A Canadian firm is expected to apply for and likely will get $50 million in economic stimulus program funds for a solar panels plant it recently purchased in Nevada, according to the Nevada Journal’s Kyle Gillis.
“According to a Department of Interior memo, Enbridge Energy Partners, a Canadian-based company with extensive energy holdings in the U.S. that purchased the Southern Nevada plant from Arizona-based First Solar, ‘can apply for payments of up to 30 percent of the eligible costs of the project — approximately $50 million,'” according to Gillis.
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“The payments are available through the 1603 Program, a special exemption in the Treasury Department created by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to ‘reimburse eligible applicants for a portion of the cost of installing specified energy property used in a trade or business or for the production of income,'” Gillis said.
“The program states that the ‘1603 payment is made after the energy property is placed in service; a 1603 payment is not made prior to or during construction of the energy property,’” he said.
The firm’s plant – Silver State North – became operational May 13 and was dedicated by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. A company spokesman told Gillis the firm will soon apply for the federal funds. The facility will create two new jobs, according to Gillis.
For more from Gillis, go here.
Defraud Medicare/Medicaid – Go Directory To Jail – Do Not Collect $200. May is half over and already eight people have been convicted or sentenced this month in assorted schemes designed to enrich themselves by defrauding Medicare or Medicaid.
Take, for example, a Houston nurse who went before the judge earlier this week. Here’s the result, according to the office of Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General Dan Levinson:
“Ezinne Ubani, the former director of nursing at Family Healthcare Group, a Houston home health care company, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas in the Southern District of Texas to 97 months in prison, followed by three years supervised release.
“Ubani was ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution jointly and severally with her codefendants. Ubani was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and two counts of making false statements following a May 2011 trial.”
Or consider the case of Michael J. McKay, a New York man who pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud in a Massachusetts federal court in connection with a medical device used to aid patients whose broken bones healed improperly. To quality for Medicare payment, such devices have to meet certain guidelines, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston:
“McKay often received orders for patients that did not satisfy these guidelines. When this happened, McKay forged the patients’ medical records to make it appear as though the order met Medicare’s guidelines to induce Medicare (or the private carrier) to pay for claims that otherwise would not be covered. For instance, McKay altered physician’s chart notes, changing the dates of patient visits and inserting false diagnoses.”
