Another company once considered a brilliant clean-energy venture – and supported by taxpayer money under Barack Obama’s strategy to attack coal and oil energy – has hit the big-time, being listed among the “Corruption Chronicles” at Judicial Watch.
Oh, it’s also going out a business, after taking some $50 million in taxpayer money.
“Another one of President Obama’s brilliant clean-energy ventures has collapsed after taking tens of millions of dollars from American taxpayers, in this case to develop a special wheelchair-accessible ‘green’ van,” the Judicial Watch report said.
The news comes just weeks after a separate company that got nearly $200 million from the government to develop hybrid vehicles folded, said Judicial Watch. “That fly-by-night company, Fisker Automotive, had been heavily touted by the administration as an innovator that would develop two lines of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that could run up to 300 miles on a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery. Before doling out the cash, Obama’s Energy Secretary assured the cars ‘will save hundreds of millions of gallons of gasoline and offset millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2016.'”
In that case, the southern California company sold only 2,000 vehicles before laying off most of its workers, following an infusion of $192 million from Uncle Sam.
“Highly unlikely that any of the money will ever be recovered since Fisker is almost certainly headed for bankruptcy,” the Corruption Chronicles reported.
“Last year Judicial Watch sued the Obama administration for documents related to the Fisker scandal but there appears to be a cover up of epic proportions.”
The newest “fleecing du jour,” the Corruption Chronicles explained, “is like a pathetic sequel to the Fisker scandal, except the hemorrhaging got plugged sooner, after only $50 million.”
The report identified the company as Vehicle Production Group (VPG), which makes special vans for the disabled that run on compressed natural gas.
Said the Chronicles report, “Here’s how the Obama administration justified funding this experiment with public dollars: ‘This project invests in a socially and environmentally responsible product that will create new jobs, promote the use of alternative fuels, and help the U.S. maintain its competitive edge in the automotive industry.'”
Judicial Watch said, however, Businessweek reported VPG has ceased operations and fired almost all of its employees.
“The same story quotes a Republican congressman saying that VPG’s closing is another sign the clean-car program is a failure and a burden on taxpayers. No kidding! Instead of filling the ozone with hot air, why not do something about it?” the report said.
The Chronicles warned, “It’s a sure bet that Obama’s green ventures will continue swindling taxpayers because the administration has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars for a number of projects. The painful consequences extend beyond the car industry. Remember Solyndra, the northern California solar panel company – bankrolled by Obama fundraiser George Kaiser – that folded after getting $529 million from the government?”
WND has reported that Obama’s largesse with taxpayer money isn’t limited to the United States.
His administration plans to spend up to $400 million on “green” projects around the world, survey the satellite television viewing habits of Africans and simultaneously try to spark private-sector investment in the West Bank and Gaza, among other federal endeavors.
Improved access to “reliable and affordable clean energy” is the goal behind four U.S. Agency for International Development contracts targeting U.S.-designated “critical priority countries,” or CPCs, of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, South Sudan and Yemen.
The $400 million figure is the maximum that can be spent over five years via “indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity,” or IDIQ, contracts awarded to Dexis Consulting Group, ECODIT LLC, International Resources Group and Tetra Tech.
Other projects are pending in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ghana, Jordan, Romania, South Africa, and other points.
Inside the United States, it was the Fisker Automotive company that was approved by Obama for more than half a billion taxpayer dollars, then laid off its staff.
It was Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who warned Americans that if “green” agenda campaigners get their way, the biggest tax increase ever could soon be coming out of Washington.
Bigger even than the hundreds of billions of dollars Obamacare will collect. In fact, in the range of $1.2 trillion to $1.6 trillion. A year.
It was during an interview with blogger Anthony Watts of Internet channel WUWT-TV that he expressed his concern about cap-and-trade and carbon taxes.
Inhofe has spent years in the U.S. Senate fighting cap-and-trade proposals and carbon taxes, which advocates tout as an answer to their claim that man-made emissions are causing the earth to warm.
The campaigns continue, led by such personalities as Al Gore, who has invested in the industry, even though the science supporting the claim largely has been discredited. In the Climategate scandal, for example, emails were uncovered among scientists strategizing how to “hide the decline” in the earth’s average temperature even while they were warning about global warming.
Inhofe takes on the issue in his book “The Greatest Hoax: How The Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.”
In the WUWT-TV interview, Inhofe recalled working 12 or 13 years ago to investigate the claims of global warming, when early proposals for a cap-and-trade tax were made. Under such a program, emissions would be capped by law, and anyone wishing to release more than allowed would have to “trade” or buy the “credits.”
Shortly after that, Gore got into the business of promoting the credits, Inhofe noted.
Later came the proposal of taxing carbon emissions, he noted.
Early in the process, he said, the cost to taxpayers of a cap-and-trade program was estimated to have been in the range of $300 billion to $400 billion a year.
It was at that point that Inhofe looked into the science and found it lacking.
He noted that even though Congress has refused to adopt any such program, Barack Obama during his first term spent $68.4 billion on the global warming agenda simply by executive order.
“If we were to do this now through regulation, the cost would be far greater than $300 billion or $400 billion a year … because they’d be doing it under the Clean Air Act,” he said.
“That would quadruple the amount of money it would cost,” said Inhofe, making the cost in the range of $1.2 trillion to $1.6 trillion annually.
Inhofe said not only would it be the most expensive tax hike in history, far above even Obamacare, but the effort would be a singular failure, because emissions limits would have no impact on industries outside the United States.
Significant emissions now are from the unregulated industries of Mexico, India and China, he said.
Another American failure story was A123 Systems Inc., the electric car battery maker that received a $249 million federal grant and then filed for bankruptcy protection after failing to make a debt payment.
