Obama Commerce pick awarded $1.37 billion in ‘stimulus funds’ for another risky solar plant
Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily
9/26/2011
President Obama’s nominee for Commerce secretary served as chairman of the board of a solar energy company that recently received a $1.37 billion federal loan guarantee – the largest the Department of Energy has ever given for a solar power project.
Now that company, BrightSource Energy, is to build the world’s largest solar power plant amid concerns such ventures may be too risky an investment for the federal government.
In June, BrightSource Chairman John Bryson was nominated by Obama to head the Commerce Department.
WND reported in June that Bryson co-founded an environmental activist group that is a member and funder of the controversial Apollo Alliance…
…Meanwhile, Bryson is co-chairman of the PCIP, which was founded in 1995 in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations.
The group says it is the “premier international affairs organization focused on policy issues of special resonance to the West Coast.”
Its goals include “building our network of globally oriented business, civic, and government leaders.” Also, the group aims to convene exchanges with global policy makers and opinion leaders while partnering with organizations around the world to “promote mutual understanding and coordinated action.”
The PCIP is funded by the Ford Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Obama’s ambassador to France, Charles Rivkin, is a member of the PCIP. Last October, he invited a 29-member delegation from the PCIP to a conference in France for the stated purpose of discussing Arab and Islamic relations in the country.
Rivkin was at the center of a scandal when WikiLeaks released a cable in which he proposed the U.S. Embassy in France initiate a multipronged effort to “engage” and help to “empower” France’s Muslim minorities.
Rivkin called the effort a “Minority Engagement Strategy,” which was largely directed at Muslims in France.
Other PCIP members abound through the Obama administration, WND has learned.
James B. Steinberg, deputy secretary of state, serves on the PICP board of directors. He also serves on the science and security board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a journal that argued during the Cold War for the U.S. to hand its nuclear weapons to an international organization.
The Bulletin, as WND reported, was founded by scientists who were long accused of spying for the Soviets and passing along vital nuclear secrets.
Vilma S. Martinez, U.S. ambassador to Argentina, is the chairman of the PCIP’s Mexico Study Group.
Former Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, was appointed by Obama as ambassador to China in August 2009. He is a PCIP founding director.
Jeffrey L. Bleich, Obama’s appointment for U.S. ambassador to Australia, is a PCIP member.
Diana Farrell, deputy director of the National Economic Council, is a member of the PCIP as well as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bretton Woods Committee. She is a frequent speaker on U.S. global engagement.
Byron Auguste, a member of Obama’s White House Council for Community Solutions, serves on the PCIP board. He is also on the board of trustees of the Center for American Progress, which is funded by Soros and led by John Podesta, who served as co-chairman of Obama’s transition team.
Last year, PCIP member Steven Myers joined the State Department’s advisory committee on international economic policy.
John B. Emerson, appointee for Obama’s advisory committee for trade policy and negotiations, is a member of both the PCIP and CFR.
In April, Obama nominated PCIP member Janet Yellen to serve as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.
PCIP member Alan D. Bersin was appointed commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Last March, Obama appointed PCIP member Michael Camuñez to the position of assistant secretary for market access and compliance in the Department of Commerce.
Ernest James Wilson, a member of the PCIP board, was elected chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in September 2009. He served as a policy advisor on Obama’s presidential transition team on matters of communication technology and public diplomacy.
Also on Obama’s transition team was Jonathan Greenblat, chairman of the PCIP’s energy and environment committee.
The PCIP has some ties to billionaire activist George Soros. Among PCIP fellows is Ahmed Rashid , a Pakistani journalist and writer who is a member of the advisory board of Eurasia Net of the Soros Foundation. He is also a scholar of the Davos World Economic Forum and a consultant for Human Rights Watch.
At the invitation of the then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he became the first journalist to address the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September 2002 and the first journalist to address NATO ambassadors in Brussels in September 2003.
The complete article is at WorldNetDaily.
