Larry Behrens is the Communications Director for Power The Future. He has appeared on Fox News and in ZeroHedge speaking in defense of American energy workers. He is the author of the book “Sabotage: How Joe Biden Surrendered American Energy Independence.”
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Believe it or not, Solyndra may not be the biggest embarrassment in Joe Biden’s monument of green failures when all is said and done.
Last August in the desert southwest of New Mexico, Biden ally Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham proudly announced a “one billion dollar manufacturing investment.” The idea was to use hundreds of millions in state dollars and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to help a project “double the size of the largest solar manufacturing facility currently operating in the United States.” The exact price tag for taxpayers to fund the Maxeon project would later be revealed to be around $600 million.
The announcement included all the required platitudes and back-patting of politicians required of every green dream funded by taxpayers. They celebrated the promise of nearly 2,000 jobs and a solar manufacturing stronghold in the United States. Construction was to begin in the first quarter of 2024. The future was so bright, they had to wear shades! However, they were not shielded against reality.
About 60 days after their celebration, the company selected for the solar project announced they would lay of 15 percent of their global workforce. The next red flag popped up when Maxeon then delayed their 2023 earnings report, and their first quarter 2024 report. Those delays brought with them non-compliance troublewith NASDAQ. Which in turn lead to at least one investigation into possible violations of federal securities laws. If all that was not enough, the stock price for the company cratered from $24.74 per share in August all the way down to $1.88, as of this writing. The bottom line: the stock price from a company that wants Joe Biden to invest your millions lost over 90 percent in just one year.
Maxeon was in need of a big boost, and it got one from Beijing.
When they finally released their earnings for 2023, Maxeon revealed their new largest shareholder is now China-based. The infusion of nearly $200 million is no doubt welcome, however it should bring some serious scrutiny from Washington.
Since the Biden Administration recently flip-flopped and imposed sanctions on China, including their solar products, it is not clear how this will impact the newly minted China-owned company. More concerning is how the Biden Administration will treat the company as they apply for federal funds. According to New Mexico, the company has applications under review by the Department of Energy (DOE.)
If approved, the Biden Administration would green light a China-backed company to build the largest solar manufacturing facility in the country. And if the project ever gets off the ground and becomes profitable, that means that American tax dollars would be paving the way for Chinese profits.
Not surprisingly, Maxeon missed the “first quarter of 2024” deadline for construction and the deadlines for the project keep slipping. It is clear this company and this project are not viable enough to make it on its own without a taxpayer investment that is even larger than Solyndra’s.
American taxpayers should not be on the hook for Joe Biden’s green dream fantasy that is full of red flags.
