E-Newsletter

Good News for Jobs

Good news – more jobs are coming to the Ninth District!  Furniture manufacturer Albany Industries, Inc. plans to open its first Virginia manufacturing facility in Galax, creating 335 new jobs. In Montgomery County, Backcountry.com will invest $20 million to establish a distribution center. This facility will employ more than 200 people. The Federal-Mogul Corporation, which supplies products to equipment manufacturers, will also add 50 new jobs as a result of a factory expansion in Montgomery County. Congratulations to the economic developers, state and local government officials, and everyone involved in this process. This is good news, but the hard work continues. While these jobs will not be enough to get everyone in the region who is unemployed back to work, I am hopeful that we are headed in the right direction.

In addition to new companies in the area, I’d like to congratulate the Ball Corporation, which manufactures beverage can tops and tabs.  Just last week Ball celebrated 40 years of operation at the Bristol facility. I want to thank all of these companies – both new and old – for choosing to invest in the Ninth District.  I will continue to work with local economic development groups and businesses to keep current businesses open and bring more jobs to our region.

Protecting Jobs: House Passes the EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011

The fight to protect jobs continues. Last week, the House passed my bill, the EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011 (H.R. 2250), by a bipartisan vote of 275 – 142.

This bill will assure that we roll back the unnecessary, over burdensome Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on boilers and incinerators across the Commonwealth and the United States.  These regulations are commonly called Boiler MACT, and according to a recent study, they could put as many as 10,000 Virginia jobs at risk.

H.R. 2250 gives the EPA 15 months to re-propose the Boiler MACT rules and ensure that they are workable and truly achievable. This legislation will also extend the compliance time for the Boiler MACT rules from three to at least five years. Many businesses remain concerned about the short amount of time currently allowed to adjust to the rules.  The passage of this bill is good news for America’s job creators.

Protecting jobs is an issue that transcends party lines and should be one of the top priorities of Congress. I look forward to working with Senators Collins (R-ME) and Wyden (D-OR) and my colleagues in the Senate on their companion legislation to H.R. 2250 (S. 1392), which already has 35 cosponsors, including 11 Democrats. Virginia Senator Jim Webb is also a cosponsor. Our strong bipartisan coalition is evidence of the wide support for this regulatory fix. As this bill heads to the Senate, I urge them to pass this common sense, bipartisan jobs bill and send it to the President’s desk soon.

On a related front, in an Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing last week, we had the EPA testifying about their budget. Interestingly, they have projects that they have not paid for yet. Why? Because they can’t get the projects done in a short period of time. Some have even taken longer than five years. They expect American businesses, hospitals, and schools to comply with complex new regulations in three years. Clearly, it’s about time the EPA led by example regarding the same standards they want to put on businesses.  No wonder H.R. 2250 received such bipartisan support.

Protecting Taxpayer Dollars: Solyndra Scandal Continues to Unfold

The Solyndra scandal continues to unfold. A few weeks ago, I told you about the Department of Energy’s (DoE) $535 million stimulus loan guarantee to the now-bankrupt solar energy company, Solyndra.  Solyndra was a hallmark of the President's loan guarantee program in the stimulus package.  As we continue to learn more about the loan process and the bankruptcy, the outlook looks grim. 

While a host of bad decision making and gross negligence was involved in issuing the original Solyndra loan, a major issue was DoE’s decision to subordinate your taxpayer money to private investor money.  In common sense language that means when it comes to collecting whatever money can be found from the bankrupt Solyndra, the taxpayers have to wait until a couple of fat cat financiers get the first $75 million.

In February of this year, just six months before Solyndra filed for bankruptcy, DoE approved this placing of the taxpayers in the back seat in what I believe is in violation of their own regulations and the law of the United States of America.  The law says we the taxpayers are not supposed to be in second place. The regulations say that if there is a deviation in the loan agreement, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of Treasury are to be notified and consulted.  Both OMB and Treasury heard about the possibility of the taxpayers being put into second place and warned DoE that they should follow the law. Treasury went so far as to encourage DoE to check with the Department of Justice.  DoE never consulted with OMB or Treasury on the terms of the “subordination” and, based on what I have seen so far, chose not to consult with the Justice Department about the legality of their actions.  Without the actions of DoE, Solyndra would have gone bankrupt earlier.  I believe we would have been in a better position if Solyndra had gone bankrupt then.  Now they have failed and we are no longer first in line. I believe someone broke federal law and that person should be held accountable.

In a hearing with Department of Treasury officials on Friday, one of them stated that he had never before seen taxpayer money subordinated. Shouldn’t that have been a red flag for DoE officials involved in this process?  The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, on which I sit, will continue to investigate the Solyndra matter and especially those involved in the “subordination” decision.  Putting private business before the taxpayers in violation of the clear meaning of the law is outrageous.

As always, if you have concerns or comments or wish to inquire about legislative issues, feel free to contact my offices. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov.