Soviet born Boris Bershteyn, Cass Sunstein’s replacement a sleeper cell

March 14, 2013 — bunkerville

Recall my post Cass Sunstein replaced by Soros’s Soviet born Boris Bershteyn? He never got brought forward for a Senate confirmation hearing as required apparently. Or so we thought. But Obama seems to have managed a round about way of letting him slip by without one. First a bit of the back story, then the update. Just where are our GOPers on this? His position more powerful than the EPA. This sure will put energy on a fast track now won’t it?

Boris Bershteyn, the budget office’s general counsel, will replace Sunstein as acting director. Bershteyn is a natural choice. He was born in the Soviet Union, earned his law degree at Yale, and was selected as a 2001 “fellow” by the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Paul Soros is the elder brother of the notorious globalist and darling of the financial class, George Soros.

Boris Bershteyn

Between his tours at OMB, he served as Special Assistant to the President and Associate White House Counsel, with responsibility for legal issues in regulatory, economic, health, and environmental policy.ACUS Gov

 The new Administrator of OIRA will have powerful influence on any proposed energy and environmental policies, in addition to proposals or new regulations in any other sector. The OIRA has already exercised plenty of revisions to Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency proposals involving issues such as coal mining, fracking, energy exports and renewable energy sources. The Administration’s proposed new regulations involving air quality, emissions controls on power plants, and regulations addressing climate change increase pressure on Obama to choose a new administrator as these issues need to be addressed quickly

President Obama is now under pressure to appoint a new administrator at the OIRA. The position of OIRA administrator has been unfilled since August, when Cass Sunstein stepped down after serving for three years. A lawyer named Boris Bershteyn has been serving as Acting Administrator in the interim, but there is a time limit on how long the position can remain vacant. Bershteyn is approaching his limit of 210 days as acting Administrator, and Obama must soon appoint someone to the position permanently. The appointment also needs to be approved by the Senate. Because Bershteyn’s 210 days will be up sometime next week and no successor has been named, the White House may simply remove his “Acting Administrator” title.

.More at The energy collective

Posted in Energy, Green, Uncategorized. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Obama’s 39 Taxpayer-Backed Green Energy Failures

October 30, 2012 — bunkerville

Thankfully, we at Bunkerville are well, and appear to have survived Sandy in good shape after a harrowing couple of days. My wishes are that my fellow bloggers fared as well, and prayers go out to all who now have to endure the result of Sandy’s wrath.

Hot Air has a good selection of the pertinent facts of the released documents:

In reference to the bankruptcy of taxpayer-supported Abound Solar last week, President Obama’s proclaimed that “these are decisions, by the way, that are made by the Department of Energy, they have nothing to do with politics,” but evidence abounds (heh, see what I did there?) to the contrary, which was picked up by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and released as part of their official investigation today.

Of course, our Commander-in-Chief has found his way to the “Situation Room” for a photo-op, and portray his cred as a fearless leader ready to take on Sandy, not so much anything else. With that, blogging must continue. We hear much about Solyndra, but that is just the tip of his crony capitalism. So lets lay out all that has gone wrong with this misadventure of going “Green”. Here we go:

The 2009 stimulus set aside $80 billion to subsidize politically preferred energy projects. Since that time, 1,900 investigations have been opened to look into stimulus waste, fraud, and abuse (although not all are linked to the green-energy funds), and nearly 600 convictions have been made. Of that $80 billion in clean energy loans, grants, and tax credits, at least 10 percent has gone to companies that have since either gone bankrupt or are circling the drain.

It is no secret that President Obama’s and green-energy supporters’ (from both parties) foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case.

The truth is that the problem is widespread. The government’s picking winners and losers in the energy market has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and the rate of failure, cronyism, and corruption at the companies receiving the subsidies is substantial. The fact that some companies are not under financial duress does not make the policy a success. It simply means that our taxpayer dollars subsidized companies that would’ve found the financial support in the private market.

The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher.

UPDATE: Add one more: Another DOE-Backed Solar Company Goes Bankrupt

Heritage: Satcon Technology Corp. announced the decision in a Wednesday news release. “This has been a difficult time for Satcon,” president and CEO Steve Rhoades said. “After careful consideration of available alternatives. Satcon received a $3 million DOE grant

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

  1. Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
  2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
  3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
  4. Beacon Power ($43 million)*
  5. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
  6. SunPower ($1.2 billion)
  7. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
  8. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
  9. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
  10. Amonix ($5.9 million)
  11. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
  12. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
  13. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
  14. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
  15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
  16. Schneider Electric ($86 million)
  17. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
  18. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
  19. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
  20. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
  21. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
  22. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
  23. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
  24. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
  25. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
  26. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
  27. GreenVolts ($500,000)
  28. Vestas ($50 million)
  29. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
  30. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
  31. Navistar ($39 million)
  32. Satcon ($3 million)*
  33. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
  34. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy. Full story: Heritage

H/T: Wixom Web

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Van Jones continues with millions for his nest of vipers

June 19, 2012 — bunkerville

Van Jones continues unabated in robbing the American people under the guise of Green energy. The American Thinker has a great piece that is worthy of a full read, but let me give you a few of the highlights, and include what our gal Iranian born Valerie Jarrett had to say about him before we were on to the game plan. By now, most know that Val is the one running the show in the WH. Here we go:

A solar installation research company based in Oakland, California called Solar Mosaic has just received $2 million in grant monies from the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative program. Mosaic pulled in 4 times more money than the other eight companies that made the cut. Why did the California company fare so well? 

Simple. Obama’s former green jobs czar buddy, Anthony K. “Van” Jones is listed as an adviser while two radical organizations he co-founded are cited as “members of the Solar Mosaic family.”

The Soros-funded Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (EBC) in Oakland and Green For All (GFA) both started by Jones are in with Mosaic. The social justice fronts continue to haul in taxpayer monies for their far left radical causes while establishment politicians in DC turn a blind eye.

The Mosaic Solar website describes Ella Baker of the Ella Baker Center as “un unsung hero of the civil rights movement who inspired and guided emerging leaders.” Bakerin fact was a bridge between the far left activists of the day and the Communist Party. Read more: The American Thinker

First we have Nancy’s short take:

 

Read more: The American Thinker

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Obama friends got 80% of DOE Green Energy Loans

November 16, 2011 — bunkerville

We can only hope Mr.Chu makes it to the hearing on Capital Hill regarding the nonsense that has been going on in his fiefdom and he will have an explantion. Billions going out the door in “bad bets” as stated by Obama. For sure, let this item come up for review. Bye bye Nobel Prize winner, time to exit stage left. 

A new book by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer details the startling extent of the cronyism that has pervaded President Obama’s “green jobs” push. According to Schweizer,4 out of every 5 renewable energy companies backed by the Energy Department was “run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers.”H/T:Expose Obama

Hot Air has a great update on the story and links to an interview with Chu- you will laugh yourself silly:

Via William Amos, a sneak preview of what Chu’s planning to tell Congress on Thursday. My favorite part is when he claims that no one at his level was aware of the political affiliations of Solyndra’s backers, even though we now know from e-mails written by George Kaiser himself that Kaiser talked to people in the White House about Solyndra.

Doug Ross spotted the relevant excerpt of Schweizer’s book

When President-elect Obama came to Washington in late 2008,he was outspoken about the need for an economic stimulus to revive a struggling economy… After he was sworn in as president,he proclaimed that taxpayer money would assuredly not be doled out to political friends…

…But an examination of grants and guaranteed loans offered by just one stimulus program run by the Department of Energy,for alternative-energy projects,is stunning. The so-called 1705 Loan Guarantee Program and the 1603 Grant Program channeled billions of dollars to all sorts of energy companies…

…In the 1705 government-backed-loan program [alone],for example, $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted as of Sept. 15 went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers—individuals who were bundlers,members of Obama’s National Finance Committee,or large donors to the Democratic Party. The grant and guaranteed-loan recipients were early backers of Obama before he ran for president,people who continued to give to his campaigns and exclusively to the Democratic Party in the years leading up to 2008. Their political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy. It brought them returns many times over….

Read more.

Posted in Energy, Green. Tags: , , , , , , . 9 Comments »