CORRUPTION ALERT! The Husband Of A Top Official From Biden Administration Is CEO Of A Green Energy Financing Firm

Credit: Mosaic

Senior Department of Energy (DOE) official, Wahleah Johns’ spouse is the top executive and the co-founder of a green energy firm that specializes in financing solar projects.

Johns was selected to the DOE’s Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs back in January 2021. She is married to Billy Parish, the CEO of California-based Mosaic.

Overall, Parish has more than $1 million in vested stock options of Mosaic and up to a $25 million stake in the firm, Office of Government Ethics filings report.

Parish co-founded Mosaic over a decade ago as a crowdfunding startup. It has since then grown into a solar financing powerhouse that has provided more than $10 billion in funding to residential solar and energy-efficient installations for contractors/consumers.

Fox News reported:

Mosaic works with a network of more than 700 installation companies, according to Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm that provided $220 million in financing to the company in 2016. The company has boasted that its platform is used by the “majority of the nation’s top solar installers” including SunPower, Vivint, and NRG Energy.

However, the direct family ties between Johns, who has focused much of her efforts in office on boosting solar projects, and such a major solar loan provider could present a conflict of interest depending on Mosaic’s relationship with the DOE and whether it has recently obtained funding from the federal agency, an ethics expert said.

Michael Chamberlain, the director of the government watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust said, “If Mosaic has received funding from the Department of Energy or if they’re slated to become a recipient of any funding, like any of the grants or loan guarantees, that could present an issue.”

He added, “The same level of scrutiny should be given to officials in any administration.”

“If somebody is going to raise the alarm about a certain person that has some kind of tie back to Big Oil, then the same level of scrutiny should be given to someone who comes from, say, a green energy company or an environmental organization that’s been involved in these issues or stands to potentially benefit from programs that come through their agencies.”

He noted that Johns is the latest in a long list of Biden officials to have close ties to the green energy industry. Another example is DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who maintained her large stake in Proterra, an electric bus manufacturer, months after she took the position.

Parish has supported federal programs including the recently passed $739 billion climate and tax package, the Inflation Reduction Act. Parish said the act would incentivize Americans to switch to solar. The bill extended the 30% solar residential tax credit for the next decade.

“The Inflation Reduction Act is rich with consumer incentives and tax breaks that will drive the adoption of clean energy products,” Parish said back in November. 

“Families can save tens of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of a solar system.”

Mosaic is a member of the Solar Energy Industries Association, which spent approximately $2 million lobbying the Senate on issues including the Inflation Reduction Act last year.