We can’t afford Commerce Secretary nominee/solar subsidy mogul John Bryson
The White House is foisting Commerce Secretary nominee John Bryson on the public.
Harry Reid wants a vote this week.
GOP Sen. James Inhofe is leading the opposition, such as it is. Time for Tea Party activists to mobilize. Call your Senators – 202- 224- 3121. We can’t afford another eco-radical crony with more power to muck up the battered economy.
“We hope to lock in an agreement on the third — on three district court judges as well as the nomination of John Bryson to be Commerce secretary,” Reid said on the floor Wednesday morning.
Senate Republicans were holding up Bryson’s nomination until three key trade deals were moved forward. Congress approved those trade deals last week.
But some Republicans nonetheless remain opposed to Bryson’s nomination, citing the former energy company executive’s past support for cap-and-trade legislation and his role in founding a major environmental group in the 1970s.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), an outspoken skeptic on climate change, placed a hold on Bryson’s nomination in June, citing concerns about his energy and environmental record.
Matt Dempsey, Inhofe’s spokesman, told The Hill Wednesday that the hold still stands, and that Inhofe will object to any effort to vote on Bryson’s nomination without an extended floor debate.
The Oklahoma senator is reaching out to his Republican colleagues “to remind them of the concerns he had months ago and get those back to the forefront,” Dempsey said.
From Inhofe’s office:
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is trying to rally members of his party to oppose the confirmation of President Obama’s pick for Commerce secretary, John Bryson.
Inhofe spoke out against the environmentalist and businessman yesterday at the weekly Senate GOP caucus luncheon. The lawmaker’s efforts come as the Senate prepares for a potential vote on the long-stalled nomination.
Obama named Bryson as his pick to lead the Commerce Department in May, but his confirmation was put on hold when senators declined to move any Commerce nominees until the Obama administration sent to Congress three free-trade agreements. The approval of those agreements last week opened the door for the Commerce nominees.
Senate leadership sent out a “hotline” on the nomination yesterday morning to see if they could approve Bryson without debate or objection. But multiple senators said they would block the nominee, according to Democratic and GOP aides. Inhofe has been the most vocal opponent of Bryson.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters yesterday that he had hoped to expedite Bryson’s nomination but would instead have to file cloture, which would set a timeline for debate before voting on the nominee. That also means Reid would have to gather at least 60 votes to advance the nomination.
Inhofe spoke to his colleagues yesterday to raise concerns about Bryson, who he thinks will favor alternative energy to the detriment of other industries and jobs.
Bryson, a former energy company executive and co-founder of the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, has come under fire from Inhofe and other Senate Republicans over his environmentalist past and his position on global climate change.
Inhofe has labeled Bryson a radical environmentalist for his founding of the NRDC and his past support for cap-and-trade climate legislation. Now he is tying Bryson’s support for alternative energy to the controversy over the administration’s grants for solar company Solyndra, which defaulted on its government loans.
“In reality what has happened is a lot of people have forgotten about the Bryson nomination because it was a while ago. Senator Inhofe wanted to bring those issues back to the forefront,” Inhofe spokesman Matt Dempsey said yesterday.
Since his nomination, Bryson has sought to downplay his connection to the NRDC and distance himself from his conservationist past. He has spoken in favor of an “all of the above” energy policy and said that if approved for the position he would focus on jobs — not an environmentalist agenda (E&E Daily, June 22).
Bryson is a former member of the United Nations’ advisory group on energy and climate change, and he publicly called the Democratic climate change bill passed by the House in 2009 “moderate.” The controversial effort to curb carbon emissions failed in the Senate.
Refresher course, WSJ – Secretary of Subsidy:
President Obama nominated John Bryson to head the Commerce Department on Tuesday, praising the Californian as “a business leader who understands what it takes to innovate, create jobs and to persevere through tough times.” That’s one way of describing someone with a talent for scoring government subsidies.
Mr. Bryson, who had a long tenure running California energy company Edison International, has more recently served as chairman of BrightSource Energy, a startup specializing in solar-thermal power. Founded in 2004, the company has attracted more than $500 million in private funding and has become a renewables darling, with agreements to supply electricity to California utilities PG&E and Southern California Edison.
That’s the good news. But the company’s SEC filing in April for a $250 million IPO tells a more, er, interesting story.
The company has posted a string of net losses, totaling $177 million. Much of its $32 million in revenue over the past three years has come not from power generation, but from a contract with Chevron to use its technology to recover . . . not-so-renewable heavy oil. The filing advises investors that BrightSource has “generated substantial net losses and negative operating cash flows since our inception and expect[s] to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.”
There’s also trouble at its flagship venture, a 3,600-acre solar project in the Mojave desert called Ivanpah. In April, the Bureau of Land Management suspended some construction in the name of “threatened” desert tortoises. The company faces at least two lawsuits from environmental coalitions. Its technology has never been implemented on a “utility-scale” project, it depends on “unproven” equipment necessary to clean the Mojave dust off its solar mirrors, and the project faces potential cost overruns. The Energy Information Agency also lists solar-thermal as the most expensive source of energy on the books?making offshore wind look cheap by comparison.
Fortunately for BrightSource, its efforts are sustained by an impressive array of federal, state and local subsidies, including a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, one of the largest solar guarantees on record. The company notes federal provisions providing solar projects with a 30% investment tax credit through 2016, as well as accelerated depreciations of capital costs for solar entities, among other goodies.
The risk is that the subsidy spigot could someday be turned off as voters get wise to the high costs, economic inefficiencies and unintended environmental side-effects of renewables. That’s a possibility the filing acknowledges, though it adds brightly that it expects demand to “continue to increase as a result of regulatory policies and incentives put in place to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and improve energy security.” As an example, it points to California legislation requiring retail energy sellers to “derive 33% of the energy they supply from renewable energy sources by 2020.”
We have enough of these solar hucksters infesting 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Enough is enough.
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Related Solyndra news:
Solyndra Investor’s U.S. Tax Status Faulted by Senate’s Grassley
Calif. green tax breaks in question
In-house Counsel on All Sides Under Pressure on Solyndra Loan
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Just another one of Obama’s bright ideas…
You know if bho is for someone, they have to be as nasty and evil as he is! NOT one single human bho has supported for any agency is pure as the driven snow!
L
Confirmed; Dumb as a post.
Next nominee please.
It’s a known fact that no member of TEH WON’s cabinet is allowed to outshine his aura, brilliance and genius. I.E., they are forbidden to be smarter or better looking than he thinks he is.
i want a real filabuster, not a gentlemans filabuster, bring out the mattresses!!
filibuster, sorry, my bad
Another example of crony capitalism/creeping socialism.
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Just what we need–another environmental “greenie” who specializes in shoveling taxpayer subsidy money into failing “energy” “businesses”.
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And Nevada’s corruptocrat leader Dingy Harry Reid wants to “expedite” the confirmation vote on this clown. After all–he could create or save another 1 million jobs!
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Why not just put Van Jones in as the new CZAR for this position? Pretty quick–and no confirmation needed.
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Come on, Nov. 2012. It can’t get here fast enough.
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John Bibb
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Aereon: [to Riddick] There are very few of us who have met a Necromonger and lived to speak of it. So when I choose to speak of it, you should choose to listen.
WSJ said:
I believe they are called squeegees.
Agghh! Everything’s complicated w/ these enviro nitwits isn’t it? I’m w/ Hawkeye54 on this. Just line-out the whole Dept. and move on. Make those calls people!
rocketman said:
Pretty obvious Bryson was groomed to run interference for Solar-Powered Corruption Inc. To explain away why we simpletons can’t comprehend just how delicate billion dollar boondoggles are?
As with presidential candidates, I care a lot less about what he says he will do than I care about what his past predicts that he will do.
Vaako (Bryson): Obedience without question. Loyalty until Underverse come.
I think a lot of people are missing one of Michelle’s main points, that the Senate GOP cut a deal to approve this nut once they got their free-trade deals passed.
That is how selling out your country works in a corrupt one-party system works. One hand washes the other. If you don’t wash your hands, all of that noseholding will lead to infections.
Dems in a nutshell. And I do mean nuts. Double-down on stupid – using tax money.
How incompetent do you have to be to fail at solar in the desert?
My thought exactly, what better guy to run interference for you than one who has skin in the game (with brightsource and the NRDC).
Let’s take a look at the campaign contributions of Mr. Bryson:
“Bryson has been active politically, contributing about $71,000 to federal candidates and Edison’s political action committee since 1990, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Most of his direct contributions went to Democrats, including $2,400 to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California in 2009 and $1,000 to President Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign.” Los Angeles Times.
If you look further into this,Bryson gave almost $23K to Obama election in 2008, and he gives to Dems 3 times as much as the few Repubs he gave contributions to.
This is the same bogus cronyism that obeyme criticizes others for.
“
Quick fact check Phil,
They agreed to move the nomination to a vote after the trade agreements were released from their hostage status. Not approve. Vote
The rest of your sentiment, I agree with. Mostly.
I’ll say one thing about Obama. He has balls. Big, brass ones.
A lack of eco-sophistication isn’t exactly something one wants to put on display? ( sarc )
That’s the infuriating part. There IS no ‘breakthrough’ coming! Now or ever. It is what it is and yields what it yields. No matter -how- much money you’re willing to throw at it. Well, OPM?
No, he’s here for defense. There’s no way to move forward w/ more eco-moonbattery other than what’s already in the pipeline. NOT… encouraging counter-eco-economic ‘activists’ but how hard is it to imagine these remote boondoggles will become targets of vandals, ‘frustration’ etc?
I’m very proud of my Enron golf shirt and Arthur Anderson tees!
Remember John Bolton.
Let NO Obama/Dem nominee move forward.
None.
Could be but we really don’t know. We mostly just read the score without the background.
Talk about subliminal? Just noticed Michelle did the headline to the article in eco-GREEN!
Rather nice touch I thought.
I graduated in ’65 from Stanford with this clown. Along with Valerie Jarrett, maybe I’ll leave my BS off my resume from now on.
Good news — maybe during hearings, we can have a thorough and public Solyndra redux!!
Even with massive taxpayer subsidies
his green company is falling on its face. I guess that qualifies someone for a high-paying job in this admin.
to the tune of New York New York
if it can’t make it there
it can’t make it anywhere…
I have read that Texas has the largest wind generating capability of any state. We had a rather warmish summer this year and power plants were maxing out. When we needed it the most wind could not produce 3% of the demand.
Solar will have similar contributions.
DanMan,
We’re confident if you Texans painted a Green corp. logo on each and every wind turbine blade elec. output could increase by 70%. Or .7%, we’re not really sure?
Subsidy bundlers assure us with the proper proportions of just the right amount of graphite, kevlar, Benjamins and low resistance bonding agents, efficiencies of upwards of .007% can and WILL be achieved!
You just gotta’ believe man?
Even The Donald says solar tech stuff has to be repaired and / or replaced long before it ever pays for itself ! The Law of Diminishing Return .
When I hear “green”, I see RED !
A Californian for Commerce Secretary?
Who ran a California energy company?
Chairman of a solar-thermal power startup?
Who got solar energy loan guarantees from the DOE?
Supported cap’n'trade?
Was a member of the UN energy and climate change advisory group?
And Repubs are even considering voting on confirmation?
And what is it with Orerun and his rehashed repeats?
Again, we are screwed.
Anybody got the vote breakdown?