U.S. Spends $250,000 to Make Morocco “Green”

It’s not enough that President Obama’s disastrous green energy agenda has blown hundreds of millions of dollars on ventures that have failed miserably in the U.S., American taxpayers are also bankrolling similar boondoggles abroad.

An example is a quarter of a million dollar endeavor called Green Entrepreneurship Morocco that aims to support the North African country’s efforts to build a green economy largely financed by Uncle Sam. This will be done by developing innovative commercial solutions to pressing environmental issues, such as waste management, recycling and energy efficiency. Accomplishing this will not only support the development of Morocco’s entrepreneurial eco-system it will also create much-needed green jobs, according to the grant announcement published by the U.S. government.

Here’s an excerpt from the announcement, which was made public this month: “Morocco has set a goal of becoming a good example of sustainable developments in the Mediterranean region by 2020, with an emphasis on creating green jobs in: renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, environmental and natural resource management and improvement in environmental technologies. Morocco’s green grown strategy focuses on three major areas: energy security, food security and environmental security.” It rambles on for 17 pages and lists an increase in green jobs for youths and women, sustainable green businesses and energy efficiency among the expected results of the investment.

The money is being allocated under an agreement, purporting to promote “green growth,” signed late last year between the State Department and Morocco’s government. Under the plan the U.S. committed to supporting the Moroccan Ministry of Environment’s efforts to coordinate interagency cooperation on the enforcement of and compliance with environmental laws, permitting and environmental impact assessments. The Obama administration also promised to promote green growth and green jobs and to help enhance biodiversity conservation in Morocco as well as improving management of ecologically important ecosystems.

Considering the Obama administration’s egregious failures involving “green” ventures domestically, it’s despicable that our government is financing this program in a country thousands of miles away. Judicial Watch has covered the president’s shameful green energy debacles over the years, which have robbed taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars. They include a company (Fisker Automotive) that folded after getting nearly $200 to develop a wheelchair-accessible “green” van, a business (ECOtality) that promised to make charging stations for electric cars but instead collapsed after getting $99.8 million from the government and a green van manufacturer (Vehicle Production Group) that went under after losing $50 million in taxpayer funds.

Who could forget Solyndra, the northern California solar panel company—bankrolled by Obama fundraiser George Kaiser—that crashed after getting an astounding $529 million from the government? Despite the “serious concerns” of U.S. Treasury officials about the risky infusion, a federal audit exposed how the controversial deal was suspiciously rushed through for a politically-connected entrepreneur that had raised large sums for Obama. Judicial Watch is investigating the Solyndra scandal and has sued the administration for records related to the shady deal.

A few years ago a federal audit blasted the Obama administration for blowing half a billion dollars to train workers for “green jobs” that will never exist. After investing $501 million to train workers for jobs in fields associated with renewable energy and energy efficiency, few were able to find work in those areas, according to the report which was published by the investigative arm of Congress. In fact job placement was a dismal 55% of the target and most of those positions weren’t even considered “green jobs,” according to the findings.