Solar panel producer tied to Kanjorski receives $ 400M federal loan

A Colorado-based solar panel manufacturer for which the nephew of US Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-11, Nanticoke, is vice president of marketing has received a $ 400 million loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy. The loan commitment to Abound Solar Manufacturing – announced by President Barack Obama during his July 3 weekly radio address – is to increase solar panel production at an existing plant in Colorado and build a second plant in Indiana that will create more than 1,200 jobs, a company statement said. Part of the management team of Abound Solar is the Democrat 's nephew, Russell Kanjorski. But a campaign spokesman said the congressman did not have any part in the awarding of the loan commitment. "His nephew works for the company, but is an executive and has nothing to do with securing federal projects, I don 't believe," said spokesman Ed Mitchell. "The congressman doesn 't know any of the executives of the company and has had no contact with them." The congressman has also had no contact with anyone in the administration to get the (loan commitment), and that ' s what it comes down to, "he added. Russell Kanjorski made headlines, along with his siblings, in 2002 when a company they owned received as much as $ 9 million in federal grants that their uncle helped obtain. That company, Plains Twp.-based Cornerstone Technologies, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2006. It was created to use state-of-the-art water-jet technology to pulverize materials like aluminum, coal, glass and graphite, the byproduct of which would be transformed into industrial lubricants, electronic packaging and various applications in the military defense field, as reported at the time. Abound Solar will use its federal loan to "produce millions of state-of-the-art solar panels," Mr. Obama said in his address. On its website, Abound Solar says it was founded in 2007 "to commercialize a proprietary process for manufacturing cadmium telluride thin-film photovoltaic modules." A conservative-leaning magazine, The Weekly Standard, wrote about the link between Mr. Kanjorski 's nephew and Abound Solar in its July edition, but did not indicate the congressman played any part in helping the solar panel manufacturer obtain the loan. Efforts to reach Abound Solar were unsuccessful Saturday evening.