Two senators want answers from the Obama administration about a $529 million federal loan for advanced technology vehicles manufacturing to a company now described as “troubled.”
Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and John Thune (R-S.D.) are also asking why taxpayer money went to fund research for a plug-in hybrid car that retails over $100,000 and is built in Finland.
The Republicans sent a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Friday, noting that even though the DOE has now frozen the remaining part of Fisker’s loan, “questions remain as to why a loan was extended to this now ‘troubled’ auto company in the first place.”
“The statute which created the ATVM program did not specify a retail price range for vehicles that are financed by Federal dollars, but it would seem questionable how financing $100,000 luxury class automobiles would be the best use of taxpayer money,” they wrote. “The Department of Energy appears to have decided otherwise.”
Grassley and Thune asked Chu to provide answers to a number of questions about the loan, including how the DOE arrived at its job creation estimates and about the DOE’s proclamation that its loan to Fisker would result in the equivalent of 30,000 fewer cars on the road.
“It’s important to know what went into the Energy Department’s decision to fund the production of expensive luxury vehicles,” Grassley said in announcing the inquiry. “The riskiness of loans to companies that may or may not be able to pay them back deserves scrutiny.”
There seems to be a troubling pattern developing at the Department of Energy when it comes to providing taxpayer-backed government loans to private companies,” Thune said. “Taxpayers have a right to know why their hard-earned money was used in part to back the production of luxury automobiles overseas, especially in a manner that might not have undergone proper review.”
Fisker’s eventual goal was a consumer car on the order of the Volt.
At last public notice, this was still to be done in partnership with Toyota.
I have not heard a poop out of Toyota about this in recent days, since Fisker started laying people off and the reports came out that nothing material has actually been accomplished, towards the consumer vehicle.
The Obama administration has almost no one with private-sector experience. Thus, of course they make all these bad loans. These radical revolutionaries, these ideologues have not a single clue. None.
The government should not be in the loan business at all.
I hope the Romney team is looking at this. How can a President, who trashes the rich and wants them to pay their fair share, be constantly giving money to companies who produce things only the rich can afford?
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the point wasn’t to build anything of value. according to alinski, you must bankrupt a country first to bring it to marxism. obama taught this in his teaching gig. wonder how much of this $$ wound up in whose pockets? we will probably never know. he!!, people won’t even look at a sheriff joe video with a computer expert taking apart obama’s fraud in front of your eyes. an uneducated force of true believers. what a mess.
“the DOE’s proclamation that its loan to Fisker would result in the equivalent of 30,000 fewer cars on the road.”
That’s easy to explain, if they hadn’t made the loan, people would have had the money to buy themselves 30,000 new regular cars from the tax money saved.
– see it through, Boy Grassley.
Fisker has a lot of company among them Tesla. Both got hugh loans and both are planning to someday build a sedan. In the meantime I see a lot of Nissan Leafs around built without our money. Somewhere there is probably a big Obama supporter connected with Fisker (also as with Tesla, Elon is a big supporter and all of his companies appear to be on the Fed gravy train).
Indeed. Tesla sold a handful of electric sports cars at over $100,000 a pop, while promising a lower-cost “family sedan” in the near future. Well that sedan’s been unveiled – with prices starting over $60,000 for the more limited-range model! Yet Tesla still got a few hundred million in government loans/guarantees.
Government has no business bankrolling such ventures.
I don’t think the rest of you understand what’s going on here, how Brilliant Obama and Chu are. Practical experience just means you’ve been screwing something up repeatedly, without learning anything. People who have no practical experience, but who are very very smart, can fix the problem if they understand the theory of how things work. How they actually work is irrelevant, in fact it can get in the way of the theories (in which case experience should be ignored). Building a $100,000+ automobile in Finland and then saying it creates jobs here in America is brilliant, especially if the company that builds the car contributes money to your reelection, and various movie stars who’ve also contributed want one themselves.
Don’t you see???
Can anyone help me to understand how one person (in this case POTUS) can throw
taxpayers (or borowed) money to anyone he favors, without the input or advice of the legislative branch? And for his entire time in office this has gone on with bitching and complaining, but no stoppage? Where are the other 500 or more elected officials, and what are they doing? Are they all afraid of him?
Afraid of one slick talker who is on permanent vacation because he’s half black? Help !!!!
The Fisker fiasco gives “Cash for Clunkers” whole new meaning.