The Oregon Justice Department has started a criminal investigation into whether people involved in a major solar power project at the state university used forged documents to qualify for $11.8 million in state tax credits.
The credits were a critical part of the financing for a $23.6 million project to install solar arrays at Oregon State University and the Oregon Institute of Technology. An investigation by the Oregonian found evidence that the project’s advocates submitted phony documents with forged signatures to convince state officials to extend its deadlines.
“The Oregon Department of Justice has an active civil and criminal investigation into this matter. It is our policy to not provide additional details on open investigations,” spokeswoman Kristina Edmundson told the Washington Examiner.
Steve Clark, vice president for university relations at Oregon State, said they would “certainly cooperate” with the investigation. He stressed that the solar project was done through the state university system, not the university itself, though it did provide land for the project. “We were not involved in contracting with the various firms associated with this,” Clark said.
Oregon subsidizes clean energy programs through its Business Energy Tax Credit program. The state university system’s solar project began in 2011. A company called Renewable Energy Development Corp. — “Redco” for short — was initially contracted to do it, despite having no successful solar projects to its credit. Four months after a symbolic groundbreaking event that August that included then-Gov. John Kitzhaber, Redco went bankrupt.
Individuals involved scrambled to keep the project alive. State officials had said they would extend its deadline if they were presented with proof that construction had started by April 15, 2011.
Martin Shain, a green energy consultant working for the state, was able to convince lawmakers in 2012 to grant the extension by showing them two Redco documents that indicated it had begun construction before its bankruptcy.
The Oregonian’s investigation found that one document was an invoice dated Feb. 25, 2011, from a Redco subcontractor, but there is no evidence that the latter company ever existed. The address listed on the invoice is fictitious and the state has no records of the supposed company. Redco bankruptcy records did not list the payment. The number on the check purportedly used in the invoice went to the bank to cover an unrelated debt.
The other document used to gain an extension was a letter to a university system vice chancellor supposedly from Redco’s president, Ryan Davies, before the company’s failure. The letter stated that Redco had begun initial construction and had expenses totaling $210,000 related to it. Davies told the Oregonian he never signed the letter and that he had resigned from Redco five days before the date listed on the document. He also said Redco’s expenses in the project never approached the level stated on the letter.
Six solar panel arrays were eventually completed last year at the university and the institute of technology under a different contractor.
Green energy projects have become a political minefield in the state. Governor John Kitzhaber abruptly resigned last month after first the state justice department, then the federal government began corruption investigations focusing on him. Kitzhaber is alleged to have included his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, a paid lobbyist for green-energy interest groups, in state energy policy-making.
