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Energy Department Loses $42M on Clean-Energy Loan to Mich. Van Company

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green_vansThe Energy Department conceded Friday that the federal government will lose $42 million on a loan to a shuttered Michigan van manufacturer — part of the same program that provided a $529 million loan to an electric car maker that also has gone under.

Vehicle Production Group (VPG), which made vans for the disabled, ceased operations in February and laid off 100 workers, two years after receiving a $50 million federal loan under the same clean-energy program that provided a $529 million loan to electric car maker Fisker Automotive Inc., according to the Associated Press.

VPG had paid back $5 million of the $50 million federal loan this spring, and the remainder of its debt was sold at auction this week to Humvee manufacturer AM General, which paid $3 million to buy the loan.

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Obama and Murkowski Back Green Tech Cash

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photo credit: TakverAt first blush, the White House and a top Senate Republican both like the idea of steering money from oil-and-gas development on federal lands and waters into green energy R&D.

President Obama on Tuesday urged Congress to create an “Energy Security Trust” that would direct some revenues into technologies that help wean cars and trucks off of oil, like electric vehicles.

Turns out Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s top Republican, is pitching a version of the same thing.

Her plan, part of a wider energy blueprint unveiled last week, would create an “Advanced Energy Trust Fund” to seed initiatives on renewable power, advanced vehicles and other green tech.

Read more from this story HERE.