Bill Clinton hits Romney on Solyndra visit

Former President Bill Clinton is jumping into the fray over Solyndra, the failed, taxpayer-backed solar company that Mitt Romney and GOP super-PACs hope to transform into a symbol of President Obama’s economic record.

Clinton used a New York City fundraiser for Obama on Monday night to bash Romney’s recent surprise campaign stop at the shuttered California headquarters of Solyndra, which went bankrupt last year after receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee in 2009.

“Gov. Romney goes out to a company that had a loan that didn’t work out and says, 'Oh, this is a whole bust,' ” Clinton said at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, according to a transcript. “Here’s what I know. We ranked first or second in the world in every major scientific survey in the capacity to generate electricity from the sun and the wind. During the worst of the meltdown, clean-energy jobs grew twice as fast as the rest of the economy, paid 35 percent more.”

Republicans have made Solyndra a centerpiece of their attacks on federal green energy investments and Obama’s wider economic record, alleging the company is proof that the federal government should not be in the business of “picking winners and losers.”

The Romney camp and allied super-PACs are also using Solyndra to counter the Obama campaign’s attacks on Romney’s record at Bain Capital.

White House officials and the Obama campaign say Solyndra should not obscure the wider successes of Energy Department loan guarantees, which began under President Obama using authority first established under former President George W. Bush, and Obama's other green energy programs.

The loan program was authorized in a bipartisan 2005 energy law, and modified and funded through the 2009 stimulus law that ultimately provided support for Solyndra.

The Hill’s Amie Parnes has more on Clinton’s fundraising for Obama here.

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