Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon reports on a former Biden administration official’s questionable actions.
President Joe Biden’s energy loan czar gave out billions to green energy companies. Now, he’s trying to help them to leave the United States and seek subsidies from European governments.
Jigar Shah, the former director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, has been “talking to officials in Brussels about re-domiciling companies in Europe,” Bloomberg reported this week.
Shah has reportedly started working with “many of the companies that benefited from Biden-era programs [that] are now looking to shift all or part of their business outside the US.”
He told Bloomberg that the European Union has a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to attract these companies, two-thirds of which, he said, are currently based in the United States. But, Shah said, the threat of cuts to federal funding has made green energy executives “nervous and confused,” and European officials will “need to be quick about it” before the businesses go bankrupt.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright hinted at canceling certain loans in a recent interview with the Washington Free Beacon, saying the Trump administration is focused on funding that will “make life for the American people better.”
As the Free Beacon reported last year, Shah has maintained a relationship with battery company Plug Power since before he joined the Biden administration. He gave Plug Power $100 million in debt financing through Generate Capital, an investment firm he founded, in 2019. During the final week of Biden’s presidency, Shah’s office in the Department of Energy approved a controversial $1.6 billion federal loan for Plug Power.
In March, Plug Power announced layoffs of over 200 of its workers in New York, blaming the downsizing on “economic” concerns.
Though the Bloomberg report did not mention any companies by name, Plug Power leaders have indicated that their company will pivot to the European market.
