WASHINGTON -- Another one of President Obama’s “green jobs” companies has bitten the dust. Massachusetts-based Beacon Power Corp., which got a $43 million loan from the Department of Energy, filed for bankruptcy over the weekend -- sparking new questions about the troubled green-energy loan program.
The company’s collapse came just two months after California solar-power company Solyndra went under following a questionable $535 million loan from the same program funded by Obama’s stimulus law.
“This latest failure is a sharp reminder that DOE has fallen well short of delivering the stimulus jobs that were promised, and now taxpayers find themselves millions of more dollars in the hole,” said Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.).
Stearns is leading a House Energy and Commerce Committee probe into whether Obama campaign donors who also invested in Solyndra helped secure the generous federal loan guarantee for the ailing company.
The investigators are expected to subpoena the White House this week for more Solyndra documents.
The White House and the DOE deny any wrongdoing, and the president last week ordered an independent review of the loan program.
Beacon Power used some $39 million of its loan guarantee to build a $69 million, 20-megawatt plant in Stephentown, NY.
