Green power: Wind, solar and old-fashioned juice

Nevada's own senior senator called the 10-senator junket to China this past week "historic."

"The relationship between the United States and China is important for our two nations, but it is also important for the world," Sen. Harry Reid said in a statement. "How the United States and China work together on commerce, currency and clean energy will help determine the future health of the global economy."

Though the itinerary for the trip was shrouded in an unusual level of secrecy, the trip could have major financial implications for some of Reid's strongest supporters. According to Reid's office, besides meeting with government officials, the group was scheduled for "site visits of American investments and clean energy projects in Chengdu, Beijing and Xi'An." The latter just happens to be the home of a huge Chinese research project on wind turbine electricity generation.

Reid played a key role in a multi-company deal that culminated in an October announcement that the Chinese company A-Power Energy Generating Systems plans to build a wind turbine assembly plant in Southern Nevada, creating as many as 1,000 jobs.

Reid met earlier this year, about the time of his meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao during his first visit to the United States, with the head of the Chinese company ENN Group and lobbied for a solar power plant to be built in Southern Nevada.

No site or construction date has been set for the wind turbine assembly plant, but company officials said it should be in Clark or Lincoln County. A-Power is partnering with U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a Dallas-based firm with close links to the Democratic Party, and American Nevada Co., a Henderson construction company owned by the Greenspun family, which owns the Las Vegas Sun newspaper and has been a fawning backer and financial supporter of Reid for decades.

Press clippings posted on Sen. Reid's own website give Reid credit for bringing the assembly plant to his home state. Cappy McGarr, managing partner of U.S. Renewable Energy Group, is quoted as saying, "He has been very astute at bringing new-energy jobs to Nevada."

In addition to the wind turbine plant, A-Power and U.S. Renewable Energy Group have plans to place 300 wind turbines in West Texas as part of project called Spinning Star. For this project, the companies have a applied for a $450 million grant from federal stimulus funds and a Department of Energy loan guarantee.

That ruffled some feathers.

Writing for The Investigative Reporting Workshop, a professional journalism center in the School of Communication at American University, reporter Russ Choma recounted in December that when the project was first proposed, several U.S. senators, led by Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., balked at using stimulus funds because most of the 2,800 Spinning Star jobs would have been created at assembly plants in China. "As few as 40 long-term jobs might be created in the U.S., a point that Schumer hammered at," Choma wrote.

"In November 2009, US-REG and A-Power announced a new deal, this one apparently carefully crafted to counter the charges that the only thing that working with A-Power would yield was Chinese jobs," Choma's report continued. "A-Power would build a new manufacturing facility -- in Nevada. The new plant would employ 1,000 workers and manufacture turbines for the U.S. market. The factory proposal had virtually no details, such as where it would be, or how A-Power expected to sell turbines in the already competitive U.S. market when they were removing the biggest selling point in their business plan: cheap Chinese labor. But it was still heartily endorsed at the time by Sen. Reid."

But the power behind the scenes was the focus of Choma's investigative report, titled "Blown Away: Tracking stimulus grants for renewable energy." You see, Cappy McGarr and his wife and others with his company are major contributors to the Democratic Party and Harry Reid, giving more than $1.8 million to candidates and PACs since 1990.

According to Choma, a week after the Nevada assembly plant was first broached, one of US-REG's lobbyists donated $29,940 the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which in turn gave $65,000 to Reid's campaign. Two US-REG lobbyists also gave directly to Reid $4,900, while McGarr and his wife each gave $2,400 to Reid's campaign in 2009.

You ever climb a windmill with a grease gun? They take a lot of axle grease.

Thomas Mitchell is senior opinion editor of the Review-Journal. He may be contacted at (702) 383-0261 or via email at tmitchell@reviewjournal.com. Read his blog at www.lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell.