Obama making Al Gore Super Rich

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/al-gore-has-thrived-as-green-tech-investor/2012/10/10/1dfaa5b0-0b11-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story.html

Everyone thought the Obama Stimulus was a failure.  That is unless you are Al Gore in which case it was super successful.  Al went from being a little rich to being SUPER rich thanks to Obamas free tax payer money.  What a great deal.

Before a rapt audience, Al Gore flashed slides on a giant screen bearing the logos of 11 clean energy companies he predicted could help slow climate change.

“We can’t wait. . . . We have a planetary emergency,” the former vice president told industry leaders and scientists at the 2008 conference. “Here are just a few of the investments that I personally think make sense.”

Today, several of those clean tech firms are thriving, including a solar energy start-up and a Spanish utility company that has dotted rural America with hundreds of wind turbines.

Al Gore is thriving, too.

The man who was within sight of the presidency 12 years ago has transformed himself, becoming perhaps the world’s most renowned crusader on climate change and a highly successful green-tech investor.

Just before leaving public office in 2001, Gore reported assets of less than $2 million; today, his wealth is estimated at $100 million.

He benefited from a powerful resume and a constellation of friends in the investment world and in Washington. And four years ago, his portfolio aligned smoothly with the agenda of an incoming administration and its plan to spend billions in stimulus funds on alternative energy.

Fourteen green-tech firms in which Gore invested received or directly benefited from more than $2.5 billion in loans, grants and tax breaks, part of President Obama’s historic push to seed a U.S. renewable-energy industry with public money.

Gore declined to be interviewed  I wonder why?

Eight years after losing the presidential race, with Bush in the final stretch of his administration, Gore was working hard to build support in Washington for his cause. By then a rising green investor, he was keenly focused on shaping policy should a Democrat win in 2008.

Before the election, Gore launched a public campaign known as “Repower America,” aimed at encouraging the public and the next administration to support government investments in clean energy. His Alliance for Climate Protection was running numerous ads, and he delivered speeches laying out his goal that, within 10 years, 100 percent of the nation’s electricity should come from clean energy.

“The future of human civilization is at stake,” Gore said in a 2008 speech, stressing that such projects would create jobs.  So where are the jobs?  Al Gore said NAFTA was going to create jobs too.  He lied about that as well.  He is really good at lying.

Gore’s venture partner, Doerr, had been raising money for Democrats to take back the White House, holding big-check receptions with Silicon Valley investors. He and fellow Kleiner partners and spouses donated more than $800,000 to Democrats, much of it for Obama and state efforts to get out the vote.

five of Gore’s principals, including co-founder David Blood, wrote $130,000 in checks to aid Obama’s bid, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

As Obama was preparing to take office, it was clear his public agenda supporting clean energy aligned with Gore’s personal agenda. Obama held a highly publicized meeting with Gore at transition headquarters in Chicago to talk about energy policy. Later, Obama closely echoed several of Gore’s talking points and his plan for public investment in clean energy. Obama even adopted Gore’s campaign catchphrase for the effort, “Repower America.”

“This is a matter of urgency and national security,” Obama said. “We have the opportunity now to create jobs all across this country in all 50 states to repower America, to redesign how we use energy and . . . make us competitive for decades to come — even as we save the planet.”  How did all that work out?

Gore’s orbit extended deeply into the administration, with several former aides winning senior clean-energy posts. Among them were Carol Browner, a former Gore political operative who became the president’s climate change czar, and Ron Klain, Gore’s former chief of staff who went to work for Vice President Biden overseeing the stimulus.

Those connections were underscored in October 2009, when Jonathan Silver, under consideration to head the $38 billion ­clean-energy loan program, hosted a party to help Gore raise money for the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Silver invited the Department of Energy’s chief financial officer, days before the official was scheduled to meet Silver to discuss the job.

Gore’s investments coincided with the government’s largest investment in clean tech. A full 10 percent, estimated at $80 billion to $90 billion, of the 2009 stimulus package was devoted to clean energy.

Of the 11 companies he mentioned in his 2008 slide show, nine received or directly benefited from stimulus or clean energy funding.