As you may recall, Judicial Watch has been investigating Vice President Biden’s role in securing a bailout for auto manufacturer Fisker Automotive, which opened a facility in V.P. Biden’s home state of Delaware in 2009. Well, that investigation has taken a new turn now that Fisker’s domestic operation is crumbling while funds and jobs promised to American taxpayers are heading overseas to Finland.

On February 1, 2012, JW sued the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for records regarding the $529 million loan granted by the DOE to Fisker – funds that were to be used to manufacture the company’s Karma and Nina electric vehicles. While the Obama White House (led by V.P. Biden) and the DOE promoted the loan as a means to generate American jobs, Fisker, which has facilities in California and Delaware, came under fire in 2011 for manufacturing cars in Finland and was recently beset with massive layoffs at their domestic operations.

Here’s what Judicial Watch is after pursuant to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed with the DOE on November 15, 2011:

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(Reuters) – Solyndra LLC failed to attract any bids on Tuesday from buyers who could have restarted production, brought back some laid off staff and kept the bankrupt solar panel maker operating, according to a company adviser.

Solyndra, which owes more than $500 million to the U.S. government, has said a turnkey buyer is the best hope for getting the most money for the government and other creditors. However, no turnkey bids were submitted by a Tuesday deadline, said company adviser Eric Carlson of Imperial Capital LLC.

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The White House on Friday sent more internal documents to Republicans investigating the $535 million loan guarantee to failed solar firm Solyndra, arguing that the cache of emails should satisfy GOP investigators.

The emails show senior White House aides discussing the need to coordinate messaging with the Energy Department and others ahead of Solyndra layoffs that occurred in early November 2010.

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From The Hill:

An electric vehicle manufacturer that received a $529 million loan from the Energy Department is recalling 239 vehicles.

The Transportation Department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Thursday that the company, Fisker Automotive, will recall its Karma vehicles made between July 1, 2011, and Nov. 3, 2011, because of a faulty electric battery component that could cause a fire.

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From The Hill:

House Republicans released emails Wednesday that show a major fundraiser for President Obama discussed the $535 million loan guarantee for the solar company Solyndra during a meeting with White House officials.

George Kaiser, a “bundler” for Obama’s campaign whose foundation invested in Solyndra, said the issue “came up” during a spring 2010 meeting with White House officials. Ken Levit, executive director of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, also attended the meeting.

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From The Hill:

A Massachusetts company that received a $43 million Energy Department loan guarantee last year filed for bankruptcy Sunday, a step certain to fuel criticism of federal green energy financing in the wake of the solar company Solyndra’s collapse.

Beacon Power Corp., which develops energy storage systems, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

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From The Hill:

House Republicans released an email Friday evening showing that a senior Treasury Department official in August expressed concern that the Energy Department’s early 2011 restructuring of the solar company Solyndra’s $535 million loan guarantee may have been illegal.

The restructuring put private investors, who were providing another $75 million to the struggling company, first in line for repayment if the company went under. In addition, House Republicans probing Solyndra – which collapsed several weeks ago – say DOE may have violated requirements to consult with Treasury on the revision of the loan agreement.

The Energy and Commerce Committee’s GOP leaders wrote to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Friday seeking documents about Treasury’s communication with the White House, DOE and other agencies on the financing.

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The Solyndra scandal involving the squandering a half a billion taxpayer dollars down a campaign supporter’s rathole, and then subordinating the taxpayer to another of said supporter’s interests in apparent violation of the Energy Policy Act, marches on. And as it does, so do the ramblings of Obama administration apologists sensing the danger posed, and their talking points are becoming increasingly confused.

But one distraction has proved persistent within the repertoire even as others get tried out. It is a new utilitarian “green” talking point, applied so far to the entire suite of folly, from electric cars to windmills, and thus deserves response. That is, we had to make bold moves on this front or face the prospect of falling behind China in the great [insert green boondoggle here] race.

Given that this does not seem to be going away any time soon, please consider the following about the alleged Yellow Peril.

Americans should be far more concerned about Belgium producing better beer, chocolate and Brussels sprouts than us than over the prospect of China developing a superior solar panel. It’s a solar panel. Not Flubber.

I understand that this can be difficult to keep in mind with all of the mysticism attached to anything labeled “green”. But the romantic folly is getting really expensive.

Solar electricity generation was first patented in 1888 and Music Men have sauntered into town ever since vowing revolutionary this and that and cost competitiveness juuust around the corner — it’s always been just around the corner, and always will be — and that they’ve finally fixed the bugs in the system such that it’s now viable…some of which bugs upon scrutiny are actually features (the sun, like the wind, is intermittent, that is, it isn’t an alternative to something that works when you need it, let alone all the time; and it is very diffuse, meaning it takes a lot of space to produce a little).

And so we’ve squandered scores of billions time and gain. Yes, billions. So much for “isn’t it time we began investing in…”

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From The Hill:

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that his committee plans to investigate government loan programs to private corporations in light of allegations of improper dealings between the White House and failed energy company Solyndra and wireless start-up LightSquared.

“I want to see when the president and his cronies are picking winners and losers… it wasn’t because there were large contributions given to them,” the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Tuesday morning on C-SPAN.

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The White House’s Solyndra game plan and that of its talking head and media enablers is now apparent and requires correction.

First, the notion that Solyndra failed because China subsidized their own solar companies is absurd: these companies only exist where their host governments are propping them up. Period.

Next, it is clear from administration emails that the White House’s message was not, as Dem talking heads and other apologists are now offering, ’since you are approving this, we will schedule the visit’; it is instead, ’since we are scheduling the visit, this will be approved.’

Although this is apparent throughout, one message particularly captures it:

“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).  We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews and have the approval set the date for the announcement rather than the other way around.”  August 31, 2009, email between OMB and Terrell McSweeny of the Office of the Vice President, regarding “DOE Announcement.

This running governmental contracting scam makes the $600 toilet seat of the 1980s — which was bad, because, uh, it was the military — look pathetic. Obama’s green temporary jobs, by its own varying estimates, range in cost to the taxpayer from $355,555 (overall) to $479,000 (Solyndra) to $4.8 million if you remove the really temporary installation gigs. But that’s, um, ‘green’, so it’s not like the $600 toilet seat, at all.

Worse, after having shown the due diligence of the average Bernie Madoff investor desperate to leap on to a trendy ride their associates assured them was hot, the Obama administration is now rushing to emulate Madoff himself. The only twist on the analogy is that they are using you, the scheme’s old entrants — who in this version of Mr. Ponzi’s construct, never actually get paid off, but only his non-contributing buddies do — as its new, involuntary entrants .

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From the invaluable John Kass in The Chicago Tribune:

The Solyndra scandal cost at least a half-billion public dollars. It is plaguing President Barack Obama. And it’s being billed as a Washington story.

But back in Obama’s political hometown, those of us familiar with the Chicago Way can see something else in Solyndra — something that the Washington crowd calls “optics.” In fact, it’s not just a Washington saga — it has all the elements of a Chicago City Hall story, except with more zeros.

The FBI is investigating what happened with Solyndra, a solar panel company that got a $535 million government-backed loan with the help of the Obama White House over the objections of federal budget analysts.

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From BusinessInsider:

From its inception, Solyndra’s business model was flawed. It’s unique cylindrical, silicon solar cells were innovative, but only made sense when solar panel prices were high. By the time the Energy Department approved Solyndra’s loan — the first granted by the department’s loan guarantee program —Chinese and Canadian manufacturers with low-cost structures had priced Solyndra out of the market.

In March 2009, Solyndra’s loan application, to build an advanced manufacturing facility in California, was fast-tracked through the DOE, despite the fact that the department had not completed its review of the company’s financial viability.

Solyndra was not the only company that was fast-tracked. A 2010 government audit of the DOE program found that the department lacked the ability to adequately evaluate applications to the federal loan program, and often approved loans before completing a full review.

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From Bloomberg:

Solyndra LLC’s workers making solar-power panels in a California factory subsidized by U.S. taxpayers showed “the promise of clean energy isn’t just an article of faith,” President Barack Obama said on a visit to the company in May 2010.

Two months before Obama’s visit, accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP warned that Solyndra, the recipient of $535 million in federal loan guarantees, had financial troubles deep enough to “raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.”

The Obama administration stood by Solyndra through the auditor’s warning, the abandonment of a planned initial public offering and a last-ditch refinancing where taxpayers took a back seat to new investors. That unwavering commitment has come under increasing scrutiny since the company’s travails culminated in its filing for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 6 and a raid on its headquarters by the Federal Bureau of Investigation two days later.

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In this May 26, 2010 file photo, President Barack Obama, with Solyndra Chief Executive Officer Chris Gronet, looks at a solar panel, during a tour of Solyndra, Inc., a solar panel manufacturing facility, in Fremont, Calif. Solyndra received a $535 million loan from the U.S. government has announced layoffs of 1,100 workers and plans to file for bankruptcy. (WaPo)

Top Obama bundler George Kaiser made multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was granted a $535 million loan from the government.
iWatch News reported, via Free Republic:

The i Watch News investigation confirmed that at least 18 other bundlers have ties to businesses poised to profit from the president’s political agenda, through stimulus money, government contracts, or other spending to promote clean energy technology or green development.

Oklahoma billionaire investor George Kaiser is one. A longtime Democratic donor, he is a big financial backer of a company that in March of 2009 won a $535 million loan guarantee [19] from DOE for a solar plant in Silicon Valley. He had multiple visits to the White House in the months before he was awarded the contract. Kaiser has not responded to interview requests from iWatch News.

This doesn’t look very good considering it was widely known that Solyndra was in deep economic trouble in 2010 and had negative cash flows since its inception.

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Solyndra, a San Francisco based solar panel company that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government has declared bankruptcy. Last year President Obama touted the company as “leading the way” in the green jobs future he envisions.

Just a few months ago, ABC News revealed that one of the major financial backers for Solyndra is also a major donor to the Obama campaign.

The donor, Steve Westley, has subsequently been named to the President’s Energy Advisory Board. Solyndra was supposed to have produced 4,000 jobs with the loan guarantee. Now all of the company’s employees have been laid-off. Mr. Westley is still on the advisory board.

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