After doling out 80% of the Department of Energy (DOE) loan program’s $20.5 billion to President Barack Obama’s top donors, taking three months to plug a hole during the worst marine oil spill in American history, and failing to achieve his stated goal of jacking up U.S. gas prices to the $9 levels in Europe, Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu is finally stepping down.
In a combative and rambling letter to DOE employees, Chu avoided mention of the $535 million taxpayer-funded boondoggle Solyndra that became a hallmark of his DOE legacy and struggled to cobble together a list of “accomplishments. “I came with dreams,” wrote Chu, “and am leaving with a set of accomplishments that we should all be proud of.”
Chu also defended the $20.5 billion DOE giveaway to Obama bundlers and cronies. “The Department of Energy made grants and loans to more than 1,300 companies. While critics try hard to discredit the program, the truth is that only one percent of the companies of the companies we funded went bankrupt. That one percent has gotten more attention than the 99 percent that have not,” said Chu.
Chu’s 1% figure relates, not to the taxpayer dollars squandered, but the actual number of companies officially in bankruptcy. But a Heritage Foundationcompilation of green energy companies receiving taxpayer funds who are bankrupt, firing its workers, or on their way to bankruptcy paints a bigger and more costly picture [. . .]
Read the rest to refresh your memory of all the successes.
Starless on February 2, 2013 at 12:41 pm said:
To be fair, if Chu had been given more money to give away those companies might not be going bankrupt until the next administration.