On October 30, The Daily Caller ran a feature titled: As many as fifty Obama backed green energy companies bankrupt or troubled. The piece cited the work Christine Lakatos and I did in our three-part “green-energy failures” series released in October. Immensely popular, the DC article was picked up by numerous sites, including Fox Nation and GOPUSA. That night, Newt Gingrich was on Fox News’ On the Record with Greta Van Sustren. After discussing the incriminating Benghazi emails, he pointed to another possible “October surprise.”
Gingrich teased: “The other big story, I think, that is going to break, is on corruption and extraordinary waste in the solar-power grants and direct involvement by the Obama White House, including the President, in the solar-panel grants involving billions of dollars, and I suspect that’s going to break Wednesday and Thursday of this week.”
His sources were dead on. The next day, Wednesday, October 31, at 1:30PM ET, we received a tip regarding the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s release of more than 150 mails, equaling hundreds of pages of convicting evidence, accompanied by a five-page “Memorandum” with the following subject line: “Update on Committee’s Oversight of the DOE Loan Guarantee Program: New Emails Show President Obama, Senior Administration Officials Misled American People about Role of President and White House in Program.”
Through the research and writing we’ve done, Lakatos and I were confident that there was direct involvement, after all, of the 26 loans (of which the majority were "junk" rated) issued through just the 1705 Loan Guarantee Program to 21 firms, virtually all of them had meaningful political ties (bundlers, donors, supporters, etc.,) to the White House and other high-ranking Democrats. Even the Government Accountabilty Office (GAO) had addressed many areas of concern within the DOE in 2010, they declaring, "[loan] applicants were treated inconsistently," with favoritism at play.
Despite the obvious connection, President Obama has repeatedly denied any involvement. As it has done with Benghazi-gate, the White House, this time through Senior Advisor David Plouffe, while on Meet the Press (October 30, 2011), shuns responsibility for something politically uncomfortable: “decisions about the loan program were made by career officials in the Department of Energy on the merits.”
In a September 2011 House Energy and Commerce Committee on Oversight hearing on Solyndra, Jonathan Silver was asked if he had communications with the White House over Solyndra (both the DOE loan and restructuring time periods). While Silver stuttered quite a bit in his attempt to deal with this line of questioning, he never answered the question. Yet Silver and Jeffrey Zeintz (Deputy Director at OMB) had to be reminded that they were under oath. Then Zeintz said he "does interact with components of the White House" including Carol Browner. Browner was part of President Obama's Green Team (a team that I had on my "green corrupption radar" back in 2010) –– top energy and environmental adviser, who left her Climate Czar post in early 2011.
Also under oath, in the July 18, 2012, Oversight Hearing specifically addressing Abound Solar (now bankrupt and under investigation for securities fraud, consumer fraud and financial misrepresentation), former Executive Director of the Loan Program Office (LPO), Silver stated, “Because I am no longer at the department, I do not have access to the analysis done for the Abound project. As a result, I cannot comment in detail about the transaction, but what I can do however, is give you a flavor for what we try to do on this, and every project… The loan would have gone through multiple reviews independent of the loan program’s office, including detailed reviews by career credit professionals at DOE, and career staff at OMB, Treasury, and the National Economic Council.”
During the October 11 Vice Presidential debate, when Paul Ryan challenged him on the oversight of the “$90 billion in green pork to campaign contributors,” Vice President Biden sang the same tune: “His colleague runs an investigative committee, spent months and months and months going into this. Months and months. They found no evidence of cronyism.”
Just last week, October 26, 2012, President Obama continued the ruse, when he told a Denver, Colorado news anchor that decisions made in the loan program office are “decisions, by the way, that are made by the Department of Energy, they have nothing to do with politics.”
Clearly the stories were coordinated, and were contrary to the obvious conclusions a thinking person would draw—which prompted the Oversight Committee to probe further. However, until the leaked emails were made public on Thursday, we had no proof. We needed the smoking gun.
The tale-tellers, at the least, “misled the American people,” behaved unethically, and may well be guilty of perjury.
Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy
The emails revealed that Secretary Chu may well have perjured himself—though as Jordan implied, he may just be incompetent. We’ve written extensively on the interaction of decision-makers in the Administration and its “buddies.” In the March 2012 hearing, Jordan asked specifically: “Did the White House call you about, talk to you about any of these…did someone from the White House talk to you, the Chief of Staff, someone from the White House, talk to you about these respective companies, involving these individuals?”
Our research shows involvement of then-White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley in the BrightSource loan—one of the projects Jordan was asking about.
The new emails show Chu personally issued orders to prioritize a project favored by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer—Unistar.
Email #13 shows that Silver wrote to Chu’s Chief of Staff in a December 10, 2010, email: “since Aldy [White House staff Joe Aldy] personally promised the edf management group [one of the sponsors of the Unistar loan guarantee project] that he would lead an interagency review of this topic, we should tell him that he should be the one to call and deliver the news.”
Email #14: “there has been a commitment from S1 [Secretary Chu] to Steny Hoyer on this.”
Email #15: “Just came down from the Secretary’s office. He is adamant that this transaction is going to OMB by the end of the day.”
LPO Credit Advisor Jim McCrea (possibly the source of this massive email leak, as his name is one of the most consistent in the email text), had hesitation about the project, stating in Email #16: “Ordinarily, over an issue like this, I would refuse to sign the credit paper and refuse to send it to OMB tomorrow but given the direct order I was personally given by S1[Secretary Chu]…”
Didn’t someone say the loans were not politically motivated and were based solely on merit? Oh, yes, it was the President who said: “they have nothing to do with politics.”
First, the loans couldn’t have been reviewed over “several years.” Obama wasn’t President until January 2009. The Stimulus funds were made available in February 2009. And, the Solyndra $528 million loan guarantee (September 2009) was the Obama administration’s first, as part of the 2009 stimulus package. Solyndra was also the first company to go bankrupt in September 2011. Clearly, there was no “several years” in there.
While logic and simple math tell us that the loans were not reviewed over “several years,” the emails prove the rushed process. In the 350+ page Appendix II, the very first email is from McCrea to Silver (dated June 15, 2010)—subject line: 28 day clock. In it he complains about things being rushed. He opens with “I do not have a good sense of why the DOE and OMB agreed to a 28 day clock following Solyndra...” Though by the end of the page-long email, McCrea seems to concede: “I am not sure that the 28 day process is really as much of a constraint as it might appear at first glance.”
Again, we covered Silver’s involvement with many key players including John Woolard, CEO of BrightSource Energy. Silver is very well connected, having served in the Clinton Administration, he parties with Al Gore, was a frequent White House visitor and participated in meetings with Chief of Staff Bill Daley. Silver used his personal email account to conduct DOE business. But there is no hard proof there.
The following eight paragraphs is a revision from our original post with additional information:
Also found in Appendix II, early on (December 2009), way before the DOE finalized the $1.6 billion loan guarantee for BrightSource Energy (April 2011), we find that there was a strong push by Silver and others inside and close to the energy department in getting this loan approved .
- Steve McBee
- Jeff Markey
- Robert Simon
- Angela Becker-Dippman
- Michael Carr
- Stephen Ward
- Matt Brown
- Gabe Horwitz
"Wanted to let you know that the BrightSource application appears to moving apace at OMB and has a fighting chance of getting over to DOE..." "DOE is another story. We are hearing that despite a strong push by Silver, Spinner, Rogers and others internally, the process is getting sideways by any number of bureaucratic hold ups and there is now real potential for consideration of the project to slip until next year...[or"redeployed to China]" "ANYTHING you guys would be willing to do with DOE in terms of moving the process would be deeply appreciated."
Joshua Bar-Lev in response says, "Do you all think we should have vantage point insist on mtg with chu or silver or rodgers? Should John and I try to fly out for something similar? Looking for some game changer but perhaps we’ve done all we could. Is dc shut down by the snow or is there some impact we could make? Joshua"
NOTE: We've covered Silver, Steve Spinner and Matt Rogers (all former DOE advisors) in previous posts, as well as Silver's "shady email practices." The “DOE Insiders," where plenty of “VC Guys” and “Gore Acolytes” held key positions –– a dozen on my radar, where at least a dozen on the "green corruption" radar, including these three.
Time out for a minute...as noted during Silver's testimony this past July, he made this denial: “...as I say, almost nobody that I am aware of in the Loan Program even knew who the individuals were who had invested, either directly or indirectly into these companies.”
So the question remains, if Silver nor anyone else knew, why would anyone seek help from Vantage Point? Who knows? But what we do know is that Vantage Point Partners is the majority stakeholder in BrightSource, and Sanjay Wagle was a principle. Wagle just so happens to be the “renewable energy grants adviser” at the DOE under Secretary Chu.
While we know that Silver had cozy relationships with quite a few of those seeking green-energy funding (like Al Gore and Woolard), the following emails confirm that lobbying the White House and the Vice President’s office achieves results, not only with getting a loan approved, but clearing obstacles with the Department of Interior (DOI) that put their entire billion-dollar project at risk.
Email #5, drafted by Bright Source CEO John Woolard for then-Board Chairman John Bryson to send to then-White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley: “This project is now at significant risk due to delays in permitting at the Department of Interior…”The BrightSource case reeks of political connections, yet we are supposed to believe the loans “had nothing to do with politics.”
Email #6, from Wollard stated: “we are making good progress in DC. Whitehouse [sic] does seem to be very focused on this issue, in fact it is being elevated through the office of political affairs as well as VP Bidens- so we are starting to get them focused on the massive political risk- it helps that Bloomberg called Ivanpah ‘Obama’s energy project’ so it does have their attention.”
Email #7, two weeks later, BrightSource got what it wanted: “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued their revised Biological Opinion, prompting the Bureau of Land Management to issue a new notice to proceed allowing continued construction at Ivanpah units 2 and 3.”
Joe Biden, Vice President
Biden’s denial comes from his one debate of this campaign season, about which Diana Furchtgott-Roth writes for Real Clear Markets: “In Thursday's vice presidential debate, Joe Biden denied any ‘cronyism’ in the award of Energy Department grants and loan guarantees to encourage the development of renewable energy. Plus, he asserted that government-assisted green energy projects had a better ‘batting average’ than do projects backed by investment bankers. Just one problem: Neither of Biden's assertions was true. Plus, the Vice President himself had a role in the cronyism.”
Email #6, proves her point: “…It is being elevated through the office of political affairs as well as VP Bidens…”
Then there is Email #4: “Pressure is on real heavy on SF [Shepherds Flat] due to interest from VP.” Additionally, as we addressed, though not revealed in the emails, Bernie Toon, who served then-Senator Biden as his Chief of Staff, became a lobbyist for BrightSource Energy.
The White House and President Barack Obama
President Obama did keep himself somewhat isolated—having made fewer denials and being involved in fewer emails, however, he cannot be omitted from the discussion, as he was clearly party to the loan approvals. Plus, the emails show that DOE officials were pressured by the political interests at stake.
Email #1, from McCrea to Silver: “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 undergoing…by designing the fast track process 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.”
Email #2, from David Schmitzer, DOE LPO Director of Loan Origination to McCrea: “Jonathan 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).”
Email #3, from Silver to McCrea, encouraging him to remind a Treasury official of White House interest in now bankrupt Abound Solar: “You better let him know that WH wants to move Abound forward. Policy will have to wait unless they have a specific policy problem with abound.”
Despite Obama’s claim that the decisions regarding the loans had “nothing to do with politics,” it is clear that they had everything to do with politics—and not just his own. Loans were used to bolster Senator Reid’s re-election chances in the tight 2010 race.
Email #8, McCrea wrote: “Since this is not going to go into the DOE, and just to be clear, the translation is: Reid may be desperate. WH may want to help. Short term considerations may be more important than longer term considerations and what’s a billion anyhow?”
Email #9, Silver wrote: “I need some stats on how many projects we have funded or have in DD [due diligence] as a percentage of totals. Reid is constantly hit at home for not bringing in the federal dollars.”
If all of this were a novel, or better yet a dramatic feature film, we’d find it most entertaining. We’d leave the theater shaking our heads at the gall of the movie’s starring actor. Instead, this full-color story (White House, green energy, Silver connections) leads to red ink—money borrowed from China that the US taxpayer will be paying back for generations.
The coercion, corruption, cronyism and, cover up of the President's pet projects is really a horror flick, after all, the emails were released on Halloween. Each one of us is a victim of an expensive trick.
Article first presented at Townhall.com written by columnist Marita K. Noon, Busting Open Energy's Den of Deception, November 4, 2012 –– as a follow up to our BREAKING this story on October 31, 2012:
- Emails Catch White House Lie on Green-Energy Loans
- BREAKING: Newly Released House Oversight Emails Incriminate White House in Green-Energy Loan Lies, where the cronyism evidence is expanded upon.
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