President Obama once claimed that a $400 million loan given to Abound Solar would “help America win the race for the clean energy economy,” but now the company is bankrupt and under orders to clean up the “hazardous waste” at the plant.
“The Department views these 2,000 pallets of solar panels as a characteristic hazardous waste for cadmium,” the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said in a report. The Denver Post says that clean-up costs are projected to be $2.2 million.
That’s hardly the future Obama anticipated when he awarded the company stimulus funding. “Already, I’ve seen the payoff from these investments,” Obama said. “I’ve seen once-shuttered factories humming with new workers who are building solar panels and wind turbines; rolling up their sleeves to help America win the race for the clean energy economy,” he added, before Abound Solar had to shutter its Colorado factory.
In addition to the taxpayer subsidy, Abound Solar received private financing from Pat Stryker, a major donor to President Obama and liberal political causes. One year after her company invested in Abound, but a year before it received Energy Department funding, a “Pat Stryker” visited the White House.
Obama has institutionalized a process that allows major donors to talk to him. The president has agreed to meet on a quarterly basis with donors who give $500,000 or more to Organizing for Action, which is Obama’s reelection campaign apparatus, re-branded as a non-profit.
