Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In a blatant example of corporate welfare, General Electric is receiving $490 million from the Energy Department to build a wind-energy facility — even though GE has a market capitalization of some $170 billion.
GE and its partners are also getting a $1.06 billion loan guarantee for the Shepherds Flat project in northern Oregon — a guarantee similar to the $529 million one that solar energy firm Solyndra received from the government before it went bankrupt.
One other point to note: GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt is the head of President Barack Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
“The Obama administration’s loan guarantee for the now-bankrupt Solyndra has garnered lots of attention, but the Shepherds Flat deal is an even better example of corporate welfare,” Robert Bryce writes for National Review Online.
“The majority of the funding for the $1.9 billion, 845-megawatt Shepherds Flat wind project is coming courtesy of federal taxpayers,” he notes, and “not only is the Energy Department giving GE and its partners a $1.06 billion loan guarantee, but as soon as GE’s 338 turbines start turning at Shepherds Flat, the Treasury Department will send the project developers a cash grant of $490 million.”
GE and its partners, which include Google, will enjoy an estimated return on equity of 30 percent, while over the past year the average electric utility’s return on equity has been around 7 percent, according to Bryce, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of “Power Hungry: The Myths of ‘Green’ Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.”
He asks why the administration is providing subsidies to GE, which paid little or no federal income taxes last year despite earning some $5.1 billion in profits from its American operations.
And he wonders why Immelt can head Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness when Obama has consistently criticized the oil and gas industry for exploiting what he claims are excessive tax breaks.
As for the permanent “green energy jobs” being created by the wind project, CNN Money has estimated the number to be 35. Taking into consideration only the $490 million grant and ignoring the loan guarantee, the cost of each job will be about $14 million.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
