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OVERNIGHT ENERGY: The 'No More' edition
Here’s what’s coming up ...
House panel to battle over loan bill
A House Energy and Commerce Committee panel will likely approve the GOP’s “No More Solyndras” bill Thursday that would sunset the Energy Department’s embattled loan guarantee program.
The measure — named after the solar panel maker that collapsed last year after wining a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009 — would also create new restrictions on existing applications and loans.
The Energy Department has attacked the bill.
White House to defend Navy biofuels program
The White House will hold a conference call Thursday defending a Navy biofuels testing program that Congress has attempted to end.
The White House has staked its biofuels position on an energy security argument. It says the armed forces encounter unexpected expenses from being too dependent on oil. Biofuels can help free the military from being chained to volatile oil markets — and the governments that control oil supplies, the administration has said.
The Navy’s “Great Green Fleet” aircraft carrier strike group is a flagship program in the administration’s biofuels initiative. That program tests advanced biofuels on Navy ships.
The Great Green Fleet has taken heat from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for using a $26-per-gallon biofuel blended with petroleum. Lawmakers, mostly Republicans, say that costs too hish, especially when the Defense Department is staring at steep cuts from sequestration. Click here and here for more on the matter.
Also on our radar ...
RNC stays on the attack
The Republican National Committee plans to continue its daily broadsides against President Obama’s green energy agenda, which it's seeking to variously cast as a failure and a sop to White House political allies.
RNC Chairman Reince Preibus will be in Philadelphia Thursday to attack the administration’s loan to Fisker Automotive. Republicans have seized on the manufacture of a Fisker luxury car in Finland rather than the United States.
The Energy Department points out that the loan supported U.S.-based design work, and also notes that the company uses U.S.-based suppliers.
A bigger part of the loan is meant to support manufacturing of a separate car model in Delaware, but that project has hit a number of snags, and the bulk of the loan has not been drawn and is on hold. More on Fisker here.
White House pushes back
White House press secretary Jay Carney took aim Wednesday at GOP allegations of political favoritism in the loan guarantee program, calling them unfounded.
“The fact of the matter is these programs, a principal one of which was started under the Bush administration, gave out loans on a merit basis. And that's been well established,” Carney said.
Dems mount China defense amid solar loan attacks
Speaking of Energy Department loan programs, federal backing for the now-bankrupt Abound Solar faced hours of GOP attacks Wednesday during a hearing before a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee panel.
Abound, a solar panel maker, collapsed recently despite drawing about $70 million in DOE-backed loans.
Democrats at the hearing mounted an essentially two-pronged defense, noting that cheap, highly subsidized Chinese solar panels have been the undoing of U.S. companies — Abound’s CEO made the same point — while noting that Republicans have also backed applications for loan guarantees that they're now attacking.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the Oversight Committee’s top Democrat, noted that U.S. trade officials are accusing China of dumping underpriced panels on the U.S. market.
“This is the main issue that we should be focusing on today instead of turning this into an election-year campaign issue,” he told Republicans.
But Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) was having none of it as he accused the Obama administration of wasting taxpayer money on Solyndra, abound and other companies.
“The amount of dollars lost, you cannot blame it all on China. You cannot sit here and claim ‘China’ as though you didn’t know they would be a fierce competitor,” he said at the hearing that included testimony from the current and former head of DOE’s loan programs office.
“This is, in fact, a vast scandal,” Issa said.
Oil prices hit seven-week high
Reuters reports that oil prices hit a seven-week peak Wednesday “as violence in Syria and tensions with Iran reinforced geopolitical fears and U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke downplayed the risk of a double-dip recession.”
The rest of Thursday’s agenda ...
The House Foreign Affairs Committee will gather for a hearing titled “Poison Harvest: Deadly U.S. Mine Pollution in Peru.”
The House Natural Resources Committee will hear from the Interior Department’s top mining regulator about plans toughen rules governing waste from mountaintop mining, an effort that has come under GOP attack.
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on the “Impacts of Environmental Changes on Treaty Rights, Traditional Lifestyles, and Tribal Homelands.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Check out these stories that ran on E2-Wire Wednesday ...
- GOP Chairmen Issa, Mica probe if wind farm decision was political
- Senators look to reinstate defense biofuels spending
- RNC hits Obama on ties between top donors, Energy Dept. officials
- Democrat Markey says massive ice break makes case for climate change action
- Wilson lays out attacks on Heinrich in N.M. Senate race
- Hacker evades British cops in 'climate-gate' probe
- House GOP renews attack on Obama's drilling policies
- Salazar: House Republican budget a 'death knell' for conservation programs
- Cardin fires shot across Romney's bow on oil payments rule
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