CBS Runs Error-Ridden Report On "New Solyndras"

[alp227]

In a misleading segment painting a skewed picture of the Department of Energy's clean tech investments, CBS News' new morning show purported to reveal 11 "New Solyndras" -- companies CBS said "are having trouble" or "have filed for bankruptcy" after receiving federal assistance. But CBS only identified 7 companies and included some that did not actually get federal funds.

(...)

CBS Report Filled With Errors And Misleading Omissions

AES Coal Power Subsidiary Went Bankrupt -- Not The Project Funded By DOE. The Associated Press reported on January 3 that AES Eastern Energy, a subsidiary of the huge global power company AES Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. AP noted:

AES Corp., based in Arlington, Va., said the bankruptcy wouldn't impact its bottom line in 2011 and didn't revise its profit estimates for the year. It will report its fourth-quarter and full-year financial results in February.

AES Eastern Energy operates four coal-fired power plants that were acquired from New York State Electric & Gas in 1999. Its business has struggled with low profit margins because of the high cost of coal and a decline in power prices. (Associated Press, 1/3/12)

* Loan Guarantee Went To A Separate Subsidiary Of AES For An Energy Storage System. The $17.1 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy went to AES Energy Storage LLC, a subsidiary of AES Corp, to "support the construction of a 20 megawatt (MW) energy storage system using advanced lithium-ion batteries" in Johnson City, New York. (Department of Energy, 12/23/10)

full: http://mediamatters.org/research/201201130017

This report was by Sharyl Attkisson. Charlie Rose and Gayle King anchor this new morning show named after CBS' morning program that ran from 1987-1999. CBS This Morning aims to be more news-oriented and serious than the other network morning shows. Unfortunately, it appears that CBS is sinking worse than Fox News. At least the Bush National Guard memos had a modicum of truth.

[hay rick]

1. The inclusion of "Solyndra" in the title of any MSM report is a license to ignore facts.

More from the article:

"Default Rate For Loan Guarantee Program Is Much Less Than What Government Budgeted For Losses. Bloomberg reported that the government "planned for defaults of as much as 12.85 percent" for the loan guarantee program, and that as of now, the default rate "is less than 3.6 percent. CBS did not mention this fact. [Bloomberg News, 11/10/11]

Most Of The Loans Guarantees Have Almost No Risk Of Default. To date CBS has not covered a Bloomberg Government analysis of the Department of Energy's 1705 loan guarantee program, which found that 87 percent of the value of all the 1705 loan guarantees (18 of the 28 projects) went to power generation projects, as opposed to manufacturing projects like Solyndra's factory. The flawed CBS report mentioned several of these projects among the purported "New Solyndras." The DOE required generation projects to secure a buyer before receiving a loan guarantee -- ensuring stable revenue and significantly reducing the risk of the investment. In fact, Shayle Kann, a solar power market expert at GTM Research, has said that these projects have almost no risk of default. [Media Matters, 12/6/11]

CBS Featured Pundit Misrepresenting Steven Chu's Background, Role. CBS apparently only interviewed conservative economist Peter Morici for the report. Morici said: "Tasking a Nobel price mathematician to make investments for the U.S. government is like asking the manager of the New York Yankees to be the general in charge of America's troops in Afghanistan. It's that absurd." [CBS, This Morning, 1/13/12]
...
Actual Head Of The Loan Guarantee Office Was Former Venture Capitalist. Politico reported that Jonathan Silver, who was the head of the DOE loan programs office, was previously "was a managing director of Core Capital Partners, a early-stage investor in alternative energy technology, advanced manufacturing, telecommunications and software, which he co-founded in 1999." [Politico, 10/6/11]"

[underpants]

2. Solyndra was approved by the Bush mis-administration

yes the Obama administration supported it but that may well have been to prop up a bad decision by their predecessors.

BTW - the "gun running" programs at ATFE started in 2005. That is NEVER mentioned in stories about "Fast and Furious".