Danny Weiss, (pictured nearby) tough guy chief of staff and PR flack for Rep George Miller (D-Martinez) turned on the afterburner of full, scorched-earth damage control as he white washed any connection Miller the elder had with his son’s firm’s lobbying activities and Rep Miller’s own attempts to secure loan guarantees and crony capitalist government contracts for SunPower, a troubled company deep in debt with business in George Miller’s district. Yes it’s that SunPower with an R&D facility in greener than green Richmond, CA. You get the picture.
According to the Martinez Gazette’s home town softball rendition of the SunPower coverup, Weiss also threatened those that question iffy dealings by elected officials, “Weiss went on to call the allegation that Miller weighed in on his son’s behalf in securing the federal loan guarantee to SunPower “completely not true,” a “total distortion,” and warned it was “dangerous to repeat that.”
Weiss likened any attempt to find out what really went on as a right wing attack on renewable energy!
Really?
There are some very easy questions Miller or his mouthpiece Weiss could answer.
When did Rep. George Miller write his letter supporting the SunPower loan? Was it before or after he learned his son’s firm (LHOM) was paid $140,000 to represent SunPower?
What was the purchase price for the California Valley Solar Ranch that SunPower still owns? Why are the papers sealed?
Tell us who cajoled MDUSD into contracting with SunPower to illegally use Measure C monies (and ARA monies) to install solar panels in the parking lots of schools throughout the district instead of on class room technology per language of the Measure? How’d that happen? Anyone want to help file an FOIA on that one? Don’t fool yourselves, the Measure C Oversight committee is already writing its own whitewash on this and other matters.
Man what a racket.
Weiss and other lefties at Think Progress, try to confuse the story as if the loan guarantee was not for SunPower but for NRG Energy for the construction of a poster-child solar energy farm in California called California Valley Solar Ranch (CVSR). SunPower still owns the project and will build it for its customer, NRG. The loan guarantee to NRG basically insures SunPower, will get paid by NRG!
Hell, after that it’s a shell game in which taxpayers don’t stand a chance no matter whether they grok renewable energy or not.
Wiess, too clever by half, would have you believe that the SunPower Mexican plant had nothing to do with the DOE money. Yet, as Neil MCacbe points out, if the panels made in Mexicali are used for CVSR, then it has everything to do with loan guarantees being used to send California jobs jobs south of the border, thank you George Miller!
How does Weiss, er, Miller (either one) justify $80 million dollars per job for the 350 jobs to build CVSR with solar panels built in Mexicali?
As an aside, if anything, these stories about jobs leaving California are more about anti-business policies that won’t let these types of facilities be built in California thanks to Miller’s career and Governor Brown and his ilk. So the band plays on.
Crony Capitalism abounds on the left as much as it does on the right. Trail lawyers, Banks, Finance, Corn, Oil, and now the new shibboleth green tech and its holy priesthood. And boy do they get self righteous when people call them on their shit.
But if tough guy Weiss is correct, if you object to this sort of waste and favoritism of the rich you are considered an enemy of the people. If you point out inconsistencies or ask for transparency, you are labelled a pariah. And when you call a crooked deal a crooked deal, you get threatened by a horse’s ass like Weiss.
Bill Gram-Reefer is Editor & Publisher of Halfway To Concord, founded in 2004. Halfway To Concord is the leading online source for community-driven political news, events, and opinion for Contra Costa County and the San Francisco East Bay.
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On the issue of the Mt. Diablo Unified Measure C 2010 Bond Oversight Committee (BOC) I want to point out that not all members of the committee are participating in the alleged “whitewash” of district misconduct. Alicia Minyen, who replaced me as the taxpayer advocate on the committee after I was elected to the Pleasant Hill city council, has done an outstanding job of detailing a host of violations of Prop 39 and The Strict Bond Accountability Act, as well as the Brown Act and the California Public Records Act.
The committee leadership, clearly biased in favor of the district’s plans and conduct, has tried to silence her, without success. The district has also tried to ignore her and evade answering questions she has posed, acting in her role as a public watchdog. There is at least one other member of the BOC who is dissatisfied with the district’s conduct, and board member Cheryl Hansen has voiced her opposition to many aspects of the bond program.
Stay tuned for the next action step to be undertaken by Alicia and our grass roots support group, “Better Schools; Brighter Futures.”
By the way, the district has been forced to acknowledge that it failed to meet its oversight responsibilities regarding the 2002 bond. The district is recruiting candidates for that committee. Unless district residents wish to see a repeat of the stacked and dysfunctional 2010 BOC, they should consider applying by visiting the district’s web site. For more information, contact me at pleasanthilltpa@aol.com.
Just another American Scumbag (http://americanscumbags.blogspot.com/)
it Looks like the Miller / SunPower plot thickens. The answers will be interesting if and when they materialize. I Wonder what the commission amount was for getting our school’s Solar Panel boondoggle contract to their client, as well as the dollar amounts bid by the 12 competing companies???
The C.C. Times article I saw on this seemed like it was “rushing to judgment” that there was NO impropriety in the coincidence that Miller Jr. the 4th’s company got both contracts. I hope that the CC. Times, will take a more professional and OBJECTIVE look at the deal now. We shall see…..if they respond candidly to the FOIA requests.
More Q’s for SunPower, Miller & Son
by Neil W. McCabe
Rep. George Miller III (left) stands with Interior Secretary Kenneth L. Salazar during a Oct. 14, 2010 tour of SunPower’s Richmond, Calif., plant. A member of Miller’s staff told HUMAN EVENTS that it was during this tour that the congressman first learned that SunPower hired a company owned by his son as its lobbyist. The company paid Lang, Hansen, O’Malley and Miller $176,000 in lobbying fees.
HUMAN EVENTS filed Freedom of Information Act requests on Oct. 21 to more deeply investigate a star-crossed California solar company championed by a Democratic Capitol Hill power broker and his lobbyist son.
The document request, made in partnership with Judicial Watch, the Washington-based government watchdog, was filed after weeks of unsuccessfully requesting answers to the questions about circumstances surrounding the $1.2 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy’s 1705 program applied for by San Jose, Calif.-based SunPower, which was approved hours before the program expired on Sept. 30.
The same day, SunPower received a $100 million contract from the Navy to provide electrical power to the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, in California, beating out 12 other proposals.
In support of the loan request, Rep. George Miller III, the co-chairman of the policy and steering committee for House Democrats, wrote a letter to the Department of Energy and led Secretary of the Interior Kenneth L. Salazar on an Oct. 14, 2010, tour of the company’s facility in Richmond, Calif.
The congressman’s son, George Miller IV is a founding partner and principal in the influence-peddling firm Lang, Hansen, O’Malley & Miller, which billed the solar company $176,000 in lobbying fees, starting in 2009.
The loan guarantee was designated to support a joint venture between SunPower and NRG Energy of Princeton, N.J., called the California Valley Solar Ranch. The ranch is currently being built by SunPower in the Golden State’s San Luis Obispo County.
Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, said he was happy for the opportunity to join HUMAN EVENTS in the investigation.
“This has all the hallmarks of a classic Washington scandal,” he said. “One would think that Messrs. Miller would want these documents out there as much as we do.”
The Freedom of Information Act requests were submitted to the departments of Treasury, Energy, Interior and Navy.
Questions that persist:
Q: What was the purchase price for the California Valley Solar Ranch?
Both NRG and SunPower have refused to release the price NRG paid SunPower for the facility. Neither company has revealed the rent NRG will pay SunPower, because although it sold the project, it retained ownership.
Q: Who did SunPower buy the land from, and what was the price?
Despite multiple inquiries, the company will not disclose either answer. SunPower also filed sale documents with the county assessor’s office using a provision of California state law that keeps the paperwork closed to the public.
The company has not yet requested a tax abatement, but there are provisions in California’s tax code that provide significant tax breaks to companies involved in renewable energy.
Q: What was the role of Amelia Jenkins in securing for SunPower the initial approval of the loan guarantee in April 2011? What has been her ongoing role in this project?
Amelia Jenkins is a former staffer for the congressman on Capitol Hill in his personal office, and on the staff of the House Natural Resources Committee. Jenkins now serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy, and would be in a key position to shepherd along one of her old boss’s favorite projects.
Q: What is the date and text of the letter Miller the Elder wrote to the DOE in favor of the guarantee for SunPower.
In published reports, both the Rep. Miller and Daniel Weiss, his chief of staff, have said the congressman had no idea SunPower had hired his son’s firm. In an Oct. 7 story in the Contra Costa Times, Miller is quoted by reporter Lisa Vorderbrueggen: “My son and I do not talk business.”
Weiss told HUMAN EVENTS that his boss first learned his son’s company was lobbying for SunPower on the tour of the Richmond plant, when a member of the entourage approached the elder Miller to introduce himself as an employee of Lang, Hansen, O’Malley & Miller.
Lobbyist George Miller IV (right) poses after winning a May 6 youth charity golf tournament sponsored by many of his firm’s clients, including Altria, formerly known as Phillip Morris. Miller, a former staffer for Rep. Daniel D. Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), is the son of Capitol Hill potentate Rep. George Miller III (D-Calif.).
The FOIA request of the Department of the Interior specifically asks for information relating to the tour of the Richmond plant. Among other issues, it is important to find out who from LHOM was representing SunPower on an official event centered around two federal officials and their staffs, a cabinet officer and a member of Congress. The firm is not registered to lobby on the federal-level for SunPower.
The congressman has already admitted sending a letter on behalf of SunPower to the DOE. But if the letter was written after the Richmond plant tour, it was in the full knowledge that his son’s firm was lobbying for SunPower.
Weiss was asked if and when the congressman told Salazar directly that his son’s company was working for SunPower. There has been no reply.
The DOI media relations was asked if and when Salazar knew SunPower had hired Miller the Younger’s company. There has been no reply.
Q: What was the role of the congressman in securing the Navy contract for SunPower?
Weiss said his boss had no role in helping SunPower win the China Lake contract.
In an Oct. 11 interview with a public affairs officer at Naval Base Port Hueneme, in California, about the China Lake contract, the officer said it had received instructions from Washington not to discuss the SunPower contract beyond the basic information in the press release.
This included questions about the 12 losing proposals.
The reason they were told to clamp up was that Navy Secretary Raymond E. Mabus Jr. would be making the formal announcement of the contract on Oct. 13, the Navy’s birthday, in his address to the Naval Energy Forum at Washington ‘s Reagan Center, he said.
However, when Mabus spoke, he devoted the bulk of his remarks to biofuels, except for an extended description of subjects such as how Marines use solar panels and blankets, and the number of batteries they must carry into battle in Afghanistan.
After the speech, the secretary was expected to talk to defense and mainstream reporters in the reception area outside the room, but that was canceled without explanation.
Q: What was the role of the congressman in directing American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or “stimulus” funds to pay SunPower to install solar panels on 90 public schools in Miller’s congressional district?
The mass installation of SunPower panels includes long-term maintenance contracts to the company—all exempted from federal competitive bidding requirements.
Federal agencies have 20 business days to respond to FOIA requests.