiative. Surely if the review process was completed and attention was paid to the results this money never would have been granted.

  Either way, there is no doubt that this loan guarantee was politically motivated, all we need to do is look at the Keystone pipeline for proof; Barack Obama has declined the Keystone pipeline, claiming that more review time was needed even though a three year review was already completed, and yet it is clear a proper review of Solar Trust was either not completed or ignored–there can be no other reason for a failure of this magnitude.