Jurassic Media Takes Up Solyndra Looting/Loan Guarantees

Radio Refugee · Sep 21, 2011

Here's the opposite of coverage:

Today is the three week anniversary of the beginning of the Solyndra scandal, and the prime time programs of the so-called "news network" named MSNBC have yet to report one single word about it.

.
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Yet MSNBC's prime time commentators Chris Matthews, Al Sharpton, Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow, and Ed Schultz haven't done one single report on this scandal since it began three weeks ago.

Exactly how can the executives at MSNBC and parent network NBC condone such an overt demonstration of media bias?
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Radio Refugee · Sep 21, 2011

45 days before filing bankruptcy, here's a July letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee:

Link to readable document

Via Hand Delivery
July 13, 2011
The Honorable Clifford B. Stearns
Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce
2175 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-6115
The Honorable Diana L. DeGette
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce
2322A Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-6115
Dear Chairman Stearns and Ranking Member DeGette:
I am writing today on behalf of the 1,166 employees of Solyndra, the only large-volume
manufacturer of solar photovoltaic systems with 100 percent of its production located in the
United States, in Fremont, California.
Specifically, I am writing in anticipation of the Subcommittees business meeting scheduled for
Thursday, July 14, to ensure that you and other Members of the Subcommittee have the most
accurate and up-to-date information regarding Solyndra and our performance in the market.
You should be aware of the following facts:
The company just completed a record quarter for shipments, with strong demand in the
United States. Last year we shipped 65 megawatts of panel production and expect that to
double again this year.
The companys new manufacturing facility (Fab 2), which was built with support from
the Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee, will produce nearly half of its
maximum output this year only 24 months after the project broke ground. The
construction of Fab 2 was completed under budget and ahead of schedule. The Fab 2 project is currently on track to meet the job creation commitments agreed upon
with the DOE. During construction, Fab 2 created 3,000 jobs in the midst of one of the
deepest construction downturns in California history. Today, Solyndra has 1,166
employees and is hiring, with 49 open positions on our website. The company has
experienced a total net direct employment increase of over 300 regular, full-time jobs
More than 70 percent of Solyndras supply chain is represented by companies located in
the United States. Solyndras supply requirements have led to the creation of 300 jobs in
just nine of our many suppliers across 18 states.
since the DOE made its conditional commitment and Fab 2 planning began. The
company continues to hire and grow as our Fab 2 manufacturing ramp continues.
Solyndra is an example of a U.S. company using American innovation and ingenuity to
compete in the global solar market exporting more than 50 percent of our products into
a competitive global marketplace that includes the products of Chinese and other
companies which have the benefit of less restrictive business environments and
significant government subsidies and incentives to support all aspects of their business.
On behalf of Solyndra, our 1,166 employees and our extensive supply chain of U.S. companies,
we appreciate your consideration of these facts about our business.
Sincerely,
Brian Harrison
President and Chief Executive Officer
cc: The Honorable Frederick S. Upton, Chairman, Committee on Energy and Commerce
The Honorable Henry A. Waxman, Ranking Member, Committee on Energy and
Commerce
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Radio Refugee · Sep 22, 2011

WaPo details the spendthrift tsunami that washed over Solyndra once YOUR TAX DOLLARS were pledged to their cause:

Solyndra employees: Company suffered from mismanagement, heavy spending

By Carol D. Leonnig and Joe Stephens, Published: September 21

Former employees of Solyndra, the shuttered solar company that exhausted half a billion dollars of taxpayer money, said they saw questionable spending by management almost as soon as a federal agency approved a $535 million government-backed loan for the start-up.

A new factory built with public money boasted a gleaming conference room with glass walls that, with the flip of a switch, turned a smoky gray to conceal the rooms occupants. Hastily purchased state-of-the-art equipment ended up being sold for pennies on the dollar, still in its plastic wrap, employees said.

As the $344 million factory went up just down the road from the companys leased plant in Fremont, Calif., workers watched as pallets of unsold solar panels stacked up in storage. Many wondered: Was the factory needed?

After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right, said former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn. Because we were doing well, nobody cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy.

Solyndras ability to secure federal backing also made the company eager for more assistance, interviews and records show. Company executives ramped up their Washington lobbying efforts, hiring a former Senate aide to work with the White House and the Energy Department. Within a week of getting a loan guarantee commitment from the Energy Department, Solyndra applied for another, worth $400 million. It never won final approval.

On Friday, company executives are scheduled to appear before a House committee investigating how Solyndra obtained its loan and whether the Obama White House rushed its approval for political reasons. Chief Executive Officer Brian Harrison and Chief Financial Officer Bill Stover were supposed to face a grilling about the companys spending and collapse, but they announced Tuesday that they would assert their Fifth Amendment rights because of a criminal probe of the company by the Justice Department.

A key question for lawmakers is whether Solyndra executives misled Congress about the financial state of the company as late as July, when questions about the loan surfaced on Capitol Hill. Solyndra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Aug. 31, laying off 1,100 workers and leaving taxpayers on the hook for repayment of the guaranteed loan made through the Federal Financing Bank.

Solyndra was once touted by President Obama as the flagship of his administrations effort to spur the clean-energy industry. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that e-mails showed that White House officials pushed federal reviewers for a decision on the Solyndra loan as they sought to schedule a press announcement with the company and Vice President Biden.

An Energy Department spokesman said the agency was unaware that Solyndra sales projections, part of the justification for the new factory, had been too rosy. Spokesman Damien LaVera declined to comment on the employees accounts of company spending.

Solyndra, founded by enterpreneur Chris Gronet in 2004, pushed the Obama administration to support its niche solar technology efficient cylindrical solar panels that were relatively expensive to make but cheaper and easier to install on the roofs of big box stores and other commercial buildings. The new administration awarded the company its first loan guarantee under the stimulus program.

The leading investors in Solyndra were two investment funds with ties to George B. Kaiser, a major campaign fundraising bundler for Obama.

The White House had scheduled a press event around the time of Solyndras factory groundbreaking on Sept. 4, 2009. Federal reviewers gave their final nod to the deal on Sept. 2.

With the loan guarantee in hand, Solyndra built a second, seven-acre factory with 19 loading docks. As part of the expansion, Gronet and fellow managers hoped to cut costs by speeding up the automated assembly. To do so, they bought a custom-made assembly tool from VDL, a Dutch company. The company had never built that kind of equipment, but it promised the assembly tool would arrive in the summer of 2010. By that time, Gronet had been pushed out as chief executive. Workers told The Post in interviews that they were shocked that summer when Harrison, newly installed as CEO, told them that sales projections used to justify the new factory to federal agencies had been far too optimistic.

Obviously their forecasts werent correct, said Peter M. Kohlstadt, a research engineer. We just didnt have the sales we thought we had.

Employees said that in 2010 they noticed that solar panel inventories were growing raising questions about why they werent being sold. The new assembly equipment arrived late and had technical problems. VDL officials did not respond to a request for comment.

In a July 13 letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, then probing his companys loan, Harrison insisted that the companys future was bright.

Solyndras revenues grew from $6 million in 2008 to $100 million in 2009 to $140 million in 2010, Harrison wrote. For 2011, revenues are projected to nearly double again.

Bankruptcy filings show the company was at the time desperately looking for bridge financing to keep its doors open. It shut down six weeks later.

Although Harrison stressed in a Post interview earlier this year that he focused on business, not the political aspect of what happens in Washington, public records show that since 2008, Solyndra has spent more than $1 million on lobbying inside the Beltway.

Lobbying expenditures of $160,000 a year in 2008 and 2009 accelerated as Solyndras financial and political troubles mounted. By 2010, such spending had grown to $550,000. So far this year, Solyndra has reported spending $220,000, but that number will grow as more reports filter in.

Sakera Alima, who began working at Solyndra as a financial analyst in the fall of 2010, said she was warned by a mentor that the company wasnt doing well financially.

She said, Ive been working here the past three years and I feel like any day now I might not have my job,  Alima recalled. I knew it was a risk.

Kohlstadt said employees arrived at work to find the company closed, and they lost vacation pay and benefits without notice.

Kohlstadt said Solyndras collapse leaves him doubly affected.

Im being hit twice: As a taxpayer, $500 million, where did it go? he said. Im hit a second time: Im not getting money that is owed to me and the government hasnt done anything to look out for us.
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SiliconMagician · Sep 22, 2011

Never seen Koch Industries going to Government for a political handout and yet they are always accused of this sort of (*)(*)(*)(*).

Mad Conservative · Sep 22, 2011

The Solyndra loan was set up so that the investors get their money back and screw the taxpayers.

Does anyone remember when the automakers declared bankruptcy and those investors were told "eat the loss?" They lost their money but the Solyndra investors get their money back.

Is this part of "pay your fair share"?

Radio Refugee · Sep 24, 2011

The NYT does a reasonable job of summarizing this fraud. Too late to the party and finding an administration spin everywhere they can but....what else would you expect?

Its here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future, the president declared in May 2010 to the assembled workers and executives. The start-up business had received a $535 million federal loan guarantee, offered in part to reassert American dominance in solar technology while generating thousands of jobs.

But behind the pomp and pageantry, Solyndra was rotting inside, hemorrhaging cash so quickly that within weeks of Mr. Obamas visit, the company canceled plans to offer shares to the public. Barely a year later, Solyndra has become one of the administrations most costly fumbles after the company declared bankruptcy, laid off 1,100 workers and was raided by F.B.I. agents seeking evidence of possible fraud.
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Now today comes an apologia from some unknown beta male that directly contradicts some of the earlier story. It's the usual partisan/green/leftwad hack job the Times is famous for.

OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Phony Solyndra Scandal
By JOE NOCERA
Published: September 23, 2011

If Brian Harrison and W. G. Stover, the two Solyndra executives who took the Fifth Amendment at a Congressional hearing on Friday, ever spend a day in jail, Ill stand on my head in Times Square.

Its not going to happen, for one simple reason: neither they, nor anyone else connected with Solyndra, have done anything remotely criminal. The companys recent bankruptcy which the Republicans are now rabidly investigating because Solyndra had the misfortune to receive a $535 million federally guaranteed loan from the Obama administration was largely brought on by a stunning collapse in the price of solar panels over the past year or so.

The companys innovative solar panels, high-priced to begin with, became increasingly uncompetitive in the marketplace. Solyndra didnt have enough big commercial customers to create the necessary economies of scale. And although Harrison and Stover remained optimistic up to the bitter end insisting six weeks before the late-August bankruptcy filing that the company was going to be fine they ultimately failed to raise additional capital that would have allowed Solyndra to stay in business.

The Republicans are trying to make that optimism appear sinister, but if weve learned anything from the financial crisis, it is that wishful thinking in the face of a collapsing market is not a crime. Otherwise, Richard Fuld, the former chief executive of Lehman Brothers, would be wearing prison garb.
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Nothing to see here. Bush did it too. Dear Leader From Behind MUST be protected.

Radio Refugee · Sep 28, 2011

Solid info on the actual state of affairs and the Solyndra ship went down from the WSJ.

Solyndra LLC had such steep financial problems in late 2010 that the company violated terms of its loan-guarantee agreement with the Department of Energy and technically defaulted on its $535 million loan, according to people familiar with the matter.

The failed solar-panel maker, which is under numerous criminal and congressional investigations, ran so short of cash in December 2010 that it was unable to satisfy certain terms of its U.S. loan agreement, these people said. The agreement required Solyndra to provide $5 million in equity to a subsidiary building its factory but cash-flow problems prevented those payments.
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The loan was officially restructured in February 2011, giving the company enough money to carry it through August. The company, which had drawn down $475 million of the U.S. loan as of Dec. 31, 2010, ended up borrowing $527 million before its bankruptcy.

Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida, who is heading the Republican congressional investigation into the company, said, "Solyndra ran out of cash in December 2010, yet DOE continued to ignore the red flags and astonishingly doubled down on a bad bet and restructured the loan, further putting taxpayers at risk for what could now be a half billion dollars."
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Radio Refugee · Sep 29, 2011

More loans to leftwads with a Solyndra/Pelosi link:

Crony Capitalism: $737 Million Green Jobs Loan Given to Nancy Pelosi's Brother-In-Law
11:00 AM, SEP 29, 2011 BY MARK HEMINGWAY

Despite the growing Solyndra scandal, yesterday the Department of Energy approved $1 billion in new loans to green energy companies -- including a $737 million loan guarantee to a company known as SolarReserve:

SolarReserve LLC, a closely held renewable energy developer, received a $737 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee to build a solar-thermal project in Nevada.

The 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes project, near Tonopah, Nevada, will use the suns heat to create steam that drives a turbine, the agency said today in a e-mailed statement. SolarReserve is based in Santa Monica, California.

On SolarReserve's website is a list of "investment partners," including the "PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund (East) LLC." As blogger American Glob quickly discovered, PCG's number two is none other than "Ronald Pelosi, a San Francisco political insider and financial industry polymath who happens to be the brother-in-law of Nancy Pelosi, the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives."

But wait... there's more! One of SolarReserve's other investment partners is Argonaut Private Equity:

Steve Mitchell and Argonaut Private Equity might have a chance to recoup some of their losses in the Solyndra debacle now that the Department of Energy has given a $737 million dollar loan guarantee to a company backed by Argonaut that also lists Mitchell among its board of directors.

Mitchell served on the Solyndra LLC Board of Directors. He also serves as Managing Director for Argonaut Private Equity, a company that invested in Solyndra through the LLCs parent company. After Solyndra declared bankruptcy, two Democratic members of the U.S. House asked that Mitchell testify about Solyndra. Though he has not appeared before Congress, he has "been asked to provide documents to Congress" pertaining to Solyndra.

And for good measure, it's also noteworthy that Obama is about to hold a big money fundraiser at the home of Tom Carnahan in St. Louis:

Carnahan, a member of the prominent Missouri Democratic family, has been tapped by the Obama campaign as its chief Missouri fundraiser. He is chairman of the board of Wind Capital Group, a wind energy company that makes it corporate headquarters in St. Louis. He formerly was president and CEO of the company.

Last year, Wind Capital's Lost Creek Farm facility in northwest Missouri received a $107 million tax credit from the Treasury Department, among many such wind operations receiving support from from stimulus funds.

Tom Carnahan is the son of former Missouri governor Mel Carnahan and former U.S. senator Jean Carnahan. He's also the brother of current Missouri secretary of state, Robin Carnahan.

It's increasingly hard to tell the government's green jobs subsidies apart from the Democrats' friends and family rewards program.
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Radio Refugee · Sep 30, 2011

ABC keeps the heat on.:

Top executives at Solyndra have refused to tell U.S. officials whether they received executive bonuses after the company began to fail, and they have frustrated bankruptcy proceedings by refusing to answer questions about the solar firm's sudden and dramatic shutdown, according to papers filed by Justice Department lawyers late Friday.

A Solyndra attorney told U.S. officials the reason he would not identify the company's customers or talk about its contracts was because "the topic would likely be the subject of investigation and possibly litigation," according to the court filing.

The fresh allegations that Solyndra is refusing to cooperate in bankruptcy proceedings come just days after two top Solyndra executives declined to answer questions from Congress, invoking their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. The government's claim that Solyndra is refusing to answer questions was detailed in papers filed by the attorneys representing the U.S. government during bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware. The solar company was awarded a $535 million federal loan as part of President Obama's program to help spur growth in emerging forms of alternative energy. Now, federal lawyers are seeking to recover at least some of that money.

In their filing, government attorneys called on the bankruptcy court judge to put the company in the hands of an independent trustee, so its books could be pried open.

"Management's invocation of the Fifth Amendment does not excuse them from performing their fundamental disclosure and reporting duties under the Bankruptcy Code," the filing says.

One topic of deep concern to federal attorneys is the accuracy of Solyndra's financial statements. According to a report Thursday by Bloomberg, a focus of a federal investigation into the firm's behavior is whether it lied to Energy Department officials in order to secure additional financing after the company started to fail.

Friday's filings note that Solyndra executives refused to say "whether financial information submitted or represented to investors, creditors, and others was accurate."

According to the governmet, the executives have also refused to say when they determined the company was in financial trouble, and "whether the company paid management bonuses after management realized the company's poor financial condition."

"Such topics lie at the core of the information that [Solyndra] must disclose," the court filing said.

A spokesman for Solyndra has not replied to an email and phone calls seeking comment. In a separate filing earlier this month, Solyndra wrote: "The company is not aware of any wrongdoing by Solyndra officers, directors or employees in conjunction with the DOE loan guarantee or otherwise."

In March, ABC News, in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News, began reporting on simmering questions about the process that led the Obama administration to make Solyndra the first company to receive a loan under a program designed to provide government support to companies that would create jobs while generating energy from cleaner sources, such as solar, wind and nuclear. President Obama personally visited the Solyndra complex, hailing it as a leader in this emerging field.

In August, though, Solyndra abruptly shut its doors, laying off 1,100 workers. And within days it declared bankruptcy. The FBI raided the plant days later, part of an investigation that involves inspector generals for the Energy Department and the Treasury Department. In addition, Republicans in the House Energy and Commerce Committee have been working to dissect the deal and understand how signs of Solyndra's financial trouble had been overlooked by the Department of Energy.
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Radio Refugee · Oct 5, 2011

Deeper and deeper. There's no earthly chance a regular Joe could get this consideration. No, you needed to be a big assed bundler for the Obama campaign. This is disgusting.

Solyndra e-mails: Dept. of Energy was poised to approve $469 million for firm

The Obama administrations Department of Energy was poised last summer to give Solyndra a second major taxpayer loan of $469 million, even as the companys financial situation was growing more dire.

The Energy Department was actively pushing to provide the second loan guarantee to the troubled solar-panel manufacturer in April and May 2010, when Solyndras auditors warned the company was in danger of closing due to its rapidly mounting debts and expenses, according to complete e-mails just released by a House committee investigating the original loan.
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