Harry Reid’s Pet Green Project Goes Solyndra on Him

From Townhall

Another federally subsidized green project bites the dust. The Amonix solar facility in Las Vegas, according to former employees, has been out of operation since May of this year. The solar facility was backed by $21.5 million in federal grants and tax breaks. Naturally, Harry Reid was an early and vocal supporter of this undertaking.

If solar panel production at the facility has permanently ceased, it could prove awkward for Reid, who touted the “permanent green jobs” that Amonix’s Nevada business supposedly represented. The company laid off 200 employees in January.

In May of 2010, Reid attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the facility. “Amonix is taking full advantage of a tax credit from the Recovery Act and is helping Nevada lead the way in producing clean energy,” Reid said at the time. “I’ve pushed hard to establish a clean energy industry in Nevada that will diversify our economy and protect us from future economic downturns.”

Amonix would be the second Nevada-based – and Reid-backed – green energy project to hit dire financial straits in recent weeks. Nevada Geothermal, which received a $98 million stimulus loan guarantee, announced in a recent SEC filing that “material uncertainties exist which cast significant doubt upon the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

Like Amonix, Nevada Geothermal received significant support from Reid before obtaining taxpayer backing. According to the New York Times, Reid “pressur[ed] the Department of Interior to move more quickly on applications to build clean energy projects on federally owned land and urg[ed] other member of Congress to expand federal tax incentives to help build geothermal plants, benefits that Nevada Geothermal has taken advantage of.”

Like so many big-government failures in recent years, this effort enjoyed bipartisan support. Amonix, the California based company that created the Las Vegas solar facility, received a $15.6 million grant from George W. Bush’s Department of Energy in 2007. Nevada’s Republican Governor, Brian Sandoval, joined Harry Reid in backing Amonix’s Las Vegas solar facility.

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From Gateway Pundit

In August 2010 Obama Praised Success of Solar Giant Amonix… This Week It Went Bust (Video)

In August 2010 Barack Obama praised the success of Amonix solar manufacturing plant.
The Obama Administration dumped more than $20 million in federal tax credits and grants on the green energy giant.

President Barack Obama spoke about the economy at the University of Nevada Las Vegas in August 2010. In his address, President Obama described Amonix as a “success story”.

This week it went bust.
The Las Vegas Journal Review reported:

The Amonix solar manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, subsidized by more than $20 million in federal tax credits and grants has closed its 214,000-square-foot facility about a year after it opened.

Officials at Amonix headquarters in Seal Beach, Calif., have not responded to repeated calls for comment this week, but the company began selling equipment, from automated tooling systems to robotic welding cells, in an online auction Wednesday.

A designer and manufacturer of concentrated photovoltaic solar power systems,Amonix received $6 million in federal tax credits for the North Las Vegas plant and a $15.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2007 for research and development.

Rene Kenerly, a former material and supply manager at Amonix, said the plant has been idle since May 1, when he was laid off. At its peak, the plant had about 700 employees working three shifts a day to produce solar panels for a utility in Amarosa, Colo., he said.

Just last week David G. Frantz, Acting Executive Director of the Loan Program Office for the U.S. Department of Energy, called the DOE Loan Guarantee program an “enormous success.” With the demise of Amonix there have now been 20 clean energy companiessupported by President Obama’s stimulus that are failing or have filed for bankruptcy costing billions of dollars.
And you’re stuck with the bill.