Chinese Solar Company Learns Cronyism with Harry Reid

National Legal & Policy Center ^ | September 10, 2012 | Paul Chesser

A solar company project that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid successfully lured to Clark County, Nev. – where his son Rory was a former commissioner and now lobbies on behalf of the Chinese company that owns it – now wants the dominant utility in the state to buy its electricity.

said in a July 30 online conference that ENN “would start tomorrow if NV Energy would purchase the power,” according to a Reuters report. Adding that the utility controls 95 percent of all of the electricity that is produced in Nevada, Reid also said, “they should go along with this.” At the same time Reid has verbally pummeled NV Energy over its only coal-fired power plant in southern Nevada, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.



similar 2009 visit by Energy Secretary Steven Chu), and ever since has flexed “his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada.” Meanwhile Rory works for “the state’s largest and most prestigious law firm,” and somehow ENN was steered to Clark County for its proposed $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant, where it has been granted a 9,000-acre site that it is purchasing from the government at a price “well below appraised value.” The $4.5 million cost is between 11 percent and 15 percent of the property’s true worth.


Review-Journal reported that two Clark County solar projects were put on a federal fast track for permit approvals, and 13 renewable energy projects in Nevada have been fast-tracked by the Bureau of Land Management since 2009. And the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office has backed both partial and full guarantees of nearly $3 billion in financing for five projects either completely or partially located in Nevada. A Nevada Journal analysis showed that $1.3 billion in federal funds readily shoveled into Silver State renewable projects is expected to create only 288 permanent, full-time jobs. Even Bill Clinton’s arithmetic puts that at $4.6 million spent per job.

“Saudi Arabia” of renewable energy. Other than the Obama administration, there has been no greater advocate for “green” boondoggles in Washington than Harry Reid. The favor has been returned, with big renewable firms such as Brightsource Energy helping the Reids’ campaigns with big donations and fundraisers.

Review-Journal article from last July, have donated thousands of dollars to Democrat candidates and interests.

Center for Responsive Politics, Meng and Zhou each gave $5,000 to Harry Reid’s Searchlight Leadership Fund PAC in August 2011, and Meng has also contributed $4,000 to the Democratic Party of Nevada for this campaign cycle. Meng gave $1,000 to President Obama, and both gave $2,500 each to Democrat Sens. Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.). Meng also gave $1,000 to the Democratic senator, Debbie Stabenow, who represents the state where he resides, Michigan. Nelson, Whitehouse and Stabenow are all up for re-election in 2012.



said Wang Yusuo, ENN’s chairman, at Reid’s energy summit. “If the United States launches more open investment policies, Chinese companies could make more investments into American market, in turn create more jobs and accelerate the country’s economic development.”