Mitt Romney championed green energy fund!

"There is nothing fair about a government that favors
political connections over honest competition and takes away your right
to earn your own success," Romney said in a campaign speech last week in
St. Louis. And in Washington on Wednesday, he told the Business
Roundtable, "I don't think the government should be investing in
individual companies," adding, "I don't believe in the government
picking winners."

It's an attack line the Republican presidential challenger fires at Obama over Solyndra,
a solar firm that got a half-billion-dollar federal loan and was touted
by the Obama administration before the company declared bankruptcy last
year. Romney mocks Solyndra as a symbol of Obama's failed economic
policies.

"When government rather than the market routinely
selects the winners and losers, enterprises cannot predict their
prospects and free enterprise is replaced with crony capitalism," Romney
said in March during a speech at the University of Chicago.

As
governor, however, Romney did much the same thing. He championed a $24
million green energy fund that used public money for equity capital and
loans to renewable energy firms in the state. He said he hoped it would be a "major economic springboard" for the state.

Not
every bet paid off. Some of the companies that received public backing
under Romney, who amassed a fortune as a venture capitalist before
entering politics, have since folded or have been sold at a loss.

The
most recent was Konarka Technologies Inc., a Lowell, Mass.-based
company that makes thin, flexible solar panels. The company, which
received a $1.5 million public investment during Romney's first year as
governor, in 2003, announced June 1 that it filed for bankruptcy
protection, as it laid off about 80 workers.

The Konarka
announcement came a day after a Romney campaign appearance at the former
headquarters of Solyndra in Fremont, Calif., to portray it as a prime
example of government waste and favoritism.

Ryan Williams,
a Romney spokesman, said the decision to assist Konarka was made by an
independent board about a month before Romney became governor.

"Gov.
Romney has never believed that the government should play venture
capitalist," Williams said. "President Obama has a lot of questions to
answer about why he used taxpayer dollars to reward wealthy campaign
donors for bad ideas like Solyndra."

Williams said since the green fund was established before he became governor, Romney's hands were largely tied.

Romney
later vetoed $12.5 million from an emerging technology fund, designed
to boost manufacturing in Massachusetts, because it would have let
public officials pick and choose which firms to aid, Williams said. His
veto was overturned by the Democratic-run Legislature.

Some of the
green fund investments Romney touted as governor were made through
complex financial arrangements to funnel money collected from a
surcharge on electricity bills paid by utility consumers into a private venture capital fund to support local green energy companies.

The
surcharges, which predated Romney's governorship, were first imposed in
1998, with the money going toward the state's Renewable Energy Trust
Fund.

In January 2003, Romney announced a plan to use $15 million
from the fund — by then it had collected about $160 million — to provide
equity capital and loans to Massachusetts-based renewable energy
businesses. He pushed to make sure that financial professionals rather
than bureaucrats were given the power to decide which firms would get
assistance, Williams said.

"The trust fund has been growing for
years, and I believe now is the time to refocus its assets in such a
manner that it can become a major economic springboard for the
commonwealth by focusing on job creation in the renewable energy
sector," Romney said during an event outside the Konarka plant during
his first weeks in office.

The state invested the $15 million into the Massachusetts Green Energy Fund LP, a private venture capital fund. Other backers invested an additional $2 million, meaning the state retained a majority stake in the fund.

While
the managers of the fund were free to pick which companies to invest
in, the state placed two restrictions on their choices: The companies
had to be based in Massachusetts and have a renewable energy focus.

William
Osborn, a general partner at the Green Energy Fund, said the fund ended
up investing in about a dozen companies. While most continue to thrive,
Konarka and two others have either gone under or been sold at a loss.

"The
idea was a private venture capital fund was best but the state wanted
some control on where to direct investment," Osborn said. "That was the
big idea of the fund."

Osborn said the loss of three companies out
of a dozen isn't unusual in the venture capital world, which inherently
involves some risk. He defended the decision to invest in Konarka,
saying that in 2003 it was impossible to foresee the scale of investment
that China would place on solar manufacturing — the same pressure that
officials at Solyndra cited as a key reason for its failure.

Osborn
said it's disingenuous for Romney to say he opposes government
investment in targeted companies since Massachusetts engaged in a
similar practice when he was governor.

During Romney's tenure,
Massachusetts also doled out more than $31 million in loans to dozens of
companies from two funds created before he took office — the Emerging
Technology Fund and the Brownfields Redevelopment Fund, designed to help
rehab abandoned urban areas.

Romney in 2004 vetoed $12.5 million
for the emerging technology fund, but the Legislature overrode the veto.
The brownfields fund is managed by the state's quasi-public economic
development agency, MassDevelopment.

"What bothers me about Romney
on this issue is that he is pretending he has always had this position
when it is not the case," said Osborn, who voted for Obama in 2008 and
says he'll probably support him again.

"He supported this kind of
thing, he put it in place and suddenly he's trying to walk away from it
and saying government should not investing in technology companies,"
Osborn added. "It's like we've stepped through the mirror."