Powerful Democrats help Chinese energy firm chase stimulus money
Thursday, December 9th, 2010
Top Democratic fundraisers and lobbyists with links to the White House are behind a proposed wind farm in Texas that stands to get $450 million in stimulus money, even though a Chinese company would operate the farm and its turbines would be built in China.
The farm’s backers also have close ties with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who, at the height of his hard-fought reelection bid this fall, helped blunt Congressional criticism over stimulus dollars possibly going to create jobs in China by endorsing a proposal by the Chinese company to build a factory in his home ...
Millions in grants went to wind farms built before stimulus passed
Thursday, October 21st, 2010
This story was co-published with msnbc.com
Update: A response from the American Wind Energy Association
The Obama administration is crediting its anti-recession stimulus plan with creating up to 50,000 jobs on dozens of wind farms, even though many of those wind farms were built before the stimulus money began to flow or even before President Barack Obama was inaugurated.
Out of 70 major wind farms that received the $4.4 billion in federal energy grants through the stimulus program, public records show that 11, which received a total of $600 million, had erected their wind towers during the ...
Renewable energy money still going abroad, despite criticism from Congress
Monday, February 8th, 2010
The Investigative Reporting Workshop reported this story in coordination with ABC's World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer and the Watchdog Institute, a non-profit investigative journalism group based at San Diego State University.
Money from the 2009 stimulus bill to help support the renewable energy industry continues to flow overseas, despite Congressional criticism and calls for change, according to a new analysis of the program by the Investigative Reporting Workshop.
The Workshop was the first to report last October that more than 80 percent of the first $1 billion in grants to wind energy companies went to foreign firms. Since ...
Overseas firms collecting most green energy money
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
One of the major selling points of President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan was that it would put the economy back on track partly by investing in renewable energy industries, like wind and solar.
The president and many other advocates of alternative energy argue that an investment in green energy would lessen the nation’s reliance on foreign oil, cut greenhouse gases, and most importantly, create thousands of new jobs for out-of-work Americans.
But of the $1.05 billion in clean-energy grants handed out by the government since Sept. 1, 84 percent – a total of $849 million – has ...
