Romney's Solar Flareout

He misrepresents Obama's green-energy program using false and twisted facts.

Summary

An ad from the Romney campaign strains facts to make its point that federal grants and loans to green-energy companies were improperly steered to Obama's political backers, and that federal money was wasted on failing companies that are now laying off employees.

• It claims the "inspector general said contracts were steered to 'friends and family.' " But that's not exactly what the inspector general said. And in the year since he said he was investigating such alleged "schemes," no public charges have been made.
• The ad highlights the struggles -- company losses, nose-diving stock and layoffs -- at several companies that received substantial Department of Energy loans and grants. The ad fails to note, however, that most of the layoffs at those companies were overseas, or that the projects backed by DOE are largely moving along as planned. An independent review of the DOE program says its failure rate has been better than anticipated. 
• The ad uses an inflated figure from a partisan source to quantify loans and grants that went to Obama donors.

Note: This is a summary only. The full article with analysis, images and citations may be viewed at FactCheck.org