Assaulting Battery Grants

by John Weckerle

We turn our baleful eye once again on the writings of the writings of the Sandia Tea Party.  In an article titled “Stimulus Funds: Failing & Falling Into The Tank,” Edgewood Town Councilor and Sandia Tea Party internet spokesman Chuck Ring provides us a link to a Washington Times article that is apparently to be considered evidence that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has been a failure (this despite steady, albeit slow, improvements in key economic indicators): a bankruptcy filing by battery maker A123 Systems, which had “received a nearly quarter-billion-dollar stimulus grant in late 2009, but federal job-tracking figures show only a few hundred positions were created before the company joined a growing list of federally backed energy businesses that ended in bankruptcy.” The Sandia Tea Party article laments: Many a dollar has been wasted and deposited in Obama’s vast wastage pit.

Alarmed, we employed some of the advanced research that is available to New Mexico Central but apparently not to the Sandia Tea Party – Google – and found an article in the Washington Post that provides what may perhaps be a more detailed and less politically focused account of A123’s bankruptcy.  In short, the stimulus-funded facilities were acquired by Johnson Controls, Inc., and are still operating, and no jobs have been lost.  The company had only drawn on $129 million of the grant when it filed for bankruptcy – specifically, Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which allows the company to continue operations while reorganizing.  The ultimate goal of Chapter 11 bankruptcy is not to go out of business, but to emerge from bankruptcy and continue to operate thereafter.  We’ll also note that the stimulus grant has resulted in 400 jobs so far.  We recommend that readers of the Washington Times article also read the Washington Post article before deciding whether reports that the A123 story represents a “failure” are perhaps a trifle overblown.

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