Green Energy
Execs Got Rich Off Aid From Obama Administration
When I noted
last week
the cascade of green energy scandals piling up on
President Obama, I didn’t know it would turn into
an avalanche just days later. These two late breaking stories should be the
nails in the coffin of President Obama’s green
energy agenda. The failure and the dishonesty
totally discredit this staple of the President’s
plan for a second term.
The Washington Examiner
reported
on Wednesday on their analysis of the SEC filings of
15 publically traded companies that received
taxpayer assistance from the Obama administration.
The Examiner found that executives and corporate
insiders had “pocketed tens of millions by selling
their stock after the government's money poured in
and before their companies' values plummeted.”
These executives bet against their companies
after asking taxpayers for help, and cashing out as
taxpayer money went to waste.
In two cases, insiders sold off stock worth
nearly the amount of their government funding.
Executives at Amyris, which received $24.3 million
in government support, sold off $21 million worth of
stock since 2009. At Solazyme, which received $21.8
million from taxpayers, executives made $18.4
million selling their stock in the company.
These profits by executives dependent on taxpayer
support underscore one of the fundamental problems
with the President’s green energy initiatives a
problem his administration has been curiously
uninteressted in addressing: the President’s
programs ask taxpayers to take all the risk of
funding “green” startups, but let the private
individuals who asked for help keep all the profits.
In an even more outrageous example
reported
earlier this year, the CEO of First Solar
recipientt of $3 billion in government loan
guarantees sold nearly half a bbillion dollars
with of stock in his company as the price fell.
Despite the President’s determination to
continue funding green energy companies on the
taxpayer dollar, the Washington Examiner found that
so far his “investments” have performed
abysmally:
"The Obama administration gave more than $700
million in grants and guaranteed an additional
$500 million in loans to publicly traded green
energy companies through its 2009 stimulus
package. If Obama had invested all that money in
a Standard & Poors index fund of the top 500
publicly traded companies, his investment would
have seen a 73 percent return since he took
office. In contrast, the Obama "green energy"
stimulus portfolio has fallen by 78 percent --
performing about five points worse than green
energy companies that didn't get subsidies.”
Unfortunately, this weak
performance didn’t prevent insiders from cashing
out and it’s not preventing Obama from touting
theese programs as a big part of his second term
agenda.
See the full story on
Barack Obama's failed green energy agenda here>>
Newly Released Emails Show Obama
Personally Made Decisions About Green Energy Loans
Just one week ago, President Obama claimed in an
interview on Colorado television that he had nothing
to do with decisions in the troubled green energy
loan program that financed Solyndra and other
high-profile stimulus recipients. He said they were
“decisions, by the way, that are made by the
Department of Energy, they have nothing to do with
politics.”
But emails released this week by the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
strongly suggest that what the President said was
untrue that he didn’t leave loan decisions up to
Department of EEnergy professionals, instead he and
other White House officials put significant
political pressure on the program.
In one email, a senior DOE official says the
President personally “imposed” a policy
fast-tracking loan approvals. The official writes:
“I am growing increasingly worried about a fast
track process imposed on us at the POTUS
level based on this chaotic process
that we are undergoingby designing the fast track
proocess and having it approved at the
POTUS level (which is an absolute waste of his time!)
it legitimizes every element and it becomes embedded
like the 55% recovery rate which also was
imposed by POTUS.”
In another email, it seems President Obama
personally intervened on behalf of a loan applicant.
An official writes to a DOE colleague, “Jonathan
[Silver, Executive Director of the Loan Program]
just said at our staff meeting that, opposite the
message received on Thursday, AREVA
is now a “go” (seems on Friday POTUS himself
approved moving it ahead).”
If President Obama was indeed involved in
individual loan cases, it suggests his public claims
that he wasn’t involved in the details of the
program are simply dishonest.
He was, in fact, playing investor-in-chief. And
considering the Examiner’s analysis, he
was doing a terrible job.
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Newt
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