Stearns: Fire top Energy Department loan official over Solyndra collapse

By Ben Geman - 09/16/11 09:48 AM ET

Rep. Cliff Stearns (Fla.), the House Republican spearheading the GOP probe of federal aid to the collapsed solar company Solyndra, said Thursday that the head of the Energy Department’s loan programs office should be fired.

Stearns called for the head of Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Loan Programs Office, in an interview with the Fox Business Network.

“Well Mr. Silver is of course the top loan officer at the Department of Energy. I think he should be fired,” said Stearns, a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Stearns is chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee that’s probing the Energy Department’s $535 million loan guarantee for the California solar company from the Treasury Department.

Stearns had previously said that “someone should be fired” over Solyndra, but hadn’t called for Silver’s ouster specifically.

Solyndra imploded two weeks ago, laying off 1,100 workers and filing for bankruptcy.

Republicans probing the loan have pounced on the company’s collapse, targeting White House involvement in the aid and more broadly using it to attack administration “green jobs” efforts.

The Energy panel's Republicans have released emails that they say reveal White House efforts 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.

Silver and White House officials have rejected claims that the White House pressured the Energy Department to quickly finalize the support.

Silver took over the loan program office after the guarantee was granted.

But Republicans have faulted the Energy Department’s managing of the loan support when Solyndra was struggling financially, especially an early 2011 agreement to restructure the loan guarantee.

The agreement provided that Solyndra’s private investors, not the federal government, would recover the first $75 million if the company collapsed.