From green jobs to pink slips - a national scandal

Solargate is just the tip of the iceberg. This cliche within a mixed metaphor reflects the madness of President Obama’s obsession with “green jobs.” It would be bad enough if this disaster were limited to possible criminality at Solyndra, the California-based solar-panel maker that Mr. Obama stimulated with loan guarantees despite repeated internal warnings. Solyndra’s Aug. 31 bankruptcy transformed 1,100 green jobs into pink slips and marinated taxpayers in $527 million of red ink. But many green-jobs programs that have not been raided by the FBI - as befell Solyndra on Sept. 8 - nonetheless are fiscally reckless enough to merit a five-alarm national scandal. Consider: c Hopewell Junction, N.Y.'s SpectraWatt Inc. scored $500,000 from the Energy Department in June 2009 and $150,000 from the National Science Foundation in June 2010. On Aug. 19, the solar-power company went bust. c Evergreen Solar was stimulated with $5.3 million of Massachusetts government cash and praised by the White House for helping “kick-start the economy.” Evergreen went bankrupt on Aug. 15. c Mountain Plaza Inc. went bankrupt in 2003. Nonetheless, its “truck-stop electrification” technology won $424,000 in EPA stimulus funds administered by Tennessee's Transportation Department. Yet again, Mountain Plaza filed for bankruptcy in June 2010. c Notwithstanding its February 2009 bankruptcy and default on a $58 million loan from BNP Paribas, Wisconsin-based, ethanol-oriented Olsen's Mill Acquisition Co. was stimulated with $10 million in January 2010, along with Olsen’s Crop Service. ADM purchased the defunct operation’s assets last month...more