Obama Commerce Nominee Entangled with Chinese Business
John Bryson, President Barack Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary, may be best known as co-founder of the radical activist group Natural Resources Defense Council and as CEO of Edison International, parent company of giant electric utility Southern California Edison. But one of his biggest obstacles to Senate confirmation may be his relationship with troubled Chinese-backed electric car company Coda Automotive.
Bryson has been a vocal advocate for Coda since 2008. He sits on the firm’s board of directors and is reportedly an investor, and he is an evangelist for the company. Bryson has said: “This is the only board I actually enjoy since I’ve left Edison.” In March of last year at the University of Berkeley Energy Symposium, he singled out Coda by name as an inspiring model for a new technology company.
Many automobile analysts have asked if Coda’s car will be an American or Chinese car. While Coda executives say it will be an American vehicle, the company has forged deep relations with Chinese federal authorities, Chinese state banks, and state-owned manufacturing companies.
This association is at odds with the mission of the American secretary of commerce. His role is to build American companies that can compete with foreign competition, not to send jobs overseas.
Bryson is not shy about Coda being heavily underwritten by the Chinese government, to the tune of $500 million. This is more than twice the U.S. private investment, reportedly $201 million. He told the audience at Berkeley:
[Coda is] working with the advanced battery development arm of the Chinese federal government [and] they’ve contributed in a big way.
Despite many glowing Bryson predictions of success, Coda has been plagued by numerous problems. Over the last four years it has delayed the launch of its all-electric car at least three times, and with at least three different models. It is now tentatively scheduled for Fall 2011. Last November, the company’s charismatic CEO abruptly resigned. It’s vice president for global sales also has resigned. The company has privately raised only $76 million of a promised $125 million.
Coda aggressively sought a piece of a $2.4 billion federal stimulus grant, but so far has not been awarded it. It has courted the U.S. Department of Energy for low-interest loans, and hopes for as much as $400 million, but it has yet to seal that deal.
And many auto analysts gasp at the car’s price tag of $45,000, more expensive than the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt.
Coda’s bumpy road may not play well for Bryson’s candidacy, as he has linked himself to the firm’s fortunes. He personally sat in on private VC fundraising sessions, and reportedly is an investor in the company as well. The company asserts that it will have 50,000 all-electric cars on the road by 2015, though it has yet to produce a single vehicle and auto analysts are skeptical of the claims. The company is betting that California state and federal subsidies will reduce the price tag by $12,500 for consumers (it will only be available in Hawaii and California).
President Obama said of Bryson:
John will be an important part of my economic team, working with the business community, fostering growth, and helping open up new markets abroad to promote jobs and opportunities here at home.
So far Coda has employed countless Chinese and is financially beholden to Chinese government interests. And as a harbinger of things to come for the company, the company’s new CEO comes directly from GM Shanghai and Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp., one of China’s biggest domestic automakers.
Coda also has filled its board with many political figures in the hope that it can secure U.S. federal and state subsidies — which it has not been able to do in the private sector.
Yea,well the fact that he wets his corporate panties over ‘global warming’ tells me all I need to know about him
This guy is another global warming cap and trade nitwit in the model of Sunstein, Birwick, and Van Jones (like all the other czars). What else would we expect. His company does not make profits, rather it solicits solar subsidies from the US Government and thus is funded by taxpayers who basically are sick and tired of this eco welfare. He is an idealogue, clueless of the world of free enterprise and capitalism that he should be sworn to strengthen and support. Rather like his boss, he will work tirelessly to transform us into the same crappy welfare grabbing idiots that live on the left coast. He should not be confirmed under any circumstances.This president and his gang of thugs cannot be swept frorm office too soon. In the meantime, the conservatives in congress need to resist him, his policies, his appointments, his daily actions and executive orders, his threats, his cohersions and extortions at every turn. If congress and the executive branch do nothing for the next two years that will be an improvement and perhaps give us a chance to survive this facist state.
Why is Congress providing the budget for paying all of Ubama’s “czars”?
Just askin’.
The Secretary of Commerce role is not a “czar” or “tzar”. It is a Cabinet level position. Bryson is an excellent choice, You may not like Bryson – although there is little to dislike and this post certainly doesn’t say much, but a czar he isn’t.
Bryson is a terrible choice unless you are not concerned about the economy then he is a good choice.
“In March of last year at the University of Berkeley Energy Symposium, he singled out Coda by name as an inspiring model for a new technology company.”
A co-founder of a radical activist group, now the board member of a Chinese communist electric car manufacturer, giving a speech in March of last year at the University of Berkeley Energy Symposium. How much do you want to bet that they didn’t talk much at Berkeley about drilling for more fossil fuels here in the United States! After Van Jones, does anybody wonder why this guy is LOVED by the Obama administration? Just another piece of evidence that this is the most left-wing administration (some would say socialist administration) since Franklin Roosevelt. Only way to stop it is to vote him out of office in 2012.
Another scam artist living off the taxpayer to stave off bankruptcy who cannot deliver on his promises and so tries to double-down on his bad bet–with more taxpayer money. The electric car is DOA, but we should make federal government officials drive them so they can only get halfway to wherever they are going.
The relationship between the Obama Administration and the environmentalists has become an unholy alliance of which President Eisenhower warned us, in the same speech which he warned of the “industrial-military” complex.
“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the…….danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Farewell Speech, January, 1961, President D. W. Eisenhower.
Ike was ahead of his time.
yes he was jarmo. in more ways than one,
I smell a Hillary and Al Gore connection. Just in time to channel Chinese money into the Obama reelection campaign.
Mr. Potatohead I am sur that is allready taken care of just as it was in his election campaign,
Man an I glad I got out of the DoC when I did. Each ‘appointee’ seems further and further removed from a science supporting standpoint and more for ‘Mother Gaia’ fiction and cronyism.
The ONLY saving grace is the Republicans blocking this career-government subsidy earning turd burglar.
An op-ed in the Washington Examiner had a great article as well about this POS.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2011/06/crony-capitalist-bryson-should-be-rejected-commerce
Two things are sure:
1; The GOP has no intestinal fortitude as a group. I hope Bryson does not get appointed, but don’t fool yourselves, the GOP will not be the reason he does not.
2; If Bryson is appointed you can kiss the $2.4 Billion and the $400 million goodbye. The chinese will put that $ to good use, cyberwar training against the US.
And why are we reporting this? America will still vote for Obama next year. The sheep in this country will not care until they are living in cardboard boxes and dining from dumpsters, and only then if the tv doesn’t work.
Double up on the anti-depressants, Ago. “Healthy” here is lusting for the battle.
At least it isnt our government putting out for what looks like a losing investment. Chinese probably just see it as throwaway R&D pocket change. Cheaper than buying the company and they get to take away all the lessons learned when it flops.
…The chicom’s buy these ‘hurting’ companies primarily for their patents and licenses. Saginaw Gear is one example. Not good for America.
Not unlike appointing Medea Benjamin Secretary of Defense, or Anwar al-Awlaki Ambassador to Israel.
Shhhh… don’t give him ideas…
Seriously, this sort of stuff would make even his Chicago handlers regard him as a liability…
Hmm… SoCal Edison? Hmm… 0bama’s now-under-the-bus mentor Bill Ayers was the son of… longtime Commonwealth Edison CEO Tom Ayers. The latter was also a confidant of ‘hizzoner’, whose youngest SON is now the WH chief of staff.
Not even to mention GE’s Jeffrey Immelt.
Crony capitalism smothered in a sauce of hlaf-arsed socialism and environMENTALism, with some Chicago-style thuggery thrown in. Old Chicago machine wine in new flasks.
Electric cars have great economic potential.
Energy grids are becoming more local with mix of energy
sources differing according to resource and other important variables.
At some point electricity is the common denominator.
At some other point if cars and other transportation can stop relying on gasoline that is good.
We can build a new generation of transport.
That needs little government involvement or tax money.
There are already huge fortunes to be made here.
Government can help to foster an environment where research, education, and trying new ideas are OK.
Your English is superb, Chairman Mao!
This car is a laughing stock. I wonder what type of action that dullard, Ron Bloom has is this scam. And I wonder if Van Jones’ unionized prison laborers are in on the grift as well.