A Boulder climbing gym is taking heat from conservatives for its solar array, which was partly paid for with federal economic stimulus dollars.

On Friday, right-wing talk show host Sean Hannity listed the 100-kilowatt solar array at Movement Climbing and Fitness as second on his list of the “102 worst ways the president’s stimulus bill has wasted your money.”

“And the No. 2 entry on our list is a climbing gym in Boulder, Colorado, that has received more than $150,000 for a new solar panel array on its roof,” Hannity said on his opinion show that airs on the Fox News channel. “Now, aren’t there a few mountains in Colorado where people can climb actual rocks outside under the real sun?”

The No. 1 worst waste of stimulus dollars, according to Hannity’s team, was the $9.3 million awarded to a Harvard research team to build robotic bees. The tiny robots could be used for a variety of tasks, according to Harvard, including traffic monitoring, weather and climate mapping, exploration of hazardous environments, military surveillance and crop pollination.

In September, the solar array on the roof of the Movement climbing gym was one of 12 renewable-energy projects to receive $502 million in stimulus funding from the federal government as part of a new program that provides cash in lieu of tax credits.

Now, many renewable-energy projects — including wind, solar and geothermal installations — can apply for a tax credit for up to 30 percent of the cost. The grant program, made possible by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is meant to defray prohibitive installation costs with an up-front cash grant instead of an after-the-fact tax credit.

Hannity’s decision to call out Movement Climbing and Fitness came a few months after U.S. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., chided the project in their own report in December. The “Stimulus Checkup” sought to illustrate how “billions of dollars of stimulus funding have been wasted, mismanaged, or directed towards silly and shortsighted projects.”

“Boulder, Colorado, is home to more than 91,000 residents and sits on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, making it the envy of rock climbers everywhere,” the report says. “If that wasn’t enough, Boulder is also home to several indoor rock climbing gyms.

“But thanks in part to a federal renewable energy grant of $157,800, one indoor climbing facility stands out: Movement Climbing and Fitness. The gym received a Department of Energy grant to subsidize up to 30 percent of the cost of a ‘solar-electric and thermal-hot-water system.'”

Anne Worley Moelter — co-owner of the gym, which opened last summer — said she read the report from McCain and Coburn and also heard about Hannity’s comments on Friday.

“We read it and were like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ It’s very hard for us to understand why they think that it’s a waste,” she said. “We’re putting energy back into the grid. We’ve provided Boulder with 50 new jobs. … I think it’s just a political scheme of, “How can we point out what this administration is doing wrong.'”

Geoff Miller, technical sales engineer for Lighthouse Solar, which installed the panels on Movement’s roof, said he and his colleagues also found McCain’s and Hannity’s comments to be ridiculous.

“We got a kick out of it — it’s just political football,” he said. “They just don’t understand what is really going on with renewable energy.”

Miller said that both conservative digs seemed to focus on the fact that the solar array was installed on a climbing gym — McCain implied that Boulder didn’t need another climbing gym and Hannity noted that people could go outside and climb instead of going to the gym.

But, Miller said, the real benefit is that solar was installed at all, not where it was installed. The net result is that a new business is not creating a greater demand for energy from fossil fuels; instead, it’s relying on carbon-free renewable energy.

“It could go anywhere,” he said. “It could go on a bowling alley. It could go on an abandoned building. And it’s not like (Movement) made money off of it. They still put up quite a bit of cash.”

McCain’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Monday, and Fox News directed the Camera to the transcript from Hannity’s show for official comment.

Contact Camera Staff Writer Laura Snider at 303-473-1327 or sniderl@dailycamera.com.