One more to add to the Project No Project list, presenting the un-stimulus in action:

Baard Energy CEO John Baardson announced today that company directors have decided they will no longer pursue an application with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Loan Guarantee Program for the Ohio River Clean Fuels project (ORCF). According to Mr. Baardson, the company learned that recent NRDC and Sierra Club legal challenges against permits issued by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will likely delay for years any funding from a DOE guarantee.

The DOE has recently made it known to Baard that lawsuits challenging environmental permits will be considered part of the risk evaluation of a project and may have an impact on various cost penalties and when the project would receive funding. Therefore, what should have been an advantage, having the necessary permits which demonstrate the project is shovel-ready, ended up jeopardizing the project because of these lawsuits....

"The people of Ohio should know special interests groups are suing the State of Ohio's EPA claiming that permits were issued to our project unreasonably and unlawfully. These disruptive activities only serve to delay the creation of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in Ohio. The Ohio EPA spent more than a year scrutinizing these permits and even incorporated many of the comments received from the NRDC into the final permit terms and conditions..."

"While NRDC and the Sierra Club rarely succeed in proving these cases, they will skillfully play this out and effectively delay any resolution with the DOE for quite a few years" said Mr. Baardson... " As an example, Mr. Baardson mentioned that just last week, the Department of Energy announced their first tentative loan guarantee for a project that makes solar panels. He pointed out that the guarantee program that led to this funding was authorized by Congress over four years ago.