Big Obama donor cashed in on ‘stimulus’. Energy company received hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds
Aaron Klein
The founder of an energy company that benefited from deals involving hundreds of millions in “stimulus” money made the maximum donation allowable to President Obama’s inauguration, WND has learned.
Peter L. Corsell, founder of GridPoint Inc., contributed $50,000 to the inauguration.
Corsell served as the Gridpoint’s chief executive officer from the company’s inception until transitioning to the position of non-executive chairman in October, 2010.
Yesterday, KleinOnline broke the story that an Obama adviser who played a key role in developing the energy provisions of the so-called stimulus bill serves on the boards of Gridpoint as well as several other companies that recently received government funds, including “stimulus” money.
TJ Glauthier served on Obama’s 2008 White House Transition Team. He is widely credited with helping to craft the energy provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the “stimulus.”
In addition to serving on the boards of major energy companies, Glauthier previously held two presidential appointments during the Clinton administration.
He was the Energy Department’s deputy secretary and chief operating officer, the second-highest ranking official.
Earlier, he served in the White House for five years as the associate director for natural resources, energy and science in the Office of Management and Budget.
Glauthier is tied to several energy companies that benefited from the “stimulus” bill he helped to craft.
One such company investigated by KleinOnline is GridPoint Inc., where he was appointed to the board in March 2008. GridPoint provides utilities with software solutions for electrical grid management and electric power demand and supply balancing.
The “stimulus” provides $4.5 billion for so-called smart grid projects. GridPoint has benefited from scores of smart grid deals funded by the “stimulus” bill.
The company partnered with the Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec), Nissan, the Idaho National Laboratory and others in a project to deploy electric vehicles (EVs) and their charging infrastructure in five states. The Energy Department had awarded eTec almost $100 million in “stimulus” funds to support the project.
GridPoint’s role in the eTec project was to supply smart charging and data logging capability to utilities located in strategic markets of eTec’s program in Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington.
GridPoint also benefited from “stimulus” funds when it recently provided home energy management, load management and electric vehicle management software solutions for a KCP&L’s Green Impact Zone SmartGrid Demonstration in Kansas City, Mo. The project was the recipient of stimulus funding.
Additionally, GridPoint helped the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, or SMUD, manage power from its customers’ rooftop solar panels.
The Arlington, Va.-based company had landed a contract to help the Sacramento, Calif.-based municipal utility manage renewable power integration, energy storage and home energy management systems. SMUD had won $127.5 million in stimulus funds from the Department of Energy to carry out the project, which also includes deploying 600,000 smart meters in its service territory.
Also, in early 2009, the Energy Department awarded Argonne National Laboratory nearly $2.7 million in stimulus funding for three solar-energy related research projects. In addition, Argonne reportedly shared another $5 million in stimulus funding for projects with GridPoint and other companies and the University of Illinois Sustainable Technology Center.
Besides benefiting from stimulus grants, GridPoint last year won a $28 million contract with the United States Postal Service to install energy management systems in selected post office locations across the U.S.
Glauthier, meanwhile, also had come under fire after Fox News reported the U.S. Navy has purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuel for about $16 a gallon, or about four times the price of its standard marine fuel, JP-5, which has been going for under $4 a gallon.
And HotAir reported last week that Glauthier is a “strategic adviser” to Solazyme, the California company that is selling a portion of the biofuel to the Navy.
HotAir noted Solazyme received a $21.8 million grant from the 2009 stimulus package.
Also, writing at BigGovernment two weeks ago, Whitney Pitcher found that prior to serving as adviser to Solazyme and after his time as part of Obama’s transition team, Glauthier served on the advisory board of SunRun, a solar financing company.
In October of 2010, just a few short months after Glauthier joined SunRun’s advisory board, SunRun secured a $6.73 million grant from a Treasury Department stimulus program. The company was the ninth largest recipient of such programs through December 2010.
With research by Brenda J. Elliott