Thread: Solyndra Shutting Its Doors

Solyndra Shutting Its Doors

President Obama touted the facility only a year ago.

[img]http://media.nbcbayarea.com/images/654*491/obama-california.jpg[/img]


Update: Solyndra announces it plans to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is suspending operations and seeks a reorganization.

Solyndra, a major manufacturer of solar technology in Fremont, has shut its doors, according to employees at the campus.

"I was told by a security guard to get my [stuff] and leave," one employee said. The company employs a little more than 1,000 employees worldwide, according to its website.

Shortly after it opened a massive $700 million facility, it canceled plans for a public stock offering earlier this year and warned it would be in significant trouble if federal loan guarantees did not go through.

The company has said it will make a statement at 9am California time, though it's not clear what that statement will be. An NBC Bay Area photographer on the scene reports security guards are not letting visitors on campus. He says "people are standing around in disbelief." The employees have been given yellow envelopes with instructions on how to get their last checks.

Solyndra was touted by the Obama administration as a prime example of how green technology could deliver jobs. The President visited the facility in May of last year and said "it is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world. And you guys all represent that. "

The federal government offered $535 million in low cost loan guarantees from the Department of Energy. NBC Bay Area has contacted the White House asking for a statement.

Some Republicans have been very critical of the loans. "I am concerned that the DOE is providing loans and loan guarantees to firms that aren't capable of competing in the global market, even with government subsidies" Florida Congressman Cliff Stearns told the New York

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/So ... 02718.html

Lawmakers seek White House documents on Solyndra loan guarantee
By Joe Stephens, Published: July 14
The Republican majority on a House Energy and Commerce Committee panel voted on Thursday to subpoena White House documents related to a $535 million federal loan guarantee issued to solar panel maker Solyndra Inc.

The subpoena to the Office of Management and Budget might go out before the end of the day, a committee spokesman said.

inShareRepublicans on the committee have been investigating how the Energy Department chose Solyndra to receive its first loan guarantee for innovative technology under the federal stimulus plan. After the 2009 approval, Solyndra ran into financial difficulty and canceled a planned public stock offering.

Some of the biggest investors in Solyndra were venture capital funds associated with Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, a key Obama fundraiser. Some Republicans have questioned whether the administration rushed stimulus funding out the door to benefit its political supporters.

After spirited debate on Thursday, Republicans on the oversight and investigations subcommittee voted to subpoena e-mail and other documents related to Solyndra that they said OMB officials had failed to produce voluntarily.

Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said before the vote on Thursday, “This is not a step this committee takes lightly.â€

Now he want to spend on infrastructure after he insured, by EO, that all contruction projects in excees of 25 million had to be done by unions. the debt ceiling increase has given him a lot of money to pay off the unions for 2012. I told my Republican congressman that he had lost my support and my vote when he voted for the increase. Time to clean out the rat's nest of elitists in DC that call themselves legislators.
August 31, 2011

Panel: Green jobs company endorsed by Obama and Biden squandered $535 million in stimulus money

By John Rossomando - The Daily Caller Published: 1:53 AM 02/22/2011 | Updated: 8:55 PM 02/22/2011

Solyndra, Inc. was supposed to have showcased the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s stimulus and green jobs initiatives, but instead it has become the center of congressional attention for waste, fraud and abuse of such programs.

According to a Feb. 17 letter signed by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, Michigan Republican, and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns, Florida Republican, to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the Fremont, Calif.-based solar panel manufacturer should never have received a $535 million loan guarantee from the stimulus.*

The company became the first recipient of an Energy Department loan guarantee under the stimulus in March 2009, which was intended to “finance construction of the first phase of the company’s new manufacturing facilityâ€

EDITORIAL: Obama’s solar stimulus snafu

Government-subsidized green jobs aren’t evergreen


By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

President Obama made a high-profile visit in May 2010 to Solyndra Inc., a solar-panel manufacturing plant in Fremont, Calif. The company received $535 million in loans from the Energy Department and was a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s economic stimulus effort. “Companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future,â€

Whatever they were manufacturing will now be coming in by boat - FROM CHINA.

Competition in the solar marketplace is stiff, particularly from China, and Solyndra couldn’t make a profit. In the spring of 2010, the company spent around $3.5 million promoting an initial public stock offering (IPO) to raise $300 million to retire some of the government debt, but the company couldn’t escape an inconvenient truth: In the first three quarters of 2009, it grossed $59 million against production costs of $108 million. Solyndra argued that economies of scale would eventually drive down the red ink, but the investment community wasn’t impressed, and the IPO was withdrawn.