Hillary Calls for Solyndra 2.0

One of the first dust-ups in the debate was about green energy.

As expected, Democratic presidential Hillary Clinton pleaded for expanded green energy policies — or in other words — expanded green subsidies.

“We invested in a solar company,” Trump said. “That was a disaster … Our energy policy is a disaster.”

Within the first 10 minutes, Clinton said she wanted the United States to be the world capital of clean, green energy.

“Some country is going to be the clean energy super power of the 21st century,” said Clinton. “Donald thinks climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it’s real.”

Trump interrupted, protesting her claim. Clinton used the old trope of “investments,” a favorite term of Presidents Bill Clinton and Obama to spend taxpayer money on the green companies of well-connected liberals.

[lz_jwplayer video=lAh4Ctfk]

“I think it’s important that we grip this and deal with it, at home and abroad,” Clinton continued. “We can deploy a half-billion more solar panels. We can have enough clean energy to power every home … That’s a lot of jobs.”

“We invested in a solar company,” Trump said. “That was a disaster … Our energy policy is a disaster.”

Trump said the Obama administration has run up too much debt to dabble in government-sponsored clean energy again.

But Trump passed on a key opportunity to hit Clinton. The GOP nominee didn’t bring up what she said in Ohio in March before the Ohio Democratic primary.

“We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” Clinton said.

Clinton and Obama both hate coal and coal-consuming power plants. In 2008, Obama threatened to install a cap-and-trade program that would bankrupt coal plants.

“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” Obama noted while in front of a San Francisco editorial board.

[lz_related_box id=”209252″]

Obama never got that far, but he used the recession and his $830 billion stimulus bill to ram through faulty clean-energy spending.

The best example to which Trump was no doubt referring was Solyndra. Obama approved a $535 million loan to the solar-panel-maker in 2009.

By 2011, the company laid off 1,100 people and declared bankruptcy. It was one of many such grants and loans given to clean energy companies by the federal government. It was later reported that federal officials knew the company was in trouble before loan approval was even made.

The administration also increased spending on clean energy programs by multiple factors. Clean energy, however, still only produces a fraction of the power needed by U.S. homes and businesses.