From NCPA
A heavily subsidized solar company received a U.S. taxpayer loan guarantee to sell solar panels to itself, says the Washington Examiner.
First Solar is the company and the subsidy came from the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im).
Here's the road of subsidies these solar panels followed from Perrysburg, Ohio, to St. Clair, Ontario.
- First Solar is an Arizona-based manufacturer of solar panels.
- In 2010, the Obama administration awarded the company $16.3 million to expand its factory in Ohio.
- In 2010, then-Ohio governor Ted Strickland announced more than a million dollars in job training grants to First Solar.
- The Ohio Department of Development also lent First Solar $5 million, and the state's Air Quality Development Authority gave the company an additional $10 million loan.
After First Solar pocketed this $17.3 million in government grants and $15 million in government loans, Ex-Im entered the scene.
- In September 2011, Ex-Im approved $455.7 million in loan guarantees to subsidize the sale of solar panels to two wind farms in Canada.
- That means if the wind farm ever defaults, the taxpayers pick up the tab, ensuring First Solar gets paid.
But the buyer, in this case, was First Solar. A small corporation called St. Clair Solar owned the wind farm and was the Canadian company buying First Solar's panels. But St. Clair Solar was a wholly owned subsidiary of First Solar. So, basically, First Solar was shipping its own solar panels from Ohio to a solar farm it owned in Canada, and the U.S. taxpayers were subsidizing this "export."
This subsidy undermines the arguments for Ex-Im's existence. Ex-Im, whose authorization expires May 31, is supposed to be a job creator, helping U.S. manufacturers beat foreign manufacturers by having U.S. taxpayers backstop the financing.
Source: Timothy P. Carney, "Firm Sells Solar Panels -- to Itself, Taxpayers Pay," Washington Examiner 03/19/2012 |