Another taxpayer-funded energy company files for bankruptcy

Fox News speaks with William Yeatman on the failure of a government subsidized energy company. 

A cutting-edge battery maker that received millions from taxpayers has become the latest government-backed energy firm to file for bankruptcy – reviving the controversy over how stimulus dollars were spent under the last administration. 

Seven years after Aquion Energy received a $5.2 million stimulus-tied grant from the federal government, the Pennsylvania company on Wednesday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

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Critics say Aquion’s fate is further evidence the government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers.

“Who thinks the Department of Energy has the expertise to predict which companies will succeed for fail in the marketplace, particularly in an industry that is not only dependent upon government subsidies, but is highly unpredictable?” said William Yeatman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

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“Let’s remember that the need for energy storage systems is  strictly a consequence of the intermittency of renewable energy sources like solar and wind,” Yeatman said. “… These companies benefit from the grants and indirectly from the inefficiencies of an industry that exists by the grace of political favoritism.”

Read the full article at Fox News.