From the Bay Citizen:
State Treasurer Bill Lockyer told lawmakers Wednesday that he continued to support a law that grants large tax breaks to alternative-energy companies — even though the bankrupt solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra was its first and largest recipient.
Solyndra was granted a $34.5 million subsidy under SB 71, a 2010 law championed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that exempts alternative energy companies from paying taxes on purchases of new manufacturing equipment.
Lockyer’s statements marked a departure from the stance he took last month. After The Bay Citizen revealed Solyndra’s tax break, which the state granted without scrutinizing the company’s finances, Lockyer called for a moratorium on issuing additional subsidies under the law, saying, “[W]e owe it to taxpayers to see if there is more we can do to make sure we don’t give their money to companies headed for a fall.”
But on Wednesday, he told a joint hearing of two state Senate committees that SB 71 is a “wise and needed law” that incentivizes green-energy manufacturing and serves as “a model for how tax expenditure statutes ought to be written.”