The Center for Public Integrity

A Department of Energy loan program, infused with $25 billion to spur a wave of fuel-efficient vehicles, has not closed a loan in two years and is likely to leave two-thirds of the money unspent amid fallout over the Solyndra debacle and other factors.

Those findings, revealed Friday in a U.S. Government Accountability Office report, rekindle questions over how effectively the Energy Department picks winners and losers for its lucrative green energy portfolio.

The audit focuses on DOE loan programs, including one known as ATVM — the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program.

That program was pitched as part of a broader government campaign to spur innovative, clean technologies that would both rev up the economy and clean the environment. Under ATVM, the government would help bankroll electric cars and other fuel-saving initiatives; this seed money would, in turn, trigger a domino effect for industry and consumers.

Yet the last loan closed in March 2011, and just $8.4 billion has been spent so far in five projects.

The money, records show, helped stalwarts Ford Motor Co. and Nissan North America transform factories to build fuel-efficient vehicles, and cutting-edge upstarts Tesla Motors and Fisker Automotive develop electric cars and plug-in hybrids. A smaller loan went to a Miami company to develop wheelchair-accessible vehicles to run on compressed natural gas.

Yet not all the projects have found success.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., argued today that Democrats, not Republicans, are the party of the rich.

"Don't tell me Republicans are the party of millionaires and billionaires when Obama's campaign arm is charging a half-million dollars for a meeting over near the White House," McConnell said, referencing the new nonprofit Organizing for Action, whose donors will reportedly get special access to President Barack Obama.

McConnell delivered his comments in a speech today at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

Donors who raise at least $500,000 for Organizing for Action — launched by former Obama campaign aides — will qualify to be part of a national advisory board, which comes with "the privilege of attending quarterly meetings with the president, along with other meetings at the White House," the New York Times reported last month.

White House and OFA officials have dismissed the idea that the nonprofit is selling access. They counter that the group will be a grassroots-focused organization that works to support the president's legislative agenda and will build off of the Obama's campaign success with small-dollar donors and volunteers.

During the 2012 election cycle, about 60 percent of Obama's campaign cash came from donors who gave less than $1,000, according to the Campaign Finance Institute, with 28 percent coming from donors who gave $200 or less.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday called the Medicaid expansion piece of federal health reform “fiscal coercion” and blamed “friends and allies in the conservative movement” who have embraced it, saying they have “folded in the face of federal bribery and mounting pressure.”

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., Perry, who ran a failed bid for president last year, also seemed to take a shot at his party. He suggested that claims published in the media that voters had rejected conservative causes would only be true if Republicans had “actually nominated conservative candidates in 2008 and 2012.”

To read the full story, co-reported by the Center for Public Integrity's Dave Levinthal and the Texas Tribune's Emily Ramshaw, click here.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Three conservative attorneys had harsh words for the Federal Election Commission, the government agency tasked with regulating elections, during a campaign finance-themed event today at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

Benjamin Barr, who specializes in First Amendment law, predicted that continued legal challenges would help "lessen the teeth" of the FEC, which, in an ideal world, he said, would be "shut down."

The agency's regulatory authority "is very small," he said, while lamenting that political activists have become "habituated" to "bowing in compliance with the federal government" by registering and reporting their financial activities to the six-member commission. The commission is now operating with five commissioners because of the resignation of Democrat Cynthia Bauerly in February.

Such talk came during a week when the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics estimated that the 2012 election cost more than $6.3 billion at the federal level.

While campaign finance reformers are also routinely critical of the FEC's performance and lament the commission's frequent deadlocked votes on key cases, they've typically argued that the federal government should be strengthened, not weakened.

But the regulatory environment today, Barr told the Center for Public Integrity, is that "six unelected bureaucrats in Washington" are creating "Rube Goldberg machines that weigh and balance eleven different factors that nobody gets."

Proposed cuts to the cash-hemorrhaging United States Postal Service, including eliminating Saturday delivery, are prompting outcries from lobbying interests as diverse as letter carriers to consumer groups.

Be sure to also include within their ranks the greeting card industry, which relies on the postal service for its business as much as any.

Hallmark Cards Inc. and the Greeting Card Association have both re-signed lobbyist Rafe Morrissey to advocate on their behalf for "all matters pertaining to reform and operation of the United States Postal Service," according to new documents filed with the U.S. Senate.

Morrissey, who has long lobbied for both entities, started his own firm government affairs firm March 1. Hallmark and the GCA "elected to remain with me as clients," he explained to the Center for Public Integrity.

"Both have weighed in on the importance of maintaining six-day mail service as well as the need to pass reform legislation to stabilize USPS finances for the last four years," Morrissey said. "I expect these activities to continue, but there is not an increase in activities this year compared to past years."

Hallmark spokeswoman Linda Odell told the Center for Public Integrity that the company was "skeptical of the estimate of savings to be realized from the proposed elimination of Saturday delivery" and that reducing service was "the wrong approach [for] the future viability of the USPS."

John Bolton, a former U.N. ambassador under President George W. Bush and a leading conservative voice on foreign policy issues, will lead a pair of newly formed political action committees, including a super PAC, two Bolton associates confirm to the Center for Public Integrity.

"The goal for the committees is restoring national security issues to their proper place on the political agenda," said Mark Groombridge, a long-time Bolton adviser.

Highlighting national security issues and U.S. policy in Asia and the Middle East will rank among the PACs' priorities, Groombridge said.

He added that the PACs' structure, staffing and fundraising goals haven't yet been formalized, and there's no timetable yet on when they'll enter the political fray — or how. 

"Those are details that are being worked out," Groombridge said. "For now, we just wanted to get the names registered."

Kelley Rogers, president of Virginia-based Strategic Campaign Group, which filed the committees' federal organizational paperwork, tells the Center: "We will have an announcement in a few weeks as to both entities."  

One committee is named Bolton for America PAC and is organized as a traditional political action committee, which may raise limited amounts of money and in turn donate limited amounts to political candidates and party committees, according to Federal Election Commission filings made public today.

The other, Bolton for America Super PAC, is also organized as a traditional PAC, although its establishment as such appears to be an easily corrected paperwork error.

"Bey and Jay." Whatever.

Come July 29, it'll be "Beyoncé (and Bob)" at Washington, D.C.'s Verizon Center, as Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., is planning to rock out at a political fundraiser that pairs his name with the music megastar, according to an invitation obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

For a yet-to-by-publicized (although almost certainly sizable) contribution, donors will be treated to seats in a suite over which the two-term senator will preside.

View the invitation here, along with come-ons for decidedly more traditional Casey fundraisers next week at Charlie Palmer's Steakhouse on Capitol Hill and in May at a Philapelphia Phillies baseball game. No matter that Casey doesn't face re-election again until 2018.

Amy Pfaehler, Casey's campaign finance director, said she's not authorized to comment on the events and directed questions to Casey's Senate office, a representative for which did not respond to requests for comment.

As for Beyoncé, well, Jay-Z's better half will be half an arena away on stage during Casey's fundraiser, so don't expect your contribution to include much face time with the 17-time Grammy Award winner who as of late has evermore increased her profile in the political and governmental realm.

But while it's hardly unheard of for politicians to use unwitting pop stars in bids to fill their campaign coffers, Beyoncé has recently become decidedly political on her own terms.

Toyota's North American subsidiary has formed a political action committee, a new Federal Election Commission filing indicates, meaning the Japanese automaker is adding another influence vehicle to its already sizable government outreach operation.

The PAC, which may raise up to $5,000 per year from eligible company employees, is officially named the Toyota Motor North America Inc. Political Action Committee, although it will informally go by Toyota/Lexus PAC.

"Toyota is establishing the Toyota/Lexus PAC which will allow employees, acting together, to support candidates who share the company's interests, values and goals," Toyota spokesman Ed Lewis said in a statement to the Center for Public Integrity.

Toyota, the world's largest automaker in terms of sales volume, already employs a sizable team of government lobbyists.

In recent years, it's spent between $3 million and $6 million annually on federally reportable lobbying efforts, including $3.35 million during 2012, U.S. Senate disclosures indicate.

That's consistently more federal lobbying than any other foreign automaker, including Honda and Nissan, although generally less than domestic car companies General Motors and Ford.

Political prognosticator Charlie Cook ranks Illinois' 17th Congressional District as solidly Democratic ahead of the 2014 midterm elections, but that's not keeping Democratic freshman Rep. Cheri Bustos and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from taking any chances.

Bustos, who defeated incumbent GOP Rep. Bobby Schilling in November, was one of 26 Democratic House members named to the DCCC's "Frontline" program earlier this week, a partnership designed to boost politicians' fundraising and electoral prospects. (The National Republican Congressional Committee operates a similar program for its members.)

Naming Bustos to the Frontline program is a doubling down on the investment the DCCC has already made in her: Ahead of Election Day 2012, the DCCC spent about $2.9 million on political ads trashing Schilling — ads legally known as "independent expenditures" because they were not coordinated with Bustos' campaign. 

That was more money than the committee spent on independent expenditures in any other House race, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Bustos is hardly alone among the newly named Frontline participants in terms of past DCCC air support.

All 26 newly named Frontline participants had DCCC-sponsored ads produced on their behalf in 2012, according to the Center for Public Integrity's analysis. And their races accounted for nearly half of the more than $60 million the DCCC spent on independent expenditures during the 2012 election cycle.

Last year, the DCCC made at least $2 million worth of independent expenditures in the races of several Democrats who are part of the 2014 Frontline program, including:

What do actor Will Smith, UnitedHealth Group Executive Vice President Anthony Welters and Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs have in common?

All were recently identified as bundlers by the Obama campaign, raising at least $500,000 for the Obama Victory Fund.

In fact, 11 new bundlers were added to the campaign's list of "volunteer fundraisers" this week.

A new analysis from the Center for Public Integrity examines the new rainmakers, many of whom have close connections to the influence industry, despite the fact that President Barack Obama prides himself on rejecting campaign contributions from registered lobbyists.

Overall, 769 bundlers collectively raised more than $186 million for the victory fund, a joint fundraising committee that benefited Obama's presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties in several battleground states.

Read the Center's full analysis here.