Solyndra failure draws attention to other firms
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is moving to finalize as many as 15 loan guarantees for renewable energy companies before the stimulus program ends on Sept. 30, and Republicans are questioning whether that could lead to more failures like Solyndra Inc., a company that filed for bankruptcy and may leave taxpayers on the hook for a half-billion-dollar loan.
The loan guarantees essentially make it easier for the companies to get financing as the government guarantees repayment in the event of default. In Solyndra's case, the loan came from the government itself, but private banks often provide the financing.
A spokesman for the Energy Department said the department won't take any shortcuts during the approval process.
"We will only close the deals that are ready to close on Sept. 30," said spokesman Damien LaVera.
A congressional subcommittee is examining the loan guarantee program. It released documents Wednesday that appeared to show senior staff at the White House Office of Management and Budget chafing about having to conduct "rushed approvals" of a loan guarantee for Solyndra, a California manufacturer of solar panels. The company is also the subject of an FBI investigation.
CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports that the bankruptcy has turned President Obama's visit to the company last year into an embarrassment.
It wasn't long after the president's visit that the first signs of trouble appeared at Solyndra, Blackstone reports. The company closed one plant and laid off workers even as it kept drawing on its government loan.
House GOP: WH rushed loan to failed solar co.
FBI raids solar firm that got stimulus cash
Cringe time at White House as one-time solar fave' goes bust
Republican members of the committee said the emails raised questions about whether the loan was rushed to accommodate a groundbreaking ceremony in September 2009 that featured Vice President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
"We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews and have the approval set the date for the announcement rather than the other way around," said one of the emails from an unidentified OMB aide to Biden's office.
In another email exchange obtained by the committee, an Energy Department official asked a staff member at OMB if "there is anything we can speed along on the OMB side." Again, neither official was identified.
"I would prefer that this announcement be postponed," the OMB official replied. "This is the first loan guarantee and we should have full review with all hands on deck to make sure we get it right."
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the emails don't suggest that the White House was pushing for the loan to be made.
"What the emails make clear is there was urgency to make a decision on a scheduling matter," Carney told reporters at the White House. "It is a big proposition to move the president or to put on an event and that sort of thing so people were simply looking for answers about whether or not people could move forward."
"It had nothing to — and there is no evidence to the contrary — nothing to do with anything besides the need to get an answer to make a scheduling decision," he said.
Solyndra once was the showcase for Mr. Obama's efforts to increase investment in renewable energy and to generate jobs. But the marketplace for its products changed dramatically over the past year. Chinese companies have flooded the market with inexpensive solar energy panels, and Europe's economy weakened demand from customers. The result has been an unprecedented drop in solar cell prices this year. Two other solar panel manufacturers also filed for bankruptcy in the past month.
Administration officials stressed that private investors thought so highly of Solyndra's prospects that they put more than $1 billion of their own money into the company.
But Republicans on the panel said there appeared to be a rush in approving financing for Solyndra, and they expressed concern that a similar rush may be taking place now with agreements that would have the federal government guaranteeing an additional $10 billion in loans if all the guarantees are approved before Sept. 30.
"In this time of record debt, I question whether the government is qualified to act as a venture capitalist, picking winner and loser in speculative ventures and shelling out billions of taxpayer dollars to keep them afloat," said GOP Rep. Fred Upton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Energy Department's Loan Programs Office, said the loan guarantee program is needed to give U.S. companies the kind of low-cost financing that other nations are providing their renewable energy industries. For example, the China Development Bank is providing tens of billions of dollars in credit to that country's largest solar panel manufacturers.
"This isn't picking winners and losers," Silver said. "It is helping ensure that we have winners here at all."
Democrats said failure to invest in the U.S. solar industry would amount to an economic death sentence that would allow other nations to dominate a growing business.
"If you live in reality, you know the world cannot continue its dependence on fossil fuels and that we are in danger of losing this industry to our competitors, especially China," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
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I guess he doesn't feel the same way about the vast subsidies that we provide to the hydrocarbon industry, subsidies that the GOP staunchly refuses to eliminate in spite of that industry's phenomenal profits. If we had begun shifting government investment from petroleum to renewable energy three decades ago we would have a stable energy supply that's not dependent on foreign oil, but that wouldn't benefit the GOP's cronies.
This one:
"Solyndra: Blame It On Bush, Say Obama Officials"
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/solyndra-blame-bush-obama-officials/story?id=14513389
...is, yet, another of one of, virtually, thousands of entries.
This fact is unprecedented!
But, somehow, I knew he would ...it is "his calling" to blame someone else:
"Solyndra: Blame It On Bush, Say Obama Officials"
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/solyndra-blame-bush-obama-officials/story?id=14513389
After spending months touting the Obama administration's decision to loan $535 million to the California solar energy upstart Solyndra, top officials took a new tack Wednesday while testifying before Congress about the company's abrupt shut-down and bankruptcy: the loan, they said, was actually the Bush administration's idea. The Energy Department's top lending officer told Congress that the Solyndra loan application was not only filed during President Bush's term, but it surged towards completion before Obama took office in January 2009.
"By the time the Obama administration took office in late January 2009, the loan programs' staff had already established a goal of, and timeline for, issuing the company a conditional loan guarantee commitment in March 2009," said Jonathan Silver, who heads the Energy loan program.
Republicans pushed back hard against this version of events, unearthing internal Energy Department emails that indicate the panel evaluating the loans had made the unanimous decision to shelve Solyndra's application two weeks before Obama took office.
Hoooooo boy!!
It will never end
......that is, until Election 2012!
Actually, Solyndra is the DOE's only failure. In fact, it has a failure rate of 1.3%. Remember, too that Solyndra got its initial guarantee in the last minutes of the Bush Administration. Remember, too, that last March, the GOP was attacking the DOE for moving too slowly.
Lest I forget, the GOP is funded by the oil industry. The failed loan guarantee to Solyndra is pennies compared to what the GOP receives from Big Oil, which is poisoning the environment and destroying the planet.
Green technology is the wave of the future, even a few Arab shiekdoms recognize that. Either we lead the green tech industry, or we lose out.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/14/treasury-joins-fbi-congress-in-investigating-stimulus-loan-to-failed-solar/#ixzz1Y0szMZhO
The Obama Administration will still find a way to blame Bush for this
...watch and see!
This is one of the places where the technology is changing so fast that if you are a month behind the curve, you have lost the ball game.
My brush with solar power (solar hot water)shows that even with the IRS tax break, breakeven is over 9 years. It was too complicated and would start needing replacements before breakeven. That's breakeven before figuring in the cost of money. I didn't do it. It just wasn't economically feasible.