As nearly 3 million people in the Northeast shivered with no power after the freak snowstorm nine days ago — thanks, in part, to a decaying electricity-delivery system — yet another “green” energy company backed by President Obama bit the dust.
Does Washington ever think about its priorities?
Meet Massachusetts-based Beacon Energy, the East Coast’s answer to Solyndra.
Beacon was awarded a $43 million federal loan guarantee to build a power-storage station east of Albany that would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. It also scooped up a $24 million stimulus grant in 2009.
None of that seemed to make much difference: In the first six months of the year, the firm posted a $16.9 million loss; then it declared bankruptcy, and its stock bottomed out at 10 cents a share.
Beacon isn’t even the worst loss for taxpayers under the Energy Department’s green-loans program — and it’s not likely to be the last federally funded firm to go belly-up.
Yet Obama’s stimulus plan lavished $100 billion on green-energy projects — nearly 15 times the amount spent replacing and reinforcing power lines, which actually serve customers and keep them out of the dark.
Now, we’re no fans of fruitless stimulus spending, or of lavishing taxpayer cash on politically connected companies.
But if the White House is going to throw taxpayer money around, wouldn’t it make a bit more sense to send some to areas like the East Coast, to bring its electricity-delivery system up to grade — so that no one gets hit by another October surprise — rather than waste it on “green” energy companies that can’t cut it in the marketplace?
It sure would seem so — that is, to everyone but Obama and his fellow Democrats.