How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.

The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization. If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down. Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain.

Two men with insight into the process are SunPower rooter Rep. George R. Miller III, (D.-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee and the co-chairman of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and his SunPower lobbyist son, George Miller IV.

Miller the Elder is a strong advocate for SunPower, which converted an old Richmond, Calif., Ford plant in his district to a panel-manufacturing facility.

The congressman hosted an Oct. 14, 2010, tour of the plant with company CEO Thomas H. Werner and Interior Secretary Kenneth L. Salazar to promote the company’s fortunes.

“The path to a clean energy economy starts here, in places like SunPower’s research and development facility,” said Salazar during the tour.

“The work that comes from these facilities transforms renewable energy ideas into a reality. When renewable energy companies continue to invest in places like California, the realization of a new energy future is within our reach,” he said.

Miller the Elder said he was grateful for Salazar’s interest.

Read the whole thing here.

Most recently, in a letter addressed to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) Director Michael Bromwich, warned of a severe revenue fall off attached to declining energy lease sales.

“Under the Obama administration’s management, revenue from our offshore lease sale program has gone from $10 billion to nothing in just three years,” Vitter said. “Revenue cannot be generated from sales that do not happen, and jobs cannot be created on leases that private industry cannot acquire. We’re in a severe fiscal crisis and we’re facing significant economic challenges related to job creation, yet the administration continues to neglect our offshore resources.”

In fiscal year (FY) 2008 revenue from bonus bids on offshore leases was approximately $10 billion, but for FY 2011 that amount is down to $0, according to Vitter’s letter. “Revenue cannot be generated from lease sales that do not occur, and jobs cannot be created on leases that private industry cannot acquire,” he continued.

Unless, the administration reverses course, Vitter anticipates “long-term economic impacts that include lose jobs, lost royalties and lost rental fees.” Companies will be reticent to own a lease if they cannot be reasonably certain that exploration plans or permits will be approved, he added.

Daniel Kish, senior vice-president of policy with the Institute for Energy Research (IER), sees an “opportunity cost” for the Gulf region that may not be recaptured anytime soon.

“The Obama administration has virtually put a stop to energy development in federal waters,” Kish said. “This is like planting seeds, if the government won’t allow to the seeds to be planted now, they are preventing future production. We are talking about a lost generation of economic activity.”

In September, President Obama rolled out a new deficit reduction plan built around income tax increases for higher income Americans.

“We can’t just cut our way out of this hole,” Obama said during a speech at the White House.  “It’s going to take a balanced approach. If we’re going to make spending cuts … then it’s only right that we ask everyone to pay their fair share.” Obama also said that would veto any deficit reduction plan that includes only spending cuts and no tax increases.

“When you include the $1 trillion in cuts I’ve already signed into law, these would be among the biggest cuts in spending in our history,” Obama continued. “But they’ve got to be part of a larger plan that’s balanced –- a plan that asks the most fortunate among us to pay their fair share, just like everybody else. And that’s why this plan eliminates tax loopholes that primarily go to the wealthiest taxpayers and biggest corporations –- tax breaks that small businesses and middle-class families don’t get.”

But the slow pace of permits for oil drilling also contributes to the deficit, Vitter explained in a previous letter to administration officials. The right mix of policies could unleash America’s abundant supply of domestic energy resources, which would in turn boost revenue into the federal treasury, Vitter argued.

“I share the frustration of Louisianians and Gulf Coast residents with the disparity between  the president’s rhetoric and the Interior Department’s actions,” Vitter said. “The administration’s policies have led to massive deficits and job losses, especially in Louisiana, and it’s time for the president to stop lecturing about job creation and allow our energy industry workers to get back to work.”

Without a higher volume of additional permits, the number of active oil rigs will continue to decline in the Gulf, Vitter warned in one of his earlier letters. The 2011 permitting rate is well below the historical average, Vitter observed.

As of early September, “there were 19 floating units operating in the Gulf, up from four in the third quarter of 2010, but down from the average of 28 recorded in the 2007-2009 period,” he wrote.

Up to 20 oil rigs could leave the Gulf, in addition to 11 that have already left, since the administration’s moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling went into effect in May 2010, according to a new report.

The future could still be there for the Gulf coast with the right mix of policies, the American Petroleum Institute (AEP) has concluded in a new study.

If U.S. companies were permitted to drill with fewer regulatory hurdles, they could boost government revenues by $800 billion and generate over a million new jobs by 2030, according to API.

But even with a change in administration heading into 2013, the Gulf region is not likely to experience a robust recovery in the short term, Kish, the IER policy expert, warns.

“It will take time to correct these policies,” Kish said. “The Obama administration has shifted the entire ground on which the Gulf of Mexico operates.”

The ten rigs named in the document are: Marinas, Discover Americas, Ocean Endeavor, Ocean Confidence, Stena Forth, Clyde Bourdeaux, Ensco 8503, Deep Ocean Clarion, Discover Spirit, and Amirante. The rigs have left the Gulf for locations in Egypt, Congo, French Guiana, Liberia, Nigeria and Brazil.

“This highlights the problem we have with losing domestic energy production as a result of the drilling moratorium and the slow permitting,” David Kreutzer, a research fellow in Energy Economics and Climate Change at the Heritage Foundation, said. “We must also keep in mind that the impacts are not instantaneous, the rigs may be idle for a while, but once they move it’s going to be difficult to move them back once they are drilling in say Nigeria or Brazil.  The oil companies must have confidence they can move forward with their drilling plans and to know these plans won’t be revoked. Only certainty will bring them back.”

Although federal officials announced they were lifting the restrictions last October, a “de-facto moratorium” remains in effect that stifles energy production and undermines large and small businesses in the Gulf region, industry officials have argued.

“I don’t think the people in Washington D.C. who implement these policies have an understanding of how much this has impacted our economy, especially in Louisiana,” Renee Baker, the state director for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), said. “We can’t just look at the large businesses to understand what’s happening, there are small businesses that do a lot of services for the rigs and they have been set back. We just want to see people get back to work.”

Unfortunately, the “political uncertainty” surrounding the Gulf region has discouraged companies from making investments that could help spur economic growth, Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association (LOGA), laments. Even before the 10 rigs cited in the document from Vitter’s office pulled out, eight other rigs that were planned for the Gulf were detoured away, Briggs said.

“When you have companies that would be spending hundreds of millions of dollars, or some cases, billions of dollars, they need certainty,” Briggs explained. “We don’t have that now and I don’t expect that we will anytime soon. We will be in a deteriorating position until this changes.”

Briggs also questions the necessity of the moratorium that was imposed in response to the explosion of British Petroleum’s (BP) Macondo oil well on April 20 of last year. The accident resulted in the death of 11 workers and caused an estimated five million barrels of crude oil to spill into the Gulf.

Despite whatever missteps were involved with BP’s oil drilling operations, the industry as a whole has a “great safety record” in the Gulf, but this has not been taken into account, Briggs noted.

“We would have implemented new rules and guidelines without any federal action. This could have been done without a moratorium. There is no getting around how severe the regulatory fallout has been for us,” Briggs said.

Meanwhile, Sen. David Vitter has called out top Obama administration officials for issuing what he views as conflicting and misleading statements on the correct number offshore drilling permits. A U.S. Justice Department motion filed in March stated there are 270 shallow water permit applications pending and 52 deepwater permit applications pending.

But in testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this past March, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the Interior Department had received only 47 shallow water permit applications over the previous nine months and that only seven deepwater permit applications were pending. Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement, told Vitter personally that only six deepwater permits were pending, and he publicly stated that deepwater permits would be limited because “only a handful of completed applications have been received.”

Over the past three months, deepwater permits are down 71 percent from their historical monthly average of 5.8 permits per month, Robert Bluey, a blogger and journalist with the Heritage Foundation, has reported on The Scribe. Shallow-water permits have also fallen in the past few weeks by 34 percent from the historical monthly average of 7.1 permits, Bluey reported.

In February, Judge Martin Feldman issued ruling holding the Interior Department in civil contempt for its refusal to comply with his previous injunction against the offshore drilling moratorium. This type of ruling  typically serves either to coerce compliance with a federal order or to compensate a party that has suffered unnecessary injuries.  But the administration remains recalcitrant. In fact, it was recently reported in the Times-Picayune that more regulations could be forthcoming.

Well…that’s until one examines his words. That’s when you realize that the POTUS left himself enough “outs” to make his plan worthless.

I am directing the Department of Interior to conduct annual lease sales in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, while respecting sensitive areas, and to speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources in the mid and south Atlantic.  We plan to lease new areas in the Gulf of Mexico as well, and work to create new incentives for industry to develop their unused leases both on and offshore.

Oh great! Finally drilling at ANWR? Not on your life. The National Petroleum Reserve is not ANWR it’s next the desired drilling area.  Kind of  like telling a new president that instead of the White House he would have to live at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The President didn’t mention drilling in ANWR, he said “respecting sensitive areas,” which was a signal to the important environmentalist constituency, that he did not mean ANWR

The map above describes the ANWAR situation. ANWR sits within a 20 million-acre refuge (the size of South Carolina), but thanks to advanced technology like directional drilling, the aggregated drilling footprint (the dot pointed to by the arrow) would be less than 2,000 acres (about one-quarter the size of Dulles Airport). This is like laying a 2-by-3-foot welcome mat on a basketball court.

That little oil field has

mean expected 10.4 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil, according to the government’s own survey. Once up and running, ANWR alone could yield one million barrels of oil per day in production, which would make it the single-largest producing field in North America.

According to environmentalists, a major progressive voting constituency, energy development, especially on that little one-hundredth of one percent of the ANWAR land cannot be compatible with the protection of  wildlife and their habitat. This is not true.

In the case of the Alaskan North Slope drilling,  caribou herds have grown and remained healthy throughout more than three decades of oil development.

His other words in the paragraph above were “speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources in the mid and south Atlantic.” With confidence I can tell Obama will follow these words to the letter.  Surely he will speed up any evaluation of our Oil and Gas resources to determine whether they represent viable spots for drilling.  What he will not do however, is speed up the long “environmental impact” process.

One of Ken Salazar’s first acts as Secretary of Interior was canceling 77 Utah oil and gas leases that had gone through seven years of studies, negotiations and land-use planning. In an instant, he eliminated hundreds of jobs, terminated access to vital oil and gas deposits, and deprived taxpayers of millions in lease bonus, rent, royalty and tax revenues. In short he was making us more defendant on foreign oil instead of exploiting our reserves which are larger than any other country on this planet.

What Obama’s Secretary of Interior did instead was to extend the environmental process. In January 2010, Secretary Salazar announced a new policy expanding environmental reviews before leasing federal lands to the oil and gas industry.

There was no mention of changing this delaying policy in his words yesterday. Dooming any potential new oil reserves to years of federal roadblocks.

There was also no mention by the President of our vast shale oil reserves.The Green River shale formation in Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, has an estimated 800 billion barrels of oil, which is three times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. In the Bakken oil shale formation in the Dakotas, there are an estimated 20 billion barrels of oil.

What seemed as an epiphany  by President Obama yesterday was nothing of the kind, it was simply a collection of empty words, as was his earlier promise to lift his oil moratorium in the Gulf, which resulted only in decreased production and many of his other promises, such as his signature health plan not causing people change providers.

So at least with his words on Saturday, President Obama’s new energy plan is “same as the old plan.”

Today, I share the text of his most-recent “Secretary’s Priority Message” about the ongoing disaster which includes some decidedly anti-Big Oil rhetoric. See if you can spot it below:

From: Secretary_of_the_Interior@ios.doi.gov [mailto:Secretary_of_the_Interior@ios.doi.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 2:16 PM
Subject: Secretary’s Priority Message – Deepwater Horizon

( NOTE TO SUPERVISORS: Please ensure that all employees without e-mail access receive a paper copy of this distribution.)

Dear Team,

I write to thank you for your hard work and service to our Country. Over the last 21 days, many of you have put in long hours, with little sleep, as you help our Nation respond to the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and spill. I extend my heartfelt appreciation.

As we continue to work hard to address and resolve the oil spill in the Gulf, we must not hesitate from making changes and reforms we know are needed. This incident has made it clear that the public servants of the Minerals Management Service deserve more tools at their disposal, more resources, and an organizational structure that fits the missions that you are being asked to carry out. I am proud of the reforms we have already made together – from broadening MMS’s portfolio to include offshore renewable energy production to simplifying royalty collections – but the time has come to make even more fundamental reforms.

Earlier today, I announced to our colleagues in the MMS a set of changes that we as a Department must undertake to strengthen our oversight of the companies that develop energy in our Nation’s waters.

We will begin to evaluate options for restructuring the Department and the MMS to enhance our ability to fulfill our missions. Specifically, I believe that the inspection, oversight, and investigation mission within MMS should be separate from MMS’s missions of collecting energy revenues on behalf of the American people and of authorizing responsible and balanced energy production. Establishing a new entity within the Department, focused primarily on enforcing energy laws and regulations, will provide greater authority and autonomy in overseeing the safety and compliance of energy operations. We will explore a variety of different organizational configurations as we move through this process. I want to hear your ideas and input as we move forward.

Undertaking major organizational changes – particularly in times of crisis or challenge – is never easy, but in this instance it is the right thing to do. We cannot, and will not, forget that BP is responsible for its oil spill. They will be held accountable.

As public servants, our duty is to learn lessons from this incident so that we can adjust, adapt, and strive to better protect the American people.

I look forward to continuing our service together as we work to build a smarter, stronger, and more effective government for our Nation.

For more information about our response efforts, visit the DOI Intranet at http://oneinterior.doi.net.

Sincerely,

Ken Salazar /s/

SEE ALSO: Ken Salazar Photo Caption Contest

“From day one, we have been anticipating and preparing for the worst case scenario,” Secretary Salazar writes in the e-mail’s opening paragraph. “Thirteen days into this event, the situation is still dangerous.”

I find it telling that the action words in Secretary Salazar’s message are “anticipating and preparing” instead of acting, fixing, resolving or, if he had wanted to be honest — hoping.

In the fourth paragraph, he writes, “BP has a massive oil spill for which they are responsible,” —–even though no official investigation report has reached that conclusion.

Below, I share the full text of the message:

From: Secretary_of_the_Interior@ios.doi.gov [mailto:Secretary_of_the_Interior@ios.doi.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 2:28 PM
Subject: Secretary’s Priority Message – Deepwater Horizon Update

( NOTE TO SUPERVISORS: Please ensure that all employees without e-mail access receive a paper copy of this distribution.)

Dear Team,

As you know, at approximately 10:00 p.m. on April 20, 2010, a devastating explosion occurred on the BP Deepwater Horizon offshore facility, claiming the lives of 11 people. From day one, we have been anticipating and preparing for the worst case scenario. Thirteen days into this event, the situation is still dangerous.

Secretary Napolitano has designated the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill as an “event of national significance.” I appreciate her steadfast leadership in the response to this emergency. In the days and weeks ahead, I ask you all to join with me in bringing the resources and expertise of this Department to the people and landscapes of the Gulf as they brace for the difficult times ahead.

I want to thank Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes for leading Interior’s response effort. David was the first senior Administration official on the ground, arriving in New Orleans the morning after the explosion. I also thank all of you – from MMS to the Fish and Wildlife Service, from the National Park Service to PMB and the USGS – for the long hours you are putting in to helping deal with this emergency.

BP has a massive oil spill for which they are responsible. The oil spill threatens communities, wildlife, and natural resources around the Gulf of Mexico. Our focus remains on overseeing BP’s efforts to secure their wellhead that is spilling oil, and minimizing the damage.

Last week at BP’s command center, I pressed the engineers to work harder, faster, and smarter to get the job done. I have asked other companies to bring their expertise, resources, and ideas to the effort as well. And under President Obama’s direction, every resource within the Federal Government is being made available. We cannot rest until BP permanently seals the wellhead, and until they clean up every drop of oil.

The weather this past weekend presented a challenge, but the strong interagency effort – and our coordination with local and state partners – means we have plans in place, resources deployed, and the people we need to fight the spill.

I have ordered immediate inspections of all deepwater operations in the Gulf of Mexico. We have issued a safety notice to all operators, reminding them of their responsibilities to follow our regulations and to conduct full and thorough tests of their equipment.

Last week I signed a Secretarial Order establishing the Outer Continental Shelf Safety Oversight Board within the Department of the Interior. Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Wilma Lewis – a former U.S. Attorney and former Interior Inspector General – will lead the Safety Oversight Board. She will be joined by Interior’s Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall, and Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget Rhea Suh.

They will provide recommendations for steps we can take to strengthen OCS safety and to improve overall management, regulation, and oversight of OCS operations.

They will look at all options. I will report to President Obama within 30 days on what, if any, immediate additional precautions and technologies should be required. Another important function of the Safety Oversight Board will be to provide oversight and support to MMS as they conduct their joint investigation of the incident with the U.S. Coast Guard.

I am confident we will get to the bottom of what happened. Those responsible will be held accountable. And the lessons we learn will help guide us as we responsibly, and safely, develop our Nation’s energy resources.

Sincerely,

Ken Salazar /s/

EDITOR’S NOTE: A friend of mine who works in the Interior Department shared this message with me.

You dance, delay, and deceive. You speak melodious words about seeking the wisdom of the public in making these decisions and then ignore evidence of the public will when you get it, or worse, you hide it.

First came the dance.  In August 2008, after soaring gas prices and a dramatic shift in public opinion caused President Bush, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain to reverse their positions on offshore drilling, then-Senator Obama also changed. The Democratic presidential nominee reversed his own position and that of his party, saying he was open to offshore drilling as part of an overall energy plan.  The Democratic Congress followed a month later by quietly dropping the 25-year Congressional ban on offshore drilling.

Then came the delay. In January 2009, President Obama inherited a draft five year offshore drilling plan prepared by the outgoing Bush administration.  The plan was already receiving public comment as part of the elaborate rule making process followed by federal agencies.  Ken Salazar, Obama’s new Secretary of Interior, determined the decision about new offshore drilling was so important that he ordered a six-month extension to the comment period.

Third comes the dishonesty.

In April of 2009, during a discussion about offshore exploration in San Francisco, Salazar said that President Obama directed him to “to make sure that we have an open and transparent government” and that “these are not decisions that are going to be made behind closed doors.” Salazar went on to say that President Obama wanted to make sure that DOI was “maximizing the opportunity for the public to give us guidance on what it is that they want to do.”

Yet, more than four months after the comment period ended, the Department of the Interior has failed to make any public announcement about the results, even though sources have told American Solutions for months the comments show a 2-1 advantage in support of offshore drilling.

It took American Solutions almost four months and the power of the Freedom of Information Act to finally uncover indirect confirmation that, out of over 530,000 comments submitted, pro-drilling comments outnumbered anti-drilling comments by a 2-1 margin.

In an email dated October 27, 2009, Liz Birnbaum, director of the Minerals Management Service, informs other Interior officials that a preliminary tabulation of the results of the comment period had not yet gone to Secretary Salazar, adding “[s]o the Secretary can honestly say in response to any questions that he’s [SIC] has not yet seen the analysis of the comments – staff is still working on it. I did, however, confirm to him the 2-1 split that these guys [at American Solutions] are emphasizing.”

When a public employee is on record condoning purposeful deception of the American people, the taxpayer should no longer have to fund his or her job.  Secretary Salazar should immediately fire Liz Birnbaum for purposefully deceiving him, and in turn, the American people.  It’s not possible for the Secretary to honor pledges of openness, honestly, and transparency in government if his staff is going to deliberately undermine such pledges.

Public opinion polls already measure near 70% support for offshore drilling, so the results from a public comment period that reflect the same public sentiment should not be surprising.  But after all this talk of wanting the public’s input, Secretary Salazar and his team must find it a real stumbling block to have to explain all their anti-energy development actions in light of the comment period results to which they previously attached such great importance.

This newly gained insight into the anti-energy exploration mindset within the Department of the Interior allows a new perspective of President Obama’s mention of offshore development in his recent State of the Union address.  Here is the one paragraph in which the President described offshore development:

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.  It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.  It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies.  And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

To the passive listener, it sounded like President Obama expressed at least rhetorical support for offshore drilling.

But the President only says we must make “tough decisions” on offshore drilling, deliberately refusing to apply that standard to other decisions on energy.

But tough for whom? Certainly not for the public that overwhelmingly supports more offshore drilling.

Indeed, the only person facing a tough decision is the President since an important part of his political base is opposed to new American energy development.

Bucking public opinion would indeed be a tough decision for this President, but he has shown himself quite comfortable with bucking public opinion to pursue stunningly unpopular policies on health care and cap and trade.

In short, it’s a fair conclusion that the tough decisions the President identified in his State of the Union was his intended decision not to pursue any new offshore oil and gas development. The actions by Salazar and his team are entirely consistent with that conclusion.

What makes all of this dispiriting, especially this month, is that with 15 million Americans out of work and with the President’s recently submitted budget projecting trillion dollar annual deficits for the next ten years and a near tripling of the national debt by 2020, the President is throwing away a golden opportunity over the next three decades to create millions of new jobs and generate more than $270 billion in annual economic growth from new oil and gas development, including $54 billion annually in federal tax receipts that could help lower the federal deficit and the national debt.

These extraordinary benefits of job creation and economic growth – all without requiring any federal spending – are, sadly, not on President Obama’s agenda, notwithstanding all the phony rhetoric to the contrary.

Indeed, we can look forward to the President’s continued strategy of dance, delay, and deceive.