*NOW* — Blogger's Briefing: Another Green Energy Boondoggle

Say you invested $11,500 in a company. Shortly thereafter, the federal government opened an investigation into that company for alleged financial crimes. Would you invest another $2,500?

Thanks to President Obama’s green energy handouts, you already did – only the amounts “invested” are about 10,000 times larger, and there’s no prospect for returns.

Ecotality, a company that manufactures charging stations for electric vehicles, received about $115 million from the Energy Department in 2009 to build 15,000 charging stations around the country. About a year later, the Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating Ecotality executives for insider trading.

But that didn’t stop DOE from awarding the company another $26 million in taxpayer money. That decision, and the subsequent financial difficulties and delays in the project experienced by Ecotality, have caught the ire of Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), who chairs the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee on Science, Space, and Technology.

Harris will discuss his ongoing investigation into Ecotality on Tuesday at noon ET at the Heritage Foundation’s Bloggers Briefing. Breitbart TV, in partnership with Heritage, will air it live.

In a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Harris requested:

…a detailed summary of the Ecotality project, including original project plan and performance metrics, deployment milestones and an update on the status of the project with respect to those metrics and milestones. Also, please provide a detailed timeline of the application and negotiation process for the original Ecotality grant and all records associated with Ecotality…between June 1 and September 30, 2009.

He has yet to receive an official response to that letter, and Harris has said that he may seek a subpoena through Energy and Commerce’s investigative subcommittee if DOE remains uncooperative.

Ecotality, meanwhile, continues to hike pay for its top executives, even as taxpayers keep the struggling company afloat.