Republicans may have more ammunition in their argument that taxpayer money has been wasted by the Obama Administration as a second company that received money from the Energy Department went bankrupt in recent days.
While the $43 million loan for Beacon Power is nowhere near the over $530 million loan to Solyndra, Beacon's bankruptcy filing comes as Republicans are preparing to subpoena documents from the White House about inside dicussions on Solyndra.
"The revelation that another corporation receiving a loan from the Obama administration has filed for bankruptcy is further evidence of the reckless abuse of taxpayers’ dollars in the pursuit of green jobs," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who also raised a political angle.
"As with Solyndra, the head of Beacon Power appears to have been a supporter of President Obama’s," said Sessions.
What was Beacon Power? Here is their description on the company's web site:
"Beacon Power Corporation designs, develops and is commercializing advanced products and services to support stable, reliable and efficient electricity grid operation. Beacon's Smart Energy MatrixTM, now in production, being operated and earning revenue, is a non-polluting, megawatt-scale, fast-response flywheel-based solution designed to provide less expensive, more sustainable and effective regulation services to power grids around the world."
Beacon's $43 million federal loan helped it finance an "energy storage plant" in New York, though the feds nixed a request for more money to build another such plant.
The company also recieved a $24 million "smart grid" stimulus grant from the feds in November 2009, which went to help build an energy storage plant in Chicago.
But the business plan did not work, even with an infusion of federal and state dollars.
By earlier this month, Beacon was being warned that it would be de-listed by NASDAQ as the company's stock price fell under $1 per share.
