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Despite controversy, White House doubling down on clean energy loans
The Energy Department (DOE) is not backing down in its efforts to support clean energy companies, despite Republicans pummeling the Obama administration for approving a $535 million loan guarantee to a now-bankrupt solar firm.
The department could approve as many as 15 renewable energy loan guarantees by the end of the month when a program launched under the stimulus law ends.
The 2009 stimulus law authorized an Energy Department program to offer loan guarantees to renewable energy, electric transmission and biofuels projects. The program expires at the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30.
To date, the DOE has finalized 17 loan guarantees for a range of solar, wind and geothermal projects. The department has issued 15 conditional commitments that must be finalized by the end of September.
The department, for example, finalized an $852 million loan guarantee for a NextEra Energy solar project in California last month.
The administration has come under fire from Republicans in recent weeks after Solyndra, one of the first companies to receive a DOE loan guarantee, announced in late August that it would file for bankruptcy and lay off 1,100 workers.
The GOP argues that the administration missed a series of red flags that hinted at the company’s financial problems.
Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee released portions of emails Wednesday that they say show the White House tried to rush a final decision on Solyndra’s financing so that Vice President Biden could announce approval of the loan guarantee at the September 2009 groundbreaking for the company’s new factory.
“What the documents show is that the rush to push out stimulus dollars may have impacted the depth and quality of DOE and OMB’s review,” Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, said at a hearing Wednesday.
But the administration has pushed back on the allegations in recent days. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that the emails were a “scheduling matter” and were not intended to put additional pressure on officials to finalize the loan.
Meanwhile, the Energy Department is arguing that the Solyndra debacle shows that the United States must double down on its investments in clean energy to compete with countries like China, which has invested billions in solar energy.
“When it comes to clean energy, we have a choice to make. We can compete in the global marketplace — creating American jobs and selling American products — or we can buy the technologies of tomorrow from abroad,” Jonathan Silver, the executive director of the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, told Stearns’ panel Wednesday.
