Last week Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — and three other Senator — urged the Obama administration to cut stimulus funding for renewable energy projects that offshore their manufacturing.
This is the second time Schumer targets foreign renewable energy projects, in both instances he’s focused his criticism on a Chinese, 600 megawatts, $1.5 billion wind farm to be built in Texas by a joint venture between U.S.-based Cielo Wind Power and China’s Shenyang Power Group, a unit of A-Power Energy Group.
Well, it turns out that the Shenyang Texas wind facility was actually arranged by the Obama administration, which earlier this year brokered a deal with the Chinese government to allow more renewable energy investments to flow into both countries.
On Sunday Jeffrey Ryser at Platts’s Power Line blog wrote:
What should one make of the fact that the deal with the Chinese was arranged in the first place by the US Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, who, in a quid pro quo arrangement last fall, agreed to have the Chinese sell into the US market in exchange for US companies’ selling into the Chinese market, which has been expanding at the same annual rate as the US’s.
Not only is the Shenyang project backed by the Chinese government, it also is supported, at least indirectly, by the Obama administration. That’s some pretty stellar backing and explains why, so far the White House, and some Senate colleagues, have downplayed Schumer’s concerns, describing them as none-issues.