It looks like crony capitalism is still rampant in the Obama administration.  First there was the $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, the now bankrupt maker of solar panels.  Now, according to Investor’s Business Daily, the U.S. is forcing the Navy to buy 450,000 gallons of jet biofuel, the biggest federal purchase of biofuel ever, from an Obama-connected firm at $16 per gallon versus the normal price of less than $4 per gallon.

Investor’s Business Daily says:

A  member of Obama’s presidential transition team, T. J. Glauthier, is a ‘strategic advisor’ at Solazyme, the California company that is selling a portion of the biofuel to the Navy.  Glauthier worked on the energy-sector portion of the 2009 stimulus bill.  Solazyme had already gotten a nearly $22 million chunk of change out of the taxpayers thanks to the 2009 stimulus.

And this is only the beginning of this two-for-one bad deal — swindling taxpayers while ravaging national security. Obama’s Agriculture and Energy departments and Navy plan to spend $510 million over three years buying biofuel for military and commercial purposes, bypassing Congress by “leveraging Defense Department procurement.”

See also:

EIA says Clean Energy program will increase electricity costs 29%

Electricity generated by wind power may raise temperatures and costs

The cost of energy conservation

Another Federal Boondoggle?