Congressman Andy Harris: More Wasted Stimulus Money

Friday, it was announced that Ener1 an Obama Administration backed electric car battery manufacturer filed for bankruptcy after receiving $118 million in Stimulus money from the Department of Energy (DOE). This marks the third company to declare bankruptcy after receiving large Stimulus grants from the Obama Administration. Last year Solyndra declared bankruptcy after receiving $528 million in Stimulus money as did Beacon Power after it received $43 million from DOE.

In May I held a subcommittee hearing questioning the lack of transparency regarding how Stimulus funds are distributed. Now we have yet another company that received hard-working taxpayers' dollars that declared bankruptcy after wasting $118 million. Ener1 is just the latest in a growing and disturbing trend of Obama Administration decisions that have wasted hundreds of millions of hard-working taxpayers' dollars to benefit politically connected Obama donors. Picking winners and losers based on crony capitalism is wrong and must come to an end.