This could be yet another problem for the former First Squeeze, as she wasn't working for Retread - she was "working for the Earth". Anyway, the whole energy tax credit thing's getting a bit of a look.
The state awarded the tax credits to owners of renewable energy and efficiency projects, such as a cellulosic ethanol plant and public transit districts across the state. The owners could use the credits to offset their taxes, or sell them at a discount to raise cash.
Helped find buyers
The Department of Energy traditionally helped project owners find buyers for their tax credits as part of the state program, but private brokers started to negotiate the deals as early as 2009. The department does not verify the sales prices of credits sold in private deals, and energy officials quietly stopped enforcing pricing rules for the sales in 2009, the EO Media Group/Pamplin Media Group Capital Bureau reported in June.
The agency is now in the process of retroactively changing pricing rules going back to mid-2012, so deals that violated the rules in place at the time will be legitimate.
Business energy tax credits issued from 2006 to 2014 could cost the state up to $968.1 million in tax revenue, according to the Department of Energy. A majority of that cost — $703.6 million — comes from tax credits that were sold to investors.
Hey, free money has a cost! Who knew?
Oh - that cellulosic biofool plant? It went bankrupt after they sold the energy tax credits. It now has been converted into a facility that loads crude oil onto ships.
This is sort of a common situation when Oregon governments get involved in "green energy": they threw $10 million at a company that claimed they'd headquarter in northeast Portland and make state-of-the-art batteries; what they did was move a trailer onto a parking lot, install a phone line, and then go out of "business".
Then there was the $40 million handed over to SoloPower, which was going to headquarter in Portland and manufacture thin-film solar panels. They never produced anything, but all of the execs got big paydays before declaring the company bankrupt.
Oregon: things look different here.
