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Green Stimulus for Billionaires: Obama Bundler Pat Stryker, Company Invested Millions in Abound Solar, Recipient of $400M DOE Loan Guarantee

by | 6:04 am, September 30, 2011 | 5 Comments

Complete Colorado‘s Todd Shepherd first broke ground last September on the pay-to-play implications behind Abound Solar’s $400m Department of Energy loan guarantee touted by President Barack Obama in a July 2010 radio address and its connections to a Democratic Congresswoman seeking reelection and one of the state’s highest-profile Democratic donors.

Shepherd took a look at the political triangulation between former Rep. Betsy Markey (D, CO-4), Colorado billionaire and Colorado Democracy Alliance donor Pat Stryker, and Abound Solar. He noted the direct connection between Stryker’s company–Bohemian Companies–and its investment in Abound Solar, and the push for the DOE loan guarantee by Markey and other key Democrats. The amount of investment, however, was still unclear at that time, but Stryker’s connection to the company was not.

In many of the donations to Democratic candidates, Stryker is listed as “owner” of Bohemian Companies.

Amy Oliver, Shepherd’s colleague at Colorado’s Independence Institute, followed up on this story earlier this week with an extensive detailing of more of Stryker’s donations to Colorado (and national) Democratic interests, including donations to President Obama, and a deeper connection between Abound Solar and Bohemian Companies.

Abound Solar, then AVA Solar, completed several rounds of venture financing, concluding with a later round of equity financing worth more than $104,000,000 in August 2008 that included Stryker’s Bohemian Companies. Oliver noted a higher figure of $260m of equity financing, but it is unclear what role Bohemian Companies may have had in the larger investment figure.

Here’s the screencap of the announcement made by Abound Solar (listed as AVA Solar in the press release) of the $104m, prominently featuring Stryker’s Bohemian Companies, LLC:

avabohemian

While Stryker’s donations to Obama and other Democratic candidates and issue committees are no secret (she has given thousands to his campaign in the lead up to 2008 and in this cycle already), there’s an even bigger amount noted by President Obama’s Inaugural Committee. Stryker was a bundler for the President Obama, to the tune of $87,500:

strykerobama

Like Solyndra’s George Kaiser, Colorado also features an Obama bundler whose direct investments included a solar company that received $400m in loan guarantees from an eager Obama administration.

Beyond the financial connection alluded to in Shepherd’s report (linking to an image that showed Bohemian Companies as an investor of Abound Solar) and now confirmed as part of a $104m deal, the loan guarantee was awarded to a company that can best be described as harboring an inherent “culture of corruption” as noted by Hot Air and The Weekly Standard.

As early as 2007, Abound Solar–then AVA Solar, Inc.–received $3m from the DOE.

Michael Sandoval (aka El Presidente) is an occasional contributor to National Review Online’s Primary Event, and covered Colorado 2010 election for National Review Online’s Battle ’10 blog.

Category: 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Colorado Democracy Alliance, Colorado Politics, Corruption, Democrats, Elections, Environmentalism, Featured

Comments

  1.   Bnja
      September 30th, 2011 @ 8:05 am

    http://www.npr.org/2011/09/30/140930702/solar-titan-faces-funding-worries-after-solyndra

    First Solar got more than $50 million in local incentives for the Mesa factory and up to $5 billion in federal loan guarantees to get its utility projects financed…”First Solar is in big trouble. Big, big trouble,” says Gordon Johnson, a senior research analyst for Axiom Capital Management
    Despite slow and steady improvements, First Solar’s cadmium-telluride (CdTe) panels convert just 11.7% of the sunlight that hits them into electricity. That falls far behind the 20.1% efficient panels SunPower (Nasdaq: SPWRA ) (Nasdaq: SPWRB ) is making and the 16.4% efficiency Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL ) has reached.
    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/09/28/is-first-solar-becoming-obsolete.aspx
    As panel costs fall, the balance of system costs becomes more important, highlighting First Solar’s current conundrum. A less efficient panel requires more land, more labor to install, and more auxiliary components than higher efficiency panels. And with feed-in tariffs now leaning on rooftop installations in Europe, First Solar is now behind the curve.

  2.   Karen LaValley
      September 30th, 2011 @ 5:51 pm

    Ya think that stimulus to these solar companies, some with probably corrupt CEOs can amount to .0000001% of the stimulus that was given to Haliburton???? for wars that have killed hundreds of thousans??? come on your bias is so showing

  3.   T.L. James
      September 30th, 2011 @ 7:56 pm

    Your comment might be more persuasive if you actually figured out the percentage. And if you learned proper spelling. And if you made an effort to use correct grammar.

    You do, however, earn points for recycling. It’s nice you’ve found new uses for those old Bush-hate tropes instead of letting them go to waste.

  4.   Todd Shepherd
      October 1st, 2011 @ 12:23 am

    Karen:

    I love ya, but “stimulus” as defined by the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”….hmm, doubt that much went to Haliburton, altho I may need to check, but doubt it totals in the millions of dollars.

    Now if we’re just talking money from the federal government, well, nothing changes the fact that Haliburton exchanged a needed good and service to the US gvmnt.

    And finally, we both know, two wrongs don’t make a right. :)

    ts

  5.   Peoples Press Collective | Colorado Politics | Breaking: National Renewable Energy Laboratory Cutting 10% of Workforce after Millions in Stimulus :
      October 3rd, 2011 @ 7:52 pm

    [...] has sponsored many Colorado projects through the Department of Energy, including a fledgling Abound Solar that later earned a $400 million loan guarantee from the DOE. Category: 2012 Election, Barack [...]

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