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OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Showdown with Chu
State of play: The House GOP probe of the failed solar company Solyndra will feature its biggest clash yet Thursday when Energy Secretary Steven Chu appears before a House panel to discuss Solyndra’s $535 million federal loan guarantee.
But it's not clear where the probe heads from there, as Republicans spar with the White House over disclosure of internal communications. Is testimony from current or former White House officials an option?
Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the GOP’s point man on the Solyndra probe, won’t rule out seeking testimony from White House aides.
“We have got to get all the emails from the White House before we do anything, and what we are gaining now is selective emails, and we are not getting the emails from Carol Browner, Ron Klain, Chief of Staff Rouse from the White House, and we just want to get all those to understand what actually happened when Solyndra was going under,” Stearns said, referring to White House aide Pete Rouse, who took over as interim chief of staff in October of 2010 but is no longer in the position.
Republicans on the committee have subpoenaed the White House for internal communications.
Stearns, who leads the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Investigations panel, spoke to The Hill Tuesday after revelations that Energy Department officials appeared to urge Solyndra to delay announcing layoffs until after the 2010 elections.
Stearns said emails that allegedly show the Energy Department pushed to postpone the announcement are “very disturbing.”
According to a GOP Energy and Commerce memo, in October of 2010 Solyndra’s then-CEO Brian Harrison emailed Energy Department (DOE) officials to let them know that he planned to announce layoffs at the solar panel manufacturer on Oct. 28, 2010.
The memo claims that email was forwarded from Jonathan Silver, then DOE’s top loan official, to White House officials including Carol Browner, who was then a top energy aide, and Ron Klain, who was Vice President Biden’s chief of staff.
In an email from Oct. 30, 2010, advisers for Argonaut Private Equity, a major investor in
Solyndra, said Energy Department officials asked the company to delay
the announcement that Solyndra would shutter a manufacturing facility
and lay off workers until Nov. 3, one day after the midterm elections, according to the memo.
NEWS BITES:
Yucca, sprawling lab complex loom as DOE challenges
The Energy Department’s inspector general has looked under the hood at DOE and sees plenty to keep an eye on.
The IG issued a broad report Tuesday on “management challenges” at DOE, and finding a path forward for storing the nation’s nuclear waste is now on the list.
“[D]ue to the decision to terminate the Yucca Mountain Project and the remaining uncertainty as to the path forward for disposing of spent commercial nuclear waste and high level defense waste, we now consider Nuclear Waste Disposal to be a significant management challenge,” the report states.
Other challenges include cybersecurity, the expensive cleanup of nuclear weapons sites and cutting costs at DOE’s sprawling lab complex, noting DOE operates "16 Federally Funded Research and Development Centers” that together cost more than $10 billion annually.
“Using the Department of Defense's Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) experience as a guide, the Department should establish an independent panel to comprehensively examine alternatives for evaluating, consolidating, and/or realigning the Department's R&D laboratory complex,” the report states.
Elsewhere, the report notes that DOE’s loan guarantee program (which is in the spotlight over the Solyndra meltdown) is on the IG’s management “watch list.”
“Given the significance of the funds involved and the Government's exposure to risk, we believe that heightened and continued focus on this program is necessary,” the report states.
EPA's Jackson slams GOP 'jobs' plan
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson blasted House
Republicans Tuesday for voting to block or delay a slew of clean-air
regulations, arguing that the GOP’s jobs plan should be renamed “too
dirty to fail.”
“Since the beginning of this year, Republican leadership in the House of
Representatives has orchestrated 170 votes against environmental
protection,” Jackson said during a speech at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. “That is almost a vote for every day the chamber has
been in session to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency and our
nation's environmental laws.”
Jackson said the votes are a response to “myths and misleading
information,” including that the EPA is “putting forward a ‘train
wreck’ of regulations that will hobble our economy.”
“We all remember ‘too big to fail’; this pseudo jobs plan to protect
polluters might well be called ‘too dirty to fail,’ ” she said.
The EPA chief blamed the press for giving too much coverage to climate
skeptics and EPA opponents.
And, she lamented, citing a series of recent disasters and a slew of
scientific evidence, what she called the slow progress on environmental
policy.
From the speech:
“You begin to see why we are witnessing an unprecedented effort to
roll back the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and our nation's
waste-disposal laws; to see why, less than three years after a coal ash
spill that covered 300 acres of Tennessee country, the House majority
passed legislation preventing EPA from regulating coal ash. You see why,
less than two years after the Deepwater Horizon BP spill, the best idea
industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute have for creating
jobs is to de-regulate drilling. And you see how, after the
second-hottest summer on record, followed by a foot of late-October snow
on the East Coast and the reversal of a leading climate skeptic, people
are still working to stop the EPA from taking vital steps to cut carbon
pollution.”
Energy Department invests $7 million in solar
The Energy Department said Tuesday it will invest $7 million to help reduce the costs associated with installing and permitting residential and commercial rooftop solar panels.
“Even if you paid nothing for the hardware, you'd still pay thousands of dollars to install a residential solar power system,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement. “This SunShot Initiative will help reduce costs such as permitting and installation, and spur American innovation to deploy solar energy at homes and businesses across the country."
It’s the latest funding announcement under the Energy Department’s SunShot Initiative, which aims to slash the cost of solar energy by 75 percent in the next 10 years. The announcement is the latest indication that the Energy Department will continue to invest in solar energy despite growing opposition from Republicans, who point to failed solar company Solyndra.
Coats floats amendment requiring investigation of Severstal loan
Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) introduced an amendment to fiscal year 2012 energy and water spending legislation that would direct the Energy Department’s inspector general to investigate a planned $730 million loan for a company to manufacture high-strength automotive steel in Michigan.
“Much like its investment in Solyndra, the Energy Department’s Severstal loan commitment does not pass the sniff test,” Coats said in a statement. “Evidence shows that the market for this type of steel is strong and robust in the United States with multiple producers manufacturing these high technology products.”
The amendment would direct the IG to investigate whether Severstal North America — a subsidiary of Russian steel giant OAO Severstal — should receive public financing to retool and expand facilities in Dearborn, Mich.
Read more about Coats’s concerns here and here.
ON TAP WEDNESDAY:
Salazar faces collision with Republicans on drilling
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will appear before the House Natural Resources Committee to discuss his agency’s planned 2012-2017 offshore oil-and-gas leasing plan.
Many Republicans call the plan too narrow, and want more areas made available for drilling, so expect some conflict.
House panel looks at gas ‘fracking’
A House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee panel will hear from senior EPA water-quality officials and other experts at a hearing on hydraulic fracturing.
The controversial natural-gas drilling method is enabling a production boom but bringing fears of groundwater contamination along with it.
Green groups to rally against mountaintop removal mining
Environmentalists will hold a rally outside EPA headquarters to argue against expansion of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. More here.
Envisioning tomorrow’s cities
Wednesday brings the second say of The Atlantic’s Green Intelligence Forum, which is looking at “creating the sustainable city of the future.” More here.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...
— Reid pushes T. Boone Pickens gas plan in Senate
— House GOP examining Chu's internal Solyndra emails
— Iowa scientists urge candidates to accept climate change
— Emails suggest DOE pressed Solyndra to delay layoff news until after election
— Reid bashes Republicans’ war on regulations
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