‘Green’ Lobbyist Who Shaped Energy Dept. Policy Hired by Bailed Out Bank. Hmmm.
Last week, E&E Publishing (subscription required) ran this item:
The president and co-founder of the American Council on Renewable Energy announced his resignation today so he can lead Citigroup’s environmental strategy desk.
Michael Eckhart, president of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, helped mold ACORE — born in a 2001 brainstorming breakfast with three colleagues — into one of the alternative energy industry’s chief interest groups.
…
“Eckhart and the ACORE membership also helped design the Department of Energy grant programs” that partly offset the loss of tax equity financing arrangements. The tax equity financing schemes had been Wall Street’s main vehicle for bankrolling large wind and solar power plants, but they became moot when major losses …
At what point does this sort of admission warrant some investigation by Congress? I know it’s just a group representing 650 companies writing a federal program from which they would benefit. Lobbyists writing policies and all that. But, still.
And why did Goldman Sachs or Government Electric ever let this guy get away? One reason may be that bailout recipient Citi’s hire is, shall we say, a curious fellow — he has a history of threatening people in a manner that calls his disposition into question. (I detailed some of Eckhart’s bizarre behavior in my book Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed.)
His fanatical, written rants against two of my colleagues (Fred Smith, Ph.D. and Marlo Lewis, Ph.D.) presented an outstanding example of the liberal environmentalist pathology: he begins by dogmatically declaring a statement to be an unquestionable truth — along with a complete refusal to consider the merits of the arguments raised against it — then he proclaims the existence of a conspiracy among the evil polluting oil companies, refusing to accept any possibility of good faith fueling an opposing stance. Finally, he threatens investigation of people daring to express disagreement with you and your agenda by the Internal Revenue Service, an obscure scientific honors society, and … “the Harvard community.” Okaaaay.
This is the new public face of Citi. Way to go, guys!
While ACORE is a band of Music Man businesses and deep-pocketed backers if ever there was one, Citi’s substance people have long produced research articulating the economic and financial boondoggle promoted by Eckhart’s longtime patrons. For example, a 28-page research paper released by Citi in September — “The €1trn Euro Decade — Revisited Costs up, risks up, but governments are still in denial” — repeated the company’s warnings about the renewables mandates. It concluded:
Conclusion — the even if’s
Even if — the Utility companies had the appetite to spend €938bn they don’t have the organizational capacity to do so;
Even if — they had the organizational capacity to spend the money the supply chain couldn’t provide the equipment;
Even if — the supply chain could provide the equipment the Utility companies don’t have the balance sheet to finance the investment;
Even if — the Utility companies could raise the equity they wouldn’t be able to afford the cost; and
Even if — the Utilities could finance the investment, the consumer wouldn’t be able to afford their bills.
Huh.
This Associated Press headline from the weekend – “Green energy funds are testing investors’ patience” — provides some insight. Maybe Citi didn’t fully take its own advice, and is stuck with a bunch of these “clean energy economy” pooches. So, like Goldman and Deutsche Bank, they badly need to talk their own book to pump some phony, taxpayer-funded — and therefore temporary and wasteful — life into their picks.
Dunno. But there’s got to be some reason for hiring someone like this. A company so steeped in requirements of due diligence can’t have missed his record.
I just hope he ends up saying something as part of this new gig along the lines of “we’ll create all sorts of jobs if we underwrite these basket cases.” Because when not banging away loopy diatribes at his keyboard, he’s also been busy popping off with video cameras present, saying that that ain’t so. I think more such comments would lead to a healthy discussion.
Again, way to go, Citi. How did you ever find yourself in a position needing a bailout?
Investigation by Congress?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*takes breath*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Our federal government now has ideologues controlling science. They do not find truth (the definition of science), they lobby for their vested interest, and regulate, coerce the opposition, those who are employed in “bad businesses”. The fact, upon which their jolly green ship has floundered is cost.
The alternate energy technologies all cost too much for wide spread usage. The only way that they can survive in a competitive free market is to lard on costs to the existing “bad” technologies, fossil fuel or uranium, or get the tax payer to subsidize “their way.” The lard is the sum of either “external costs”, which is a green’s defined cost of the pollution sin, or tons of mandatory regulatory costs. (The regulations are not strictly mandatory. The possibility that a coal interest may convert a government environmentalist is always held out as an option. Some have termed this, Pelosi comity; she would have accepted surrender from any Republican.)
Over time, those who have technical expertise have been supplanted in decision making by either lawyers, financial types, or pure academics, all of whom have zero experience in free market commerce, cost control. Subjects, once the topic of technical conferences, are now decided in secret meetings, among bankers, lobbyists and Congressional staff members.
So why become an engineer, particularly in the private sector?
The short answer: nobody is. America produces 7 – 8 lawyers for every engineer. About 45% of our engineers with advanced degrees were born in a foreign land, circa 75% of our PhD level engineers. And there is some recent information that these smart folks have gotten the word and are going home.
As our energy infrastructure has gotten creaky. The bright green future will be dark, cold, and poor.
OBAMA TO CORPORATE AMERICA: BAILOUT MY PRESIDENCY
Obama’s address before the Chamber of Commerce Monday could be summed up this way:
“Forget about burdensome taxes and regulations, Obamacare and the EPA. Forget about weak consumer demand and the climate of uncertainty, pessimism and fear. Forget all these things. I did my part in stimulating the economy, now you must do yours. You must follow my reckless example of these last two years and go deeper into debt. You must throw caution to the winds and SPEND BABY SPEND. Buy new equipment, hire more workers, give better wages and expand. Forget about your bottom line and obligation to investors. You have a social responsibility to the people of this land; an obligation to share your wealth with them and get the economy moving again. Let social justice be your guide, profits be damned! Just as I bailed out Wall Street, the banks and GM; just as I saved us from a second Depression and saved millions of jobs now it’s time to pay me back and show gratitude for God’s sake. Fair is fair. Get off your butts, raid your treasuries and spend your $2 trillion in capital reserves; put America back to work with your unspent cash and BAILOUT MY PRESIDENCY.”
Click my name to read my companion piece: Obama Blames Corporate America for Failed Policies.
Again, way to go, Citi. How did you ever find yourself in a position needing a bailout?
Oh, you are so funny; Citi has required so many massive bailouts over the decades (3 or maybe 4) that it’s clear their governing culture is irredeemably flawed and they should be broken up and liquidated to the point where they’re no longer “too big to fail” and in no danger of ever becoming that big again.