US republicans are calling for the investigation into the Obama administration’s Green Energy Loan Program to extend to loans to green car companies Tesla and Fisker.
According to The Detroit News, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants Congress to examine the Obama administration’s decision to loan nearly $1 billion to the two electrified car makers.
Republican representatives are becoming increasingly vocal about the way that money was handed out for ‘green’ projects following the bankruptcy solar panel maker Solyndra LLC, which took a $528 million federal loan before folding earlier this year, making over 1,100 employees redundant.
Now with Fisker more a year behind in its production of its luxury range-extended electric car, the Karma, President Obama seems certain to have the program’s decision to loan Fisker $529 million thoroughly scrutinised. Republicans are upset about Fisker’s decision to assemble the car in Finland even though the loans were designed to support American industry. The Karma is expected to arrive in US showrooms from next month.
Fisker asserts that not a single dollar of its Department for Energy (DoE) loan has been, or will be, spent outside of America. Furthermore its second, higher production and more affordable model, planned under ‘Project Nina’ will be built at the former GM plant in Delaware from 2013.
However Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, wrote an opinion column published in the Orange County-Register in which he counters that the company should not be loaning the firms money at all; "The U.S. government shouldn’t be playing venture capitalist. It’s not merely that government bureaucrats are bad at picking winners. The very process invites cronyism and outright corruption."
He also suggested the loans to the California companies were influenced by campaign donations. Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk is believed to be a major Democratic donor. His firm received a $465 million loan through the Green Energy Loan Program.
Romney also noted that Fisker investors, including former Vice President Al Gore, have donated more than $1 million to political campaigns, primarily to Democrats.
