Timing of GOP-Chu Solyndra showdown in flux

Capitol Hill Republicans and Energy Secretary Steven Chu are on a collision course over the failure of solar energy company Solyndra, and the overall merits of the Energy Department’s loan-guarantee program.

But Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who is leading the GOP’s Solyndra probe, said he’s not certain when he will bring Chu before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, for which Stearns serves as chairman.

“It could be in November, it could be late October, it could be in December,” Stearns told reporters Thursday in the Capitol. “As a time range, we are hoping before Christmas.”

Stearns said it’s not clear whether the next hearing on Solyndra — the California-based firm that collapsed in August and laid off 1,100 employees despite receiving a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009 — will feature Chu.

The Florida Republican instead suggested that the trajectory of the probe depends on what flows from the latest request for White House documents.

“It depends upon all the emails we can get from the president,” Stearns said.

Stearns and full Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) wrote to White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler on Wednesday seeking “all communications” among White House staff and officials relating to the loan guarantee between Jan. 20, 2009, and the present.

Chu has signaled in recent days that he plans to defend Energy Department loan programs as a vital way to help ensure the United States is competitive in growing green technology industries.

Stearns, however, made clear that he plans to press Chu on the specifics of the Solyndra loan guarantee, notably the restructuring early this year that allowed private investors to be repaid first if the company went under.

This “subordination” of the federal government to private investors, who had agreed to provide another $75 million to the struggling company, has become a focal point of the probe. Chu signed off on the restructuring of the loan agreement, which Energy Department officials have defended.

“Secretary Chu deserves a fair hearing and we should hear how the subordination occurred. That is probably the big reason we would bring him up,” Stearns said, although he also listed other areas of interest, such as warning signs that some administration officials identified about Solyndra’s viability.

For more on the Energy Department’s defense of loan guarantees and the loan restructuring, go here.