The Secret Donors Behind the Center for American Progress and Other Think Tanks

Washington institutions esteemed for their independent scholarship don’t disclose donations from corporations and foreign governments.

Ken Silverstein

May 21, 2013

 

Editor’s Note: We received a letter from the Center for American Progress on May 24, 2013 objecting to aspects of Ken Silverstein’s article. In the interest of debate, we publish that letter at the end of this article, along with Silverstein’s response.

The Center for American Progress, Washington’s leading liberal think tank, has been a big backer of the Energy Department’s $25 billion loan guarantee program for renewable energy projects. CAP has specifically praised First Solar, a firm that received $3.73 billion under the program, and its Antelope Valley project in California.

 Last year, when First Solar was taking a beating from congressional Republicans and in the press over job layoffs and alleged political cronyism, CAP’s Richard Caperton praised Antelope Valley in his testimony to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, saying it headed up his list of “innovative projects” receiving loan guarantees. Earlier, Caperton and Steve Spinner—
a top Obama fundraiser who left his job at the Energy Department monitoring the issuance of loan guarantees and became a CAP senior fellow—had written an article cross-posted on CAP’s website and its Think Progress blog, stating that Antelope Valley represented “the cutting edge of the clean energy economy.”