Biofuels Company Granted $4M from DOE after Hosting Obama at Fundraiser

Green com­pa­ny grant­ed $4M from DOE after financier hosts Oba­ma at DSCC fundraiser

- by Lach­lan Markay, Sep­tem­ber 20, 2013. Source: The Wash­ing­ton Free Beacon

[Read “Cel­lu­losic Ethanol: A Bio-Fool’s Errand” to learn more about the bio­fu­els com­pa­ny LanzaTech.]

The Depart­ment of Ener­gy recent­ly award­ed a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar con­tract to a green ener­gy com­pa­ny financed by a major Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty fundrais­er and sup­port­er of Pres­i­dent Obama.

The $4,000,000 award for bio­fu­el com­pa­ny Lan­za­T­e­ch came just months after one of its chief financiers and pub­lic advo­cates host­ed the pres­i­dent at his Por­to­la Val­ley home for a $32,400-a-head fundrais­er for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty.

The fundrais­er took place in June. DOE announced the award for New Zealand-based Lan­za­T­e­ch, designed to sup­port a gas fer­men­ta­tion sys­tem devel­oped by the com­pa­ny, on Thursday.

DOE also award­edLan­za­T­e­ch a grant worth more than $2.2 mil­lion in 2011 to devel­op bio­mass fuels.

One of Lan­za­T­e­ch’s most active investors is ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist Vin­od Khosla. He took part in three rounds of financ­ing for the com­pa­ny worth a com­bined $77 million.

Khosla Ven­tures, Khosla’s ven­ture cap­i­tal firm, also backed Range Fuels, a bio­mass ener­gy com­pa­ny that received more than $80 mil­lion in tax­pay­er back­ing before its refin­ery closed down.

Range default­ed on its DOE loan after repay­ing only $2 mil­lion. Lan­za­T­e­ch sub­se­quent­ly pur­chased the com­pa­ny for $5.1 million.

Range and Lan­za­T­e­ch are among nine com­pa­nies in Khosla Ven­tures’ port­fo­lio that have received tax­pay­er back­ing in some form.

A chief mar­ket­ing exec­u­tive at one of those com­pa­nies, cel­lu­losic ethanol pro­duc­er Coska­ta, said his suc­cess was mea­sured in part by the amount of “gov­ern­ment mon­ey we attract.”

Khosla called him­self “one of those Repub­li­cans who is for Oba­ma” in a 2008 inter­view. “I think Oba­ma will be much stronger for clean tech,” he explained.

Khosla served as the head of Obama’s India pol­i­cy team at the time. He vis­it­ed the pres­i­dent at the White House in 2011.

Khosla has donat­ed near­ly $1.3 mil­lion to Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates and groups since the 2008 inter­view, includ­ing a $1 mil­lion con­tri­bu­tion to Demo­c­ra­t­ic Super PAC Pri­or­i­ties USA Action in 2012, accord­ing to the Cen­ter for Respon­sive Politics.

Oba­ma per­son­al­ly attend­ed the June fundrais­er at Khosla’s home. Sens. Michael Ben­net (D., Colo.), Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.), and Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) were also present. The $32,400 per plate ben­e­fit­ted the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­to­r­i­al Cam­paign Committee.

“Gov­ern­ment has a role in cre­at­ing a reg­u­la­to­ry struc­ture that ensures that we’re encour­ag­ing the devel­op­ment of clean ener­gy,” Oba­ma said at the event, accord­ing to a White House tran­script of his remarks.

Oba­ma would unveil an ener­gy plan lat­er that month sup­port­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Renew­able Fuel Stan­dard, which man­dates the use of bio­fu­els in gasoline.

“Bio­fu­els have an impor­tant role to play in increas­ing our ener­gy secu­ri­ty, fos­ter­ing rur­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, and reduc­ing green­house gas emis­sions from the trans­porta­tion sec­tor,” the plan states.

“That is why the admin­is­tra­tion sup­ports the Renew­able Fuels Stan­dard, and is invest­ing in research and devel­op­ment to help bring next-gen­er­a­tion bio­fu­els on line,” it adds.

Nei­ther Khosla nor DOE returned requests for comment.

• Lach­lan Markay is a staff writer for the Wash­ing­ton Free Bea­con. His Twit­ter han­dle is @lachan. His email address is markay@freebeacon.com.