In a new report on “significant management challenges” facing the Department of Energy (DOE), the DOE’s Inspector General placed the loan guarantee program that produced the Solyndra debacle on a “watch list,” citing the taxpayers’ “exposure to risk” in loan guarantee deals.
“[T]his year we have added the Department’s Loan Guarantee Program to the watch list,” wrote DOE Inspector General (IG) Gregory Friedman. “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.”
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has maintained that the process by which DOE chooses to offer a loan guarantee to different companies “reflects extensive due diligence.”
The IG noted, approvingly, a Quadrennial Technology Review (QTR) in the DOE that says “fundamental [research and development] and emerging technologies must remain a part of the Department’s portfolio.”
He also noted that QTR warned that “the Department focuses too much effort on researching technologies that are
multiple generations away from practical use at the expense of other engineering research that could influence practice in the near term.”
You can read the full IG report below. (H/T Rob Bluey)
