SunPower Building Plant In Mexico

How did a failing California solar company, SunPower,  buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee?  The money is for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project.   The company received the money three weeks after it announced it was building a new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.

 The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization.  If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down.  Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain.

Representative George R. Miller III, (D.-CA), the senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee and the co-chairman of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee is a big SunPower rooter. His son George Miller IV is a SunPower lobbyist.

Representative Miller hosted an Oct. 14, 2010, tour of the plant with company CEO Thomas H. Werner and Interior Secretary Kenneth L. Salazar to promote the company’s fortunes.

“The path to a clean energy economy starts here, in places like SunPower’s research and development facility,” said Salazar during the tour.

 “The work that comes from these facilities transforms renewable energy ideas into a reality.  When renewable energy companies continue to invest in places like California, the realization of a new energy future is within our reach,” he said.

According to the Department of Energy (DOE) website, the CVSR project will create 350 construction jobs during the two-year build and 15 permanent jobs—presumably those are the squeegee men for keeping the panels clean.

If $80 million per permanent job seems a little high, even for the current Obama administration, you are correct.  In addition to the 350 construction jobs and the 15 squeegee men, there will an as-yet-undetermined number of jobs created building the panels for the CVSR—in Mexicali, Mexico.

 The company is looking for a facility of up to 320,000 square feet, where it will build three different solar panel models and its solar roof tiles, according the company’s Aug. 5 statement.

Marty T. Reese, the company's chief operating officer, said, “Establishing our own manufacturing facility in Mexicali means we will be positioned to quickly deliver our high-efficiency, high-reliability solar products to a growing North American solar market.”

American taxpayers are paying for a plant in Mexico.  The company is barely even with $1.2 billion of our money afloat.  How many real jobs could that money pay for in America?  Barack Obama and his corrupt administration don't care about American jobs.

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