Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Obama's Green Energy Scam - $3.9 Billion To Well Connected Obama Donors

If even the Washington Post is finally forced to report on this, you know it's bad. Solyndra was by no means the only instance of Chicago-style graft in the White House.

Sanjay Wagle was a venture capitalist and Barack Obama fundraiser in 2008, rallying support through a group he headed known as Clean Tech for Obama.

Shortly after Obama’s election, he left his California firm to join the Energy Department, just as the administration embarked on a massive program to stimulate the economy with federal investments in clean-technology firms.

Following an enduring Washington tradition, Wagle shifted from the private sector, where his firm hoped to profit from federal investments, to an insider’s seat in the administration’s $80 billion clean-energy investment program.

He was one of several players in venture capital, which was providing financial backing to start-up clean-tech companies, who moved into the Energy Department at a time when the agency was seeking outside expertise in the field. At the same time, their industry had a huge stake in decisions about which companies would receive government loans, grants and support.

During the next three years, the department provided $2.4 billion in public funding to clean-energy companies in which Wagle’s former firm, Vantage Point Venture Partners, had invested, a Washington Post analysis found. Overall, the Post found that $3.9 billion in federal grants and financing flowed to 21 companies backed by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers.

Obama’s program to invest federal funds in start-up companies — and the failure of some of those companies — is becoming a rallying cry for opponents in the presidential race. Mitt Romney has promised to focus on Obama’s “record” as a “venture capitalist.” And in ads and speeches, conservative groups and the Republican candidates are zeroing in on the administration’s decision to extend $535 million to the now-shuttered solar firm Solyndra and billions of dollars more to clean-tech start-ups backed by the president’s political allies.


And of course, some of the trails lead straight back to ...George Soros, who stands to make over $120 million dollars on stock he owns in Westport Innovations, a Canadian company that distributes now selling liquefied natural gas-powered engines manufactured in China. Kevin G. Douglas, Westport’s largest individual shareholder, has given more than $30,000 to Obama and the Democratic National Committee and both he and Soros stand to benefit hugely from a bill pushed by Obama and the Democrats ironically called - wait for it - the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act. The bill will give tax credits to firms purchasing the Chinese-made engines to replace diesel and gasoline engines in their fleets, with most of them coming through the Canadian firm Westport.

Call it a Chicago-style coincidence.I'm sure the president does.

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