4:50 PM, Oct 31, 2011 • By MICHAEL WARREN
Beacon Power Corporation, which filed for bankruptcy late last week, was the recipient of a $43 million loan guarantee from the Energy Department. Campaign contribution information from Open Secrets shows that Beacon Power's CEO F. William Capp donated to both Barack Obama and two Massachusetts Democrats..
Capp donated $500 to to Obama's 2008 campaign, as well as $500 to Martha Coakley and $250 to congresswoman Niki Tsongas in 2009. Coakley lost against Scott Brown in the 2009 special election to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy, and Tsongas was running for reelection to the House in 2010. Beacon Power is based in Tyngsboro, a town 44 miles northwest of Boston that is located in Tsongas's Fifth Congressional District.
Other Beacon Power employees made similar contributions. Matthew Polimeno, the company's director of government relations, donated $500 to Tsongas in 2008 and another $250 in 2009, while also donating $250 to Coakley in 2009. Beacon Power CFO James Spiezio donated $250 to Coakley in 2009.
The company's connection with Democrats does not end there. One of Beacon Power's chief federal lobbyists was Steve A. Wolfe of Cardinal Point Partners. Wolfe is a former aide to Senator Edward Kennedy, a close ally to Obama in the Senate and the man Martha Coakley was seeking to replace in the U.S. Senate.
The loan guarantee program is the same that provided $535 million in a loan guarantee to failed solar power company Solyndra.
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