Conservatives use Solyndra to bash Harry Reid’s natural-gas bill

Conservative groups are using the Solyndra controversy as a weapon against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) new legislation that provides tax credits to boost deployment of natural-gas-powered vehicles.

More than a dozen groups — including Americans for Prosperity, Heritage Action for America and the Club for Growth — sent a letter to lawmakers Monday criticizing the legislation that Reid is championing alongside billionaire energy magnate T. Boone Pickens.

“If we’ve learned anything from the Solyndra debacle it’s that politicians do a terrible job trying to prop up their favored energy industries,” the letter states.

{mosads}Solyndra, the California solar panel manufacturer that received a $535 million Energy Department loan guarantee in 2009 but went bankrupt in September, prompted GOP attacks on federal green-energy financing programs.

The letter follows a campaign by the same groups against the House version of the bill, which provides billions of dollars in tax credits to spur conversion to natural gas in the heavy trucking industry and boost other natural gas vehicles.

“Tax incentives like these allow government to decide which energy sources thrive or fail — and thereby distort the market,” the new letter states.

Conservative and taxpayer groups backing the campaign against the natural-gas bill also include Freedom Action, Taxpayers for Common Sense, the National Center for Public Policy Research, and others.

Reid introduced the Senate version in mid-November with Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).

Backers of the plan call it a vital way to boost energy security while transitioning to a cleaner-burning fuel.

“We cannot afford to continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year to buy oil from foreign countries, many of which are unfriendly to the United States,” Reid said in a statement on Nov. 15.

“This bill will create over one million jobs by accelerating the development of clean alternative vehicles and fuels here at home, and make our nation more secure,” he said.