For those who don't know me, I'm from a very small town in south-east Indiana. One of those towns that's been demolished by the movement of factory jobs.
Which leads us to today. A company called Carbon Motors had agreed to take one of our empty factories and put it back to work. In this case making custom, from the ground up, police cars using fuel efficient tech, and other less environmentally negative ideas.
Seems delightful, doesn't it? Police get a vehicle designed from the ground up for policework (instead of using conversion kits to turn standard vehicles into police cruisers) and that vehicle is also considerably more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly to boot!
As you can tell by the title, that didn't quite play out. More below the groovy orange croissant:
CONNERSVILLE, IN — Today Carbon Motors Corporation, a homeland security technology company, announced that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has indicated that it will not proceed with Carbon’s $310 million application for a direct loan under the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) program. The ATVM program was established during the Bush administration and continued under the Obama administration.
That's what happened.
Furthermore:
"Since Solyndra became politicized last fall, the DOE has failed to make any other loans under the ATVM program, has pulled back one loan that it previously committed and, as of this month, the DOE has pushed aside the three remaining viable loans under active consideration,” said William Santana Li, chairman and chief executive officer, Carbon Motors Corporation.
So who's to blame here?
According to Carbon Motors:
"In failing to deploy the tax dollars that Congress allocated for the creation of advanced technology manufacturing jobs in the U.S., the DOE ATVM program represents a glaring failure of the Obama Administration to create jobs that are clearly within its power to create,” commented Li.
In my opinion, yes the DOE is partially to blame. Their decision shows an utter lack of...cojones, let's say.
What seems to be forgotten here is who exactly politicized the Solyndra issue.
Yes, our dear House Republicans, I'm pointing at you. Congratulations, your commitment to making sure the Obama presidency fails has claimed another victim... or in this case, approximately 10,000 victims across the nation, and 1500 specifically in my hometown.
We need to not forget what happened here. The DOE dropped the ball, and they aren't without fault for the fumble. But the fumble was not in a vacuum. It did have causes, and those causes need to be pointed out.