Just over a week before the Obama administration’s Department of Energy granted a $535 million loan to now bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, the White House Office of Management of Budget had warned that it was not ready.
But the Obama administration charged ahead anyway given its zeal for subsidizing so-called “green technology.”
The House Energy and Commerce committee, which is investigating the loan, highlighted a number of emails in the hearing this morning.
A March 6, 2009 email among staffers at the White House OMB, read, “DOE staff just told me there’s a 99 percent certainty that President Obama, on March 19 in California for other reasons, will announce that DOE is offering a loan guarantee to Solyndra. As far as I can tell the obligation won’t be entered into until May, but once the President endorses it, I doubt seriously that the Secretary will withdraw for any reason.”
Days later, on March 10, an OMB staff email warned that “this deal is NOT ready for prime time.”
Yet the Obama administration moved full-steam ahead anyway, and a Solyndra press release dated March 20 touted the loan. “The leadership and actions of President Barack Obama, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and the U.S. Congress were instrumental in concluding this offer for a loan guarantee,” Solyndra CEO and founder, Chris Gronet said in the statement.
On May 26, Obama visited the companies headquarters himself, where he declared that, “It’s here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.”
You can view all the slides shown at the Solyndra hearing here.
