Sen. Bingaman planning hearing on clean-energy investment

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said Tuesday he plans to hold a hearing on U.S. investments in clean-energy technology in the coming weeks.

The hearing comes amid a firestorm in Washington over the recent bankruptcy of Solyndra, a California solar company that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration in 2009.

But Bingaman said Tuesday that the hearing, which has not yet been scheduled, will not focus on the Solyndra loan guarantee in particular. Instead, the hearing will be an examination of U.S. investments in clean energy compared to those of other countries.

“It would focus on the issue of what do we do to partner with industry to make sure we’re involved in clean-energy technology and deployment as compared to what other countries are doing to partner with their industry to accomplish the same thing,” Bingaman said in the Capitol Tuesday afternoon.

Bingaman said the hearing will likely be scheduled for “some time in the coming weeks.” But he cautioned that committee staff are still in discussions about the hearing.

The senator said he did not yet know whether the hearing will examine the structure of the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program or whether it will also look into an $8.3 billion conditional loan guarantee for a Georgia nuclear power plant.

Asked by reporters Monday night whether he was planning a hearing specifically on the Solyndra loan guarantee, Bingaman said, “We don’t have a plan to do that at this point. You have got several investigations going already and obviously we will monitor what comes out of those, but I haven’t scheduled a hearing.”

Bingaman, who helped develop the 2005 energy law that first authorized Energy Department loan guarantees, told reporters Monday that the Solyndra bankruptcy shouldn’t be used to cut clean-energy investment.

“I think there are clearly a bunch of people here in Congress who don’t support the idea that the government should partner with industry to help ensure that the U.S. has these types of projects,” Bingaman said Monday. “I think it made good sense as national policy then and I think it still does.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), the top Republican on the committee, called Monday for a broad hearing on Energy Department loan guarantees.

“I do want to know that the structures within DOE are good and sound, that everybody really knows what they are doing,” Murkowski told reporters Monday. “I want to know that we have a loan guarantee program that actually works.”

House Republicans have pounced on the Solyndra bankruptcy in recent weeks, alleging that the Obama administration rushed approval of the loan guarantee for political reasons. The White House has strongly denied the allegations.

The GOP has also raised concerns about the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program more generally, including whether the department adequately reviews loan guarantee applications.