Tom Steyer, billionaire Democratic donor who has singlehandedly put climate change on the White House agenda, may be ... I'm not saying he is, but he may be ... just another rich, greedy, self-serving enviro masquerading as a good guy.
I say that because Steyer is effecting through energy policy pathways to make himself richer -- at taxpayers' expense, as a matter of fact, in the form of the "investment tax credit." Here's the latest.
Public records show the president of NextGen Climate is listed as “manager” of a green energy company that finances solar and energy efficiency projects.
Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon produced a story Wednesday showing that documents filed with secretaries of state in California and Texas name Steyer as a “manager” of Kilowatt Financial LLC. Nevada records actually call him a “managing member.” In Massachusetts, he is listed as a manager of Kilowatt Systems LLC.
By each definition, Steyer is a "manager" who has day-to-day control.
So, what the documents reveal is that Steyer is more involved than previously known in private green energy projects "that could benefit financially from policies he has advanced as one of the country’s most active and deep-pocketed environmentalists."
Kilowatt Financial is headquartered in Minnesota, incorporated in Delaware, and finances renewable energy and energy efficiency products through all kinds of subsidiaries operating around the country.
This is actually serious stuff.
“We were created to help [solar and energy efficiency] industry professionals make more sales,” Kilowatt says on its website. “More financing options and more customers equal more profit. It’s that simple.”
But, wait. Here's where you have to question:
Never mind that Kilowatt has provided more than $400 million in financing for green energy projects since it started in 2011. It is actually "involved in markets created, sustained and subsidized by policies that Steyer and his political operation have promoted through political and policy advocacy."
Consider the fact that the company's core business activity is financing rooftop solar panel installation. Claims its website: “Kilowatt’s financial expertise is changing the rooftop solar and energy efficiency industries.”
Reporter Markay explains, profit potential for companies financing such projects goes far beyond the rates they charge for financing. "Many rooftop solar installers pocket a federal tax credit for renewable energy investment," he writes. "Some then sell those credits to tax equity investors."
Here's the rub: The investment tax credit, as it’s called, is set to expire at the end of 2016. Steyer’s super-PAC, NextGen Climate Action, is pushing hard for its extension, criticizing “Republican job killers” that oppose the measure.
Markay also reports that Steyer’s political team is working on a California ballot measure as well, something that would levy an “extraction tax” on the state’s sizable oil industry. On its website, NextGen proposes using the resulting revenue to fund additional “tax credits for solar installations,” among other measures.
The ballot measure will not be Steyer’s first foray into California referenda. He helped promote Proposition 39 in 2012. Remember that? Prop 39 used a tax hike to pay for incentives for rooftop solar installations; and he was a leading opponent of Proposition 23 in 2010, which would have rolled back a California law that has also subsidized such projects.
Many of the groups Steyer supports highlight what they say is the destructive nature of fossil fuels, coal energy in particular. Coal provides a cheap if carbon-heavy source of electricity, and raising the cost of coal-fired power makes alternatives -- such as solar -- more competitive.
There's more: In addition to his role at Kilowatt, Steyer is a manager at subsidiary Kilowatt Systems LLC, according to documents filed with the Massachusetts secretary of state. Filings say the company exists “to own, purchase, develop, maintain, operate, lease, manage, and sell photovoltaic solar systems.”
Also listed on those documents and others filed with various secretaries of state are two employees of venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, which has provided Kilowatt with more than $120 million in equity financing.
In his article, Markay explains that Kleiner Perkins is one of the nation’s top green energy investment firms, and its executives have poured millions of dollars into the campaigns of leading Democratic officials who have advanced policies that benefited its portfolio companies.
Like former Vice President Al Gore, who is a Kleiner Perkins partner, Steyer has also faced scrutiny for the overlap between his political and financial interests. One of his nonprofit groups, the TomKat Charitable Trust, is a limited partner in a private equity firm that invests in green energy companies. The Washington Free Beacon was first with that story, too.
Markay interviewed William Yeatman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who described Steyer’s political work as "integral to a business model focused on making green energy more financially appealing."
“For themselves, they seek taxpayer subsidies and production mandates,” Yeatman said of politically active green energy investors. “And for their competitors in the business of conventional energy production, they lobby for restrictions on both the supply side (i.e., going after mining or drilling) and the demand side (i.e., shutting down power plants).”
Sounds like Steyer really does have a financial stake in the outcomes of elections and policy fights he's involved in.
If you had a lump in your throat when Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor, joined other high-wealth Americans in the “Giving Pledge,” a promise to donate the majority of their wealth to charitable and nonprofit activities during their lifetimes, you certainly weren't alone. It was an admirable thing to do. But don't you wonder now? I mean, with more known about Steyer's Kilowatt Financial LLC "business opportunities," hasn't that pledge gotten a little skewed and the public trust a little screwed?
Steyer's been called out. His motives include lining his own pockets. It's as simple as that.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
