Washington institutions esteemed for
their independent scholarship don’t disclose donations from corporations
and foreign governments.
Ken Silverstein
May 21, 2013
Editor’s Note: We received a letter from the Center for American
Progress on May 24, 2013 objecting to aspects of Ken Silverstein’s
article. In the interest of debate, we publish that letter at the end of
this article, along with Silverstein’s response.
The Center for American Progress, Washington’s leading liberal think
tank, has been a big backer of the Energy Department’s $25 billion loan
guarantee program for renewable energy projects. CAP has specifically
praised First Solar, a firm that received $3.73 billion under the
program, and its Antelope Valley project in California.
Last year, when First Solar was taking a beating from congressional
Republicans and in the press over job layoffs and alleged political
cronyism, CAP’s Richard Caperton praised Antelope Valley in his
testimony to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, saying it
headed up his list of “innovative projects” receiving loan guarantees.
Earlier, Caperton and Steve Spinner—
a top Obama fundraiser who left his
job at the Energy Department monitoring the issuance of loan guarantees
and became a CAP senior fellow—had written an article cross-posted on
CAP’s website and its Think Progress blog, stating that Antelope Valley
represented “the cutting edge of the clean energy economy.”
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