Figures. Obama Hypes Green Energy Plant That’s Shifting Operations to China

U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with employees as he tours a North Carolina manufacturing facility of energy efficient LED lights, Cree Inc., in Raleigh-Durham, June 13, 2011. From L-R are: Obama, Matthew Rose, CEO of GE Jeffrey Immelt and Chairman and CEO of Cree, Inc. Charles M. Swoboda. (REUTERS/Larry Downing)

Obama is traveling to North Carolina today to plug another green energy company. The company received $39 million in tax credits and at least $6 million in grants from the Department of Energy. Cree makes LED lighting products.
And, it’s shifting operations to China.
The Daily Caller reported:

President Barack Obama will visit the North Carolina-based Cree LED Light Company Monday to tour the plant and meet with his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness to discuss job creation and policies to spur economic growth. But Cree, a major recipient of Recovery Act funds, may be sending that money straight to China.

At the very least, its CEO, Chuck Swoboda, has a very China-centered strategy that involves building a new plant overseas, two facts that the Republican National Committee plans to highlight Monday morning prior to the president’s visit. Cree received a $39 million as an Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit from the Recovery Act.

The company began developing clean energy technology, hired a few more hundred workers, and the administration touted it as a “true American success story” on the White House Web site. Then in late 2010, the company opened its first plant in Huizhou City,China. That made Cree the first global LED company to locate a manufacturing plant in China…

“This is just another example of an administration that talks about an economy that has turned around while ignoring what is happening to American families who are struggling to find jobs, pay higher food and gas prices and are dealing with the decline of their home value,” one Republican source told The Daily Caller.

Experts say that Obama’s visit today highlights his failed economic policies.

“It’s ironic that Obama’s jobs panel is meeting at the headquarters of a company that received millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Rising unemployment is evidence that Obama’s clean energy plan did not work as he had hoped, yet the president is stubbornly adhering to his fantasy of creating a clean energy economy,” said Tom Borelli, Ph.D., director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project.

“The failure of Obama’s job’s panel is really not surprising since the group is packed with green energy and cap-and-trade cheerleaders such as GE CEO Jeff Immelt, green energy venture capitalist John Doerr, DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman and NextEra Energy CEO Lewis Hay,” added Tom Borelli.

#1 June 13, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Nameless Cynic commented:

Is there an echo in here?
#2 June 13, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Zilla commented:

He’s been pulling this crap for quite some time. I wrote about many similar incidents of the 0 admin using our tax $ to create foreign jobs back in December. For a reminder, see here:
http://zillablog.marezilla.com/2010/12/our-tax-dollars-saved-or-created-jobs.html
Many of those overseas companies used had AMERICAN alternatives which could have done a superior job and done it cheaper, but this has never been about helping Americans, it has always been about destroying us.
#3 June 13, 2011 at 1:29 pm
theBuckWheat commented:

Is it my imagination, or is there a measure of self-loathing on grand display here? This is not the first time that the socialists have sought to transfer wealth from the US to China, all the while telling us they were creating jobs. Our borrowing from China has financed a boom in manufacturing of wind turbines over there to be installed here. So, what exactly is going on before our very eyes? It appears to be a blatant attempt to hollow out the US.
#4 June 13, 2011 at 1:48 pm
tommy mc donnell commented:

i wonder how many jobs obama has saved or created in other countries. that might be where all the jobs his administration has claimed to create might be.

and all our elected democratic party representatives go along with him.
#5 June 13, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Robert H. Rihl commented:

Obama’s really on the ball. Green energy will save us all. I’m having the star on the hood of my Mercedes converted into a windmill to save on gas. Cars run on GAS, Obama! They don’t run on windmills or solar power, and they don’t go far on electricity. They run on GAS! And they will as long as any of us live. So put oil wells everywhere, and let the private sector tinker with green energy for the 22nd Century.
And while you’re at it, press for a National Right to Work Law, so that corporations can expand into any state they want to, because if your NLRB ruling stands, they’ll be expanding offshore in the future, to get away from the labor unions.
#6 June 13, 2011 at 2:04 pm
Zilla commented:

@ #5 Yep, good cars run on gas and the electric cars run on power produced by coal, and Obama is shutting the coal industry down, giant piece by giant piece. Even as he sends billions of our tax dollars to Brazil to develop THEIR oil which he promises to use more of OUR money to buy!
#7 June 13, 2011 at 2:08 pm
bg commented:

++

Obama, IslaMarxism & The Green Movement

[scroll up/down, click on links & connecting links as you
go, or not.. depends on how much you want to know..]

==
#8 June 13, 2011 at 2:27 pm
saveus commented:

obama and china — perfect together
take our money and our jobs
#9 June 13, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Ginger commented:

That Huntsman guy just quit his Ambassador to China job to run for US president???? Does any one but me smell a rat? That guy has worked for Barry the kenyan fraud all this time but now wants to be our president? Hell NO! Watch out people the traitors has a lot of people in the pool to run for president. Be very careful! Romney is one I do not trust! Why do you think the MSM and the phoney polls are showing Romney way ahead of every one else? With Romney if Barry loses the socialist/communist/muslims win!!!
#10 June 13, 2011 at 3:05 pm
BorisB commented:

I am so tired of being SUBJECTED to our President of The WORLD! I long for the day when we, once again, have a President of the United States!
#11 June 13, 2011 at 4:06 pm
kato commented:

As any reader of the Wall Street Journal and/or Barron’s knows, green energy survives only with billions of dollars (and euros) of taxpayer subsidies, yet most of the companies in the industry can’t make a profit.

And none of their efforts have had any significant effect on the environment. In fact, in many ways, they have hurt it.

The fools who shed tears over the death of a single snail darter are willing to turn a blind eye to hundreds of thousands of birds killed annually by turbine blades. No surprise there. We already knew that liberals are liars and frauds. They put their junk science and economic illiteracy on display every day. And with the help of the permanent-parasite class, they even put one of their own into the White House.
#12 June 13, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Redwine commented:

Now energy leadership will shift to Israel: oil, gas, solar…
They have more oil that the Saudis and natural gas: http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2011/06/israel-becoming-new-petro-state.html#links
#13 June 13, 2011 at 4:32 pm
msr commented:

Moving LED manufacture to China may have been inevitable. LEDs require rare earth elements, of which China is the leading source. Yes, we have one mine capable of producing these in this country, but it was closed for years and is only now in the process of reopening.
#14 June 13, 2011 at 5:03 pm
chuck in st paul commented:

It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

“Oh my, what a maroon.” – Bugs Bunny
#15 June 13, 2011 at 5:07 pm
ExExZonie commented:

Tell me what the new Fascism looks like! This is what the new Fascism looks like!

repeat ad nauseum
#16 June 13, 2011 at 8:03 pm
jkduh commented:

Obama looking at things……
#17 June 13, 2011 at 8:52 pm
dunce commented:

How much of the tax credit was recycled back to dem. campaign coffers.