Is Biden about to have his own Solyndra scandal?
Do you remember when Barack Obama promised to create a green economy and wasted roughly $80 billion in taxpayer dollars to fund green energy firms? In fact, Obama and Biden were both personally involved in the decision-making process to determine who got loans, and “coincidentally” only companies that donated to their campaign (or other Democrats) received these green energy loans.
More than 50 of these companies wound up bankrupt or in financial trouble. One of the most well-known examples is Solyndra because Obama’s Department of Energy (DOE) knew the company was on the verge of bankruptcy when it received a loan exceeding half a billion dollars. It was a significant scandal that prompted a congressional investigation and the signature stonewalling by the Obama administration.
Is another scandal involving a green energy company about to go down? The company in question is California-based Proterra, which produces electric buses and just filed for bankruptcy earlier this week.
“The foundation we have built has set the stage for decarbonization across the commercial vehicle industry as a whole, and we recognize the great potential in all of our product offerings to enable this important transformation,” Proterra CEO and board member Gareth Joyce said in a statement. “This is why we are taking action to separate each product line through the Chapter 11 reorganization process to maximize their independent potential.”
Joyce blames “macroeconomic headwinds” for its financial situation. I guess he didn’t get the memo from Joe Biden that the economy is in solid shape.
But what really makes Proterra similar to the Solyndra scandal, aside from the fact that Joe Biden has invested a lot of taxpayer dollars in green energy, is that the White House hosted Proterra, and Biden and his administration have repeatedly praised it as a success story of American electric vehicle companies.
In the early months of his presidency, Biden hosted a virtual White House event to showcase Proterra. During this event, Proterra executives gave Biden a virtual tour of their South Carolina manufacturing plant, where the company assembles its buses. During the tour, Biden highlighted his support of billions of dollars in federal funding to push “zero-emission” transit and school buses, setting the goal for all domestically manufactured buses to achieve zero emissions by the year 2030.
Earlier this year, he also appointed Joyce to serve on the President’s Export Council. “Joyce is growing Proterra’s EV battery manufacturing footprint in the United States and accelerating the transition of transit and other commercial vehicles to zero-emission solutions,” the White House said at the time.
Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has also faced criticism for her ownership stake in Proterra. Prior to her appointment, she had been on Proterra’s board and even retained company shares after assuming her position in the Biden administration — only divesting stock months after substantial criticism and after the Biden administration started propping up Proterra.
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