Colorado state Rep. Max Tyler, D-Lakewood, was a prime sponsor of HB10-1001, which raised Colorado’s renewable energy standard to 30% of electricity generated by 2020. At an AFL-CIO rally on March 5, 2010, Tyler celebrated the bill’s passage through the state Senate, on its way to being signed into law…
“The second thing it does, it’s going to expand the playing field for solar, hydro, and other renewable energy sources, on the rooftops, in residences, in communities, small communities. And guess what that’s going to do? That’s gonna fire up, it’s gonna generate new business, new small businesses, new jobs. Ten thousand new jobs are gonna come from this bill, and this is just the start of what we’re working on in the legislature this year.”
Oops. ColoradoWatchdog.org reports that “Loveland-based Abound Solar removed an entire rooftop of solar panels from the investment headquarters of wealthy Democrat benefactor Pat Stryker, likely because of inherent product defects.” So much for the rooftops.
Meanwhile, The Washington Examiner reports that Abound has laid off 280 workers earlier this year, and only employs 125, as opposed to the 1,200 claimed on the DOE Loan Program Office website, which describes the $400 million loan guarantee to the company.
Here’s more sunshine…
- A Congressional Oversight Committee Report from March of this year cited Abound’s “ties to Democratic politicians at the federal level and the state level in Colorado” and Stryker as “a major Democratic donor who Forbes included on its 2011 list of top liberal spenders.”
- Stryker’s Bohemian Companies LLC was an “early investor in Abound Solar. Abound stood to benefit from DOE loan guarantees and Colorado’s requirement that Xcel buy renewable power from producers like it.
- Stryker maxed out with $400 contributions to Tyler’s 2010 campaign and current re-election effort. She also maxed out to the 2006 and 2010 campaigns of bill co-sponsor Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Aspen, and the 2010 campaign of bill co-sponsor Sen. Bruce Whitehead, D-Hesperus.
Neither solar – nor jobs at Abound – may abound, but ironies and campaign contributions certainly do.
