Kelly Ayotte’s Deep Ties To Scandal-Plagued ‘Green’ Energy Firm

The former New Hampshire senator and current gubernatorial candidate sat on the board of Bloom Energy as the company became mired in financial, environmental and legal woes.

Kelly Ayotte, once a U.S. senator from New Hampshire, has portrayed herself as a champion to clean energy. But as she mounts a bid for governor of the Granite State, her past role on the board of a troubled company may undermine that message.

Ayotte joined Bloom Energy Corp.’s board of directors in November 2017, about a year after narrowly losing her 2016 reelection bid to Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. At the time, the California-based fuel cell manufacturer was in the midst of mounting financial and environmental scandals.

Bloom saw in Ayotte someone with a “track record of working in a bipartisan manner to promote energy solutions that are good for the economy, the environment and national security,” as the company’s founder and CEO KR Sridhar said at the time.

In Congress, Ayotte had bucked her party on energy and climate change, becoming the first Republican to endorse the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan to curb carbon pollution from power plants and joining a handful of GOP lawmakers in supporting a nonbinding amendment that stated “climate change is real and human activity significantly contributes to climate change.”

The Bloom post, along with joining the right-leaning environmental advocacy organization Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions as a senior adviser, allowed Ayotte to further position herself as a clean energy advocate. In a news release announcing her appointment to the board, Ayotte said Bloom’s mission aligned with three of her top priorities: “ensuring energy security, reducing harmful emissions, and the creation of high quality advanced manufacturing jobs.”