Energy Department To Revive Loan Program That Caused Obama-Era Scandal

[Elderberry]

Daily Caller by Varun Hukeri 3/4/2021

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the Biden administration will revive an Energy Department loan program that led to an Obama administration scandal in 2011 over the misuse of taxpayer-funded loans for the solar energy company Solyndra.

Granholm said the “once mighty” renewable energy loan program is “back in business” during remarks at the CERAWeek energy conference Wednesday. She also announced entrepreneur Jigar Shah will oversee the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, according to Reuters.

Joshua Siegel
@SiegelScribe
·
Mar 3, 2021
Biden Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, @SecGranholm, in her first public address at #CERAWeek: "We have to add hundreds and hundreds of gigawatts of clean energy over the next 4 years. It is a huge amount and we have so little time."

Joshua Siegel
@SiegelScribe
.@SecGranholm says DOE's "once mighty" clean energy loan programs office is "back in business" as of today
8:10 AM · Mar 3, 2021

“Our loan authority, $40 billion worth, has helped some of America’s bravest entrepreneurs get their best ideas off the ground and flourish into what they are today,” Granholm told conference attendees. “Those kinds of projects have supported thousands and thousands of jobs, and taxpayers have made that money back and then some.”

The Energy Department’s loan program was created in 2009 with stimulus funding secured by the Obama administration, and issued more than $35 billion in loans and loan guarantees under former President Barack Obama, according to Reuters.

But the program went largely unused under former President Donald Trump, the Associated Press reported. One of the few instances of its use under Trump included a $12 billion loan guarantee for a nuclear power station in Georgia last year.

More: https://dailycaller.com/2021/03/04/energy-department-jennifer-granholm-loan-obama-solyndra-scandal/

[IsailedawayfromFR]

China is delighted we have chosen to purchase turbines and solar panels from them so we can solidify a power grid that is expensive and unreliable while itself builds coal plants and purchases coal from us to keep the power on inexpensively, all while increasing its #1 worldwide status as the chief polluter.

We should be so proud we have such a smart group in DC representing us.

[mountaineer]

entrepreneur Jigar Shah will oversee the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office

I'm sure Jigar will make sure that he and his friends don't personally profit from it.  Cuz that would be unethical, you know.

[Sled Dog]

Last time I checked the news, I was told that the Kenyan Era was scandal-free.

That was the last time I checked the news, years ago.

[Hoodat]

China is delighted we have chosen to purchase turbines and solar panels

Solar panels manufactured with capital goods purchased for pennies on the dollar from US bankruptcy sales made possible by our government's propensity for picking losers.  Taxpayers pay for brand new machinery to manufacture solar panels, and within two years those machines are sold to China at a huge discount, which they use to drive smaller long-standing US solar companies out of business.