Romney's Falsehoods in First Debate Further Defined

Mitt Romney's assertion that the $90 billion which went to green energy projects under the Obama Administration has rankled those of us who care about advanced technology and next generation energy.  Romney's remark is worth repeating:

MR. ROMNEY: And -- and in one year, you provided $90 billion in breaks to the green energy world. Now, I like green energy as well, but that’s about 50 years’ worth of what oil and gas receives, and you say Exxon and Mobil -- actually, this $2.8 billion goes largely to small companies, to drilling operators and so forth.

But you know, if we get that tax rate from 35 percent down to 25 percent, why, that $2.8 billion is on the table. Of course it’s on the table. That’s probably not going to survive, you get that rate down to 25 percent.

But -- but don’t forget, you put $90 billion -- like 50 years worth of breaks -- into solar and wind, to -- to Solyndra and Fisker and Tesla and Ener1. I mean, I -- I had a friend who said, you don’t just pick the winners and losers; you pick the losers. All right? So -- so this is not -- this is not the kind of policy you want to have if you want to get America energy-secure.

These erroneous statements demonstrate how little Romney has kept up with the energy issue since he was Governor of Massachusetts - or closer to the truth - how beholden he is to his energy contributors who are all fossil fuel based.  

As part of the $800 billion 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the Obama administration provided about $90 billion in green energy programs which was subsequently put into a broad array of grants, loans and demonstration projects aimed at everything from updating our antiquated electric grid to carbon capture and storage projects needed to make coal “clean,” funding for energy efficiency projects; cleaning up old nuclear weapons sites; and research and development,. DOE has a breakdown here. 

 But where Romney was completely off the mark is when he asserted that “half” of the companies have gone out of business.  In fact, the DOE 1705 program has approved 33 loans worth about $16 billion. So far there have been three failures (Solyndra, Beacon, and Abound), which works out to a failure rate of approximately 9%. 

Michael Grunwald tweets that Romney's people later told him that "Mitt didn't mean to say half the stimulus-funded green firms failed."  Romney aides later said he meant to refer only to the Energy Department’s $40 billion loan guarantee program, but even here he was not even within hailing distance of the truth. The program has produced one notable casualty which Republicans cannot stop harping on — a solar panel company called Solyndra, and I know I am not the only one with Solyndra fatigue.