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Political Hay
Green Joblessness
The Obama administration tries and fails to beat the marketplace in creating clean energy jobs.
Last week, General Motors announced that it was suspending production of the Chevy Volt for five weeks. Roughly 1,300 workers will lose their jobs, at least temporarily, during the hiatus. Despite up to $3 billion in taxpayer commitments, the green-friendly hybrid electric car has sold poorly.
Abound Solar, a green start-up competing with Chinese solar panel manufacturers, also disclosed that it would be laying off 180 of its 400 employees. Abound has already burned through about $70 million of a $400 million loan it received from the federal Department of Energy.
A123 Systems, a lithium ion battery maker that has received $249.1 million in grant money from the Deparment of Energy, expects to announce the largest quarterly loss in the company’s 11-year history. In recent months, A123 has laid off 125 workers in Livonia, Michigan, where former Gov. Jennifer Granholm touted the company as a stimulus “success story.”
All of this comes on the heels of the infamous Solyndra solar company receiving more than $500 million in federal loans and then promptly going bankrupt, ceasing most of its operations, and laying off nearly all of its workers.
These are not isolated casualties of the weak economic recovery. They are not flukes. Call it the Solyndra-fication of the U.S. economy.
In late January, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu to explain how Abound Solar had gotten a federal loan in the first place. The ratings company Fitch determined that Abound would be a “highly speculative” investment.
“Fitch describes Abound as lagging in technology relative to its competitors, failing to achieve stated efficiency targets, and expecting that Abound will suffer from increasing commoditization and pricing pressures,” wrote Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA). “DOE’s willingness to fund Abound, despite these concerns, calls into question the merits of this loan guarantee.”
One thing Abound Solar did have going for it was connections to an Obama campaign bundler, however. Pat Stryker founded the Bohemian Companies, a major Abound Solar investor. Stryker has given $500,000 to Democrats in the past five years. She has written large checks to Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, his inaugural fund, and his 2012 reelection effort.
The administration steadfastly denies any political influence on the Department of Energy loans. Abound Solar received another $9.2 million from the U.S. Export-Import Bank last year.
In fairness, Abound investors are bipartisan in their giving. ABC News reports that at least two of them gave “more than $100,000 to Republicans in the last few years.” Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels supported a $11.85 million tax credit for the firm. The Department of Energy is quick to point to these facts in denying that politics played a role in the decision.
Obama has also been a big booster of the Chevy Volt, vowing to buy the car when he leaves the White House “in five years.” The president has made it a national goal to see 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015.
Let’s for the moment leave aside the political connections and crony capitalism, taking the administration’s denials of hanky-panky at face value.
Even if nothing untoward occured, you still have the government picking winners and losers in an industry rather than the free market — with predictably disastrous results.
“This isn’t the car we wanted to build,” says the narrator in a Chevy Volt commercial. “It’s the car America had to build.”
How about building the car Americans want to buy? That would be a more promising path to market-based success.
About the Author
W. James Antle, III, author of the new book Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?, is editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation and a senior editor of The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter @jimantle.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (23) | Leave a comment
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Lon Mead| 3.5.12 @ 6:48AM
"This isn't the car we wanted to build," says the narrator in a Chevy Volt commercial. "It's the car America had to build."
I remember laughing out loud the first time I heard that commercial. Because it's exactly right. Chevy didn't want to build the thing (not in its current form, anyway - this is essentially the same concept car from 2007, made road legal at the last minute), Chevy was told to build it as a condition of getting its bailout.
c. j. acworth| 3.5.12 @ 6:49AM
At the risk of sounding like a dummy, may I ask what the interest for the Dept. of Education is in A123 Systems? Shouldn't they be concerned more about other things, like maybe education? I guess the entire Federal beaurocracy has become a giant slush fund for rewarding Obama supporters.
W. James Antle III | 3.5.12 @ 3:05PM
I'm the dummy, that was a typo. The grants came from the Department of Energy.
Appleby| 3.5.12 @ 6:56AM
I attended the annual Car Show last weekend -- my annual birthday treat -- and noticed that the big crowds were not hanging around the vest pocket electric pop cans or the outrageously priced electric cars. The people who were actually thinking of buying cars were looking at Audi, BMW, Mercedes and the new Mini-Cooper Works. We did see a number of people looking at the Cadillac CTS-V -- race ready from the showroom floor, save for the roll bars and stuff -- and younger people looking at Mazdas.
My car mad family drive Toyotas, Subarus, Hondas and Mama has a Ford Taurus.
Nobody I know is interested in purchasing a Chevy Volt.
Mike Hawk| 3.5.12 @ 6:35PM
Think of this gem as Solyndra on wheels. Maybe they could build a solar model and call it that.
benny havens| 3.5.12 @ 7:07AM
And to think that this guy really has a chance of being reelected, is mind boggling.
RJ| 3.5.12 @ 7:38AM
When political influence dominates the economy, corruption and decline are sure to follow. Our government is increasingly corrupt and lawless. We must change course this November or freedom and prosperity in America will be lost.
TrueBlue | 3.5.12 @ 7:12PM
Looks kind of like the USSR's government corruption right before the fall, to be honest.
RJ| 3.6.12 @ 12:50AM
It never occurred to me that America could turn into its present state. The change in the last 20 or so years is stunning. I suppose you have to be over 50 to recognize the loss of freedom and the increasing lack of self-reliance and responsibility demonstrated by many people in the society.
ggoblue| 3.5.12 @ 7:43AM
"How about building the car Americans want to buy? That would be a more promising path to market-based success."
except the govt keeps outlawing the cars people 'want to buy' thru ever rising CAFE standards. what people WANT are trucks and SUVs which are capable of hauling our families and toys, safely.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.5.12 @ 8:08AM
More failed with central economic planning with more to come:
"But according to this new executive order, the Obama administration plans to stick its itchy little fingers into just about every aspect of rural life. One of the stated goals of the White House Rural Council is to do the following....
coordinate and increase the effectiveness of Federal engagement with rural stakeholders, including agricultural organizations, small businesses, education and training institutions, health-care providers, telecommunications services providers, research and land grant institutions, law enforcement, State, local, and tribal governments, and nongovernmental organizations regarding the needs of rural America
This is yet another example of how we are rapidly becoming a centrally-planned economy.
Today, there are way too many Americans that expect the federal government to solve all their problems and take care of them from birth to death."
tsd| 3.5.12 @ 8:09AM
How long does the liberal left think they can go on living in fantasy land??? We have seen this guy we have for president and all his liberal, green BS fail at every turn... time to send them away for a long, long time. We cannot keep giving up our future for his hope and change!!
Von Mises Jr.| 3.5.12 @ 8:36AM
Just like in "Animal Farm," there is no windmill. Napoleon and the "pigs" promised the other animals plenty of food once the windmill was complete to ground their meal. But the corn was really for the whiskey for the pigs, not for bread for the other animals.
http://www.americanthinker.com....._care.html
Conservative Not Republican| 3.5.12 @ 10:14AM
True Conservatives would be for Green Jobs...we want to conserve our natural resources...just not taxpayer subsidies for those jobs.
Bob| 3.5.12 @ 2:04PM
And Media Matters paid you how much?
Get this through your head, Republican Not Conservative: government intervention and crony capitalism, the likes of which are unprecedented in the Obama administration, is not even close to what "true conservatives" would support. You're not fooling anyone.
Conservative Not Republican| 3.5.12 @ 3:31PM
Read the last sentence of my post.
Once again, you are illustrative of why the GOP has become known as the Dumb Party. Also you know nothing of conservatism, which is about conserving our land, values, religion, natural resources, families. But that's what I expect from a conservative generation raised on Rush Bimbo.
Conservative Not Republican| 3.5.12 @ 4:31PM
Sorry, I mean The Stupid Party.
http://articles.orlandosentine.....n-huntsman
Bob| 3.5.12 @ 2:03PM
And of course, liberals will say these companies went under because they didn't get enough money, and demand even more money to pay off their supporters with the same result.
POST American| 3.5.12 @ 10:33PM
---Capstone initiated 'RA'--dick--CULL' change,
long in the works -----NO more, NO less.
CFR front man Bush Sr, followed by the
three Caligulas ---Clinton ---Bush Jr ---and
last, but not least, 'BAR--Rockefeller'
Obama mopping up.
FINAL CON--solidation of the RED China
handover/ franchise slum world amalgamation
---TOTAL surveillance police state and,
now piping on that front burner ---TOTAL
EUGENICS ---comin' down the pike.
Keep a goin' kiddies ---keep a goin'
--------rectum bennies n' plastic pennies
------------------------------JUST KEEP A GOIN'
("---WHO's RA?" ----Look it up)
Peter Verkooijen| 3.5.12 @ 10:54PM
Barack Obama is a life-long old-fashioned marxist-leninist. He is methodically moving America to a centrally planned economy and with enough centralized power and a population beaten into submission it will work.
jstwndring| 3.5.12 @ 11:43PM
So, let me get this straight. I can get absurdly wealthy starting a "green" business without a viable business model, plan, or, product to sell? I'm in. Who do I contact in the Democrat Party to get my much needed start-up capital?
RJ| 3.6.12 @ 1:01AM
Obama held a fund-raiser in my home town recently. It required a significant donation to get on the property and much more to get close to him. One of the attendees said Obama asked him "What can I do for your company?" Unfortunately, all it takes is making a large donation and many office holders will richly reward you. In looking at contribution to government "perks" ratios it seems that your contribution can be as low as 3% of your expected "return." It isn't called the favor factory for nothing.
POST American| 3.7.12 @ 3:06AM
-------------------BOTTOM LINE-----------------------
Still more 'RA'--dick--ALL' change brought
to you by 'Age-enda 21' and its current leading
FRONT man ---'BAR--Rockefeller' Obama.
"--WHO's 'RA'"
Look it up!