Topic: NewsBusters
In an April 4 NewsBusters post, Ryan Robertson referenced "the $529 million loan guarantee" received by the troubled electric car maker Fisker, adding that "The saga all began in 2009 when the Obama administration handed out $1 billion worth of loans to two electric car manufacturers, Fisker and Tesla." Both claims are misleading to the point of being false.
As Media Matters points out, Fisker received only $193 million of that $529 million. An update to Robertson's post sort of acknowledges that, though it's not clearly explained.
Robertson's assertion that "saga all began in 2009" is false. In fact, according to Media Matters, the program under which Fisker received federal money was signed into existence by President Bush in 2007, and it was funded under legislation signed by Bush in 2008. Further, it was Bush officials, not Obama officials, who encouraged Fisker to apply for a loan under the program.
UPDATE: An April 25 NewsBusters post by Geoffrey Dickens stated of Fisker: "The Obama administration has flushed almost $200 million of the American taxpayer's money down the drain on another green company failure." He failed to mention the Bush administration's role in the Fisker loan.
