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02/7/2013

Thursday, February 7, 2013 Morning News

The Drakes Bay Oyster Company has decided to appeal the judge’s decision to deny the motion for preliminary injunction. More from the Associated Press: 

The owners of a Northern California oyster farm that is scheduled to be removed from Point Reyes National Seashore are appealing a judge’s refusal to allow it to stay open while its lawsuit against the government proceeds. Drakes Bay Oyster Co. on Wednesday filed an appeal with the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Bloom Energy whistleblower speaks about the crony company’s mistreatment of workers. Read the account on Mercury News:

They traveled 1,300 miles and toiled long hours, earning the equivalent of $2.66 an hour in Mexican pesos while working in the Bay Area for acclaimed Silicon Valley tech startup Bloom Energy. “It wasn’t right what they were doing. It’s not the way to treat people,” said a former Bloom Energy contractor who claims he blew the whistle to authorities about the company’s mistreatment of the workers, who were brought to this country on visitor visas from the Bloom Energy plant in Chihuahua.

The Oversight Committee is demanding information from agencies who have failed to be transparent, delay FOIA requests. The Hill reports:

Scores of agencies across the federal government have failed to update their regulations involving the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), despite a 2009 directive from Attorney Gen. Eric Holder ordering them to adopt a “presumption of openness,” Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said. Additionally, the lawmakers pointed to a backlog of requests for information at some agencies, an excessive use of exemptions allowing officials to withhold information and exorbitant — and potentially illegal — fee assessments. 


President Obama continues to fill his cabinet, his latest pick for the Department of Interior.

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02/6/2013

Wednesday February 6, 2013 Morning News

More coverage of the Drakes Bay Oyster Conflict today. The Wall Street Journal reports (see also print edition, A4):

Its owners, Kevin and Nancy Lunny, declined to comment through Cause of Action, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group that represents them legally. “The Lunnys are weighing their options for next steps,” said Amber Abbasi, a lawyer for the group, in a statement.”

There is continued fallout from the NLRB case that overturned President Barack Obama’s recess appointments.  More from The Washington Free Beacon:

Critics of President Barack Obama’s recess appointments are calling on Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan to recuse herself from a potential Supreme Court hearing on the matter. The Chamber of Commerce raised the prospect of recusal, citing then-solicitor general Kagan’s defense of President Obama’s recess appointments in a previous case regarding the composition of the National Labor Relations Board.

Bloom Energy continues to reveal cronyism in their business dealings, this time paying workers nearly 2/3 less than minimum wage. Mercury News has this story:

A prominent Silicon Valley clean-energy startup has been ordered to pay back wages and penalties for bringing in workers from Mexico and paying them about $2.66 an hour in pesos, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday. Sunnyvale-based Bloom Energy, which makes fuel cells and sells energy to clients including AT&T, Adobe, Coca-Cola, eBay, Google and Wal-Mart, was ordered by a judge to pay $31,922 in back wages and an equal amount in damages to 14 welders who were brought in to work alongside domestic workers refurbishing power generators.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is concerned about how the DOJ is enforcing adherence to FOIA laws. 

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01/30/2013

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 Morning News

Coverage of our Drakes Bay Oyster Company lawsuit against the Department of the Interior and National Park Service continues. Listen as Owner Kevin Lunny details the fight on KALW San Francisco:

Drakes Bay Oyster Company, an oyster farm in the Point Reyes National Seashore, is at the center of a nationwide debate over what it means to preserve wilderness. When the national seashore was created, the oyster farm got a 40 year lease to operate on the park land. That lease expired at the end of 2012, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar refused to renew it.

There is more trouble at the Department of the Interior this week. Assistant Secretary Tony Babauta, an Obama Appointee, has resigned following an investigation into his official travel. More from the Washington Post:

A Department of Interior official whose official travel and other conduct was being investigated has resigned. Tony Babauta, the Assistant Interior Secretary for Insular Areas, is leaving the agency Feb. 1, a spokesman tells the Loop, though Babauta has been on administrative leave since Nov. 17 while the investigation was pending. President Obama named Babauta, a native of Guam, to the position in 2009. He was tasked with overseeing U.S. territories including Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. 

Ray LaHood announced that he will vacate his position as Secretary of the Department of Transportation after four years in the position. The Washington Times has this story:

President Obama is losing another trusted member of his Cabinet with the announcement Tuesday that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is leaving the administration. Mr. LaHood, 67, the last Republican still serving in Mr. Obama’s Cabinet, said he will stay on until a successor is confirmed by the Senate. The president has not yet announced a nominee.

There’s a new watchdog in town this week as the SEC names a new Inspector General.

More interesting reads:

Federal Computer Week – Groups call for stronger FOIA

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01/29/2013

Tuesday, Jan 29, 2013 Morning News

Coverage of our Drakes Bay Oyster Company lawsuit against the Department of the Interior and National Park Service continues. The Pacific Sun writes:

West Marin oyster farming is still floating in limbo this week, as Drakes Bay Oyster Company awaits a decision from an Oakland judge as to whether it can keep its Inverness vermiculture operation up and running during its lawsuit against the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior. The lawsuit was filed in December after Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar allowed the farm’s lease to expire upon its Nov. 30 deadline.

 

The EPA was dealt a blow recently for the culture of overregulation that has seemed to permeate the agency as of late. Michael Bastasch of the Daily Caller News Foundation reports:

A federal court delivered a serious blow to the Environmental Protection Agency’s renewable fuel agenda, ruling that the agency exceeded its authority by mandating refiners use cellulosic biofuels, which isn’t commercially available.

The court sided with the country’s chief oil and gas lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, in striking down the 2012 EPA mandate that would have forced refineries to purchase more than $8 million in credits for 8.65 million of gallons of the cellulosic biofuel. However, none of the biofuel is commercially available.

 

The winds of change are starting to blow at the National Labor Relations Board, starting with a federal appeals court ruling that came down on Friday. Josh Hicks of the Washington Post brings us this story:

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that President Obama exceeded his constitutional authority with three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board while the Senate was on break last year.

The impact of that decision by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in Noel Canning v. NLRB will depend on what the Obama administration does next.

 

The Government Accountability Office is due to produce its biannual report on the areas of the government that present the highest risk for squandering tax payer dollars in the next couple weeks, and we are looking forward to seeing it.

 

Some more interesting reads:

The Atlantic – The most ridiculous law of 2013

USA Today (Op-Ed) – Revolving Door Government Ethics

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01/11/2013

Bloomberg: Car Companies XP Vehicles, Limnia Sue U.S. Over Loans

Car Companies XP Vehicles, Limnia Sue U.S. Over Loans

 

By Tom Schoenberg on January 10, 2013
President Barack Obama’s administration played favorites on clean-energy loans while improperly blocking a carmaker and a related technology company from receiving millions in aid, according to two lawsuits.

XP Vehicles Inc. and Limnia Inc. filed complaints against the U.S. and the Energy Department today in two federal courts in Washington, seeking damages for what they say were abuses of the $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program. XP Vehicles, which has dissolved, and Limnia are asking for $450 million in a case filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and at least $225 million in U.S. District Court.

“Defendants used the ATVM loan program as nothing more than a veil to steer hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to government cronies,” according to the district court complaint.

Today’s lawsuits are the latest challenge to clean-energy loan programs administered by the Energy Department, which has come under scrutiny over a $535 million loan guarantee to now- bankrupt solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC.

“While the department does not comment on pending or potential litigation, multiple investigations spanning almost two years and involving millions of pages of documents show that decisions made on the department’s loan program were made solely on the merits after careful review by the department’s technical experts,” Damien Lavera, an Energy Department spokesman, said in an e-mail.

Koch Foundation
The companies are being represented by Daniel Epstein, executive director for a Washington-based nonprofit advocacy group. He previously worked for a foundation started by Koch Industries Inc. Chief Executive Officer Charles Koch, a billionaire contributor to Republican-leaning causes. He was also counsel for Republican U.S. Representative Darrell Issa’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is leading a probe of the department’s loan programs.

XP Vehicles, or XPV, said it applied in 2008 for a $40 million loan in an effort to mass produce an SUV-style electronic vehicle with doors and other parts made from foam. The starting price for the vehicle was to be less than $20,000.

The carmaker said it believed the review of its application would take “a matter of weeks.” After meeting with the agency in May 2009, XPV said it discovered that two of its competitors — Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA) and Fisker Automotive Inc. — were receiving special assistance from agency staff with the loan application process.

Obama Contributor
One member of Tesla’s board at the time was Steven Westly, a campaign contributions bundler for Obama, while Fisker’s investors included Obama donors, according to the complaint.

Tesla received a $465 million loan in June 2009 with an interest rate of 1.6 percent, according to the complaint. XPV called one of Tesla’s products “an expensive electric car targeted at rich actors, journalists and businessmen, not average Americans.”

Fisker received a $528.7 million loan. The department in May 2011 blocked Fisker from receiving the bulk of the loan, after the company didn’t meet milestones for producing its first model.

Jeff Evanson, a spokesman for Palo Alto, California-based Tesla, and Roger Ormisher, a spokesman for Anaheim, California- based Fisker, didn’t immediately respond to e-mail messages seeking comment on the lawsuits.

XPV’s application was denied in August 2009. The reasons given by the agency involved vehicle specifications as well as manufacturing and sales plans, according to the complaint.

Limnia is also challenging applications for loans it sought that were denied.

The Energy Department has made five loans under the advanced-vehicles program — none since the 2011 bankruptcy of Solyndra — and $16 billion remains undistributed.

The court of federal claims case is XP Vehicles Inc. v. U.S. Department of Energy, 12-cv-00774, U.S. Court of Federal Claims (Washington). The district court case is XP Vehicles Inc. v. U.S. Department of Energy, 13-cv-00037, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

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01/10/2013

When cronyism takes the place of merit at the DOE, everyone loses

With the new push towards green energy most recently from the 44th administration, Congress created Department of Energy loan guarantee programs designed to help the private sector develop new technology and products. Sadly, instead of the return Americans were expecting, they found much of their money upside down in poorly executed projects.

It should come as no surprise that these projects failed, given the level of cronyism that went into the decision making process for DOE loan guarantees. Still, shock or no shock, when cronyism takes the place of merit, everyone loses.

If we look at the electric car initiative alone, failures abound. Fisker is selling cars that catch fire. Tesla hit a huge snag when they started swallowing cash at an enormous rate without churning out product.

And the worst part? All of these failures could have been prevented if cronyism not been the modus operandi of the Department of Energy and White House.

When Cause of Action took on XP Vehicles and Limnia as our clients, we learned that the level of cronyism extended beyond just “picking winners and losers.”

  • DOE had two sets of rules with respect to these programs: one for its favored cronies, and one for everyone else. The DOE loan programs were designed by Congress to help the private sector develop new technology. Instead, there is overwhelming evidence that DOE repeatedly discriminated against companies that lacked a history of large campaign contributions and political patrons.
  • DOE admitted in writing that our client was qualified for an ATVM loan but still denied its loan application.  Although DOE had billions in available funds, it asserted that it could not fund all qualified applicants, and that our client failed to meet certain secret “merit review” criteria.  These secret criteria mysteriously resulted in DOE funding only government crony companies.
  • Despite having $16 billion of unused loan authority, DOE has refused to make a single ATVM loan to another electric vehicle company since funding Tesla and Fisker in 2009, thus protecting both Tesla and Fisker from competition.
  • There is strong evidence DOE slyly gave our client’s confidential intellectual property—IP that DOE itself believes is 3 times more effective than traditional hybrid batteries—to GM and possibly gave unique pressure membrane technology to Ford; actions that, if true, violate the agency’s confidentiality agreements, as well as the trust of the American people.

Not only did XP have all the merits of any of their competition, but they had better technology. A car that wouldn’t catch fire like Fisker, or one that didn’t rely on other crony corporations to provide energy storage technology.

We hope that XP Vehicles, Limnia, and the American people find their vindication, which is why we’ve filed two lawsuits detailing the ways that they have been wronged. To see the documents we filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia and the US Court of Federal Claims click here.

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01/10/2013

Washington Post: Car company says Obama team steered stimulus funds to political favorites

 

 

 

Car company says Obama team steered stimulus funds to political favorites

 

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