Stimulus-Backed Green Company Going Bankrupt

At his jobs address to a joint session of Congress next Thursday, President Barack Obama might want to skip any mention of his green jobs initiative. The Bay Area's NBC affiliate reports that a high-profile green start-up called Solyndra, which benefited from federal loans from the stimulus package, announced it would be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy:

During a visit to the Fremont facility in spring of 2010, the President said the factory "is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world. "

It's not his statements the administration will regret; it's the loan guarantees. The President was celebrating $535 million in federal promises from the Department of Energy to the solar startup. The administration didn't do its due diligence, says the Government Accountability Office. "There's a consequence if you don't follow a rigorous process that's transparent," Franklin Rusco of GAO told the website iWatch News.

The President touted the federally back money as a way to create jobs.