If you’re thinking the Obama administration doesn’t care about jobs you’d be completely wrong. In fact, if the jobs are “green” Mr. Obama is first to step up to the plate; better yet if the jobs help promote the president’s green jobs initiative it doesn’t even matter if taxpayer money is sunk into a money pit call Solyndra.
Today on Capitol Hill lawmakers began the process of unraveling the latest scandal to beset the Obama administration, the $528 million loan to a solar-panel company Mr. Obama visited last year to proclaim the successes of his green jobs agenda.
Apparently the loan was rushed through at the last minute to allow the vice president to make a big-screen announcement at the company’s groundbreaking ceremony in 2009 and a personal trip by the president to Solyndra’s headquarters in May of 2010. Much like other green job failures, Solyndra went bankrupt this month, taking more than a half billion dollars of taxpayer’s money with them.
One rather shocking bit of testimony exposed today showed that as Solyndra heads to bankruptcy court taxpayers are at the bottom of the food chain, in direct opposition to federal law. The testimony was part of hearings held by Republican and Democratic lawmakers delving into the decision that ultimately left taxpayers on the hook for millions and newly released emails showing that administration officials were raising doubts about the loan proposal to Solyndra months before it was finalized. If the White House pushed through the Solyndra loans against the best advice of federal officials this could turn out to be the biggest scandal of the Obama administration.
Jeffrey Zients, deputy director of the White House budget office, acknowledged that Solyndra’s bankruptcy will "limit the government’s recovery of funds," and called the outcome "very unfortunate." He said administration officials provided a "thorough examination and analysis" of the loan proposal and said a "challenging global solar market" has made business harder for companies like Solyndra. Why didn’t the administration do a thorough vetting of the solar marketplace before dishing out more than a half billion dollars on an utterly speculative venture?
Jonathan Silver, the Director of the Energy Department’s loan office said a combination of factors — namely China flooding the marketplace with cheap solar panels and the European buying market tightening as a result of their economic troubles — has caused solar-cell prices to plummet. "These changes were particularly damaging to Solyndra."
Silver said Solyndra’s projects were considered "advanced" dating back to 2008. "In 2009, Solyndra appeared to be well-positioned to compete and succeed in the global marketplace," Silver said.
Emails released by the committee show that the Department of Energy’s credit committee decided "not to engage in further discussions with Solyndra" in the final days of the Bush administration due to questions about the funding position of the company, but when the Obama administration came to power officials restarted the loan review process. Why? Could it be that one of the principals of Solyndra is an Obama donor?
"A half a billion dollars that was not supported in January under the Bush administration was … conditionally recommended in March," Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, pointed out.
Could political influence have played a role in the loan being approved? If government loan analysts shot down Solyndra’s application why would the same career loan analysts allow it to proceed only 2 months later?
According to the House committee, the average review time for White House budget officials screening Energy Department loan guarantees is 28 calendar days. The committee said that for Solyndra, the first such loan guarantee made by the department took just 9 days.
Officials expressed concern about the review process in the run-up to the Biden announcement. One White House budget official asked that the announcement "be postponed." Another email complained about "rushed approvals," and said "we are worried" about Solyndra. However, the announcement went forward as planned
The emails show White House officials repeatedly checking with the Office of Management and Budget on the progress of its review of the loan ahead of the high-profile groundbreaking for the company’s new factory. Another email from a budget official referred to "the time pressure we are under to sign-off on Solyndra." And yet another email showed a budget analyst in March 2009 warning the deal was "not ready for prime time."
But the White House denied that it was trying to influence the result of the financial reviews, and it has defended the federal loan.
"This loan guarantee was pursued by both the Bush and Obama administrations," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. "The Department of Energy’s overall portfolio of investments — which includes dozens of other companies, continues to perform well and is on pace to create thousands of jobs." This are the standard Obama administration talking-points, the only thing missing was “save or” before the word create in Mr. Schultz’s statement. Which raises another sticky point; what if the Solyndra scandal is only the tip of the iceberg? How much other taxpayer dollars have been flushed down the proverbial “green” toilet?
Democratic lawmakers, while raising questions about this particular loan, said it’s important to keep funding clean energy projects. Why? Is it because they don’t understand the concept of a market-based economy? Where is the demand for solar panels? Ask Chevrolet how the demand for plug-in hybrids is doing these days? Seen many Chevy Volts on the road?
According to the internal emails, which House Republicans have released, one OMB reviewer noted that a credit-rating agency had predicted Solyndra would go belly up by September 2011, a nearly perfect prediction. Why in God’s name would the government sink hundreds of millions of dollars into a company they themselves thought wouldn’t last 2 years? Fishy? Just a tad.
"We have ended up with a situation of having to do rushed approvals on a couple of occasions (and we are worried about Solyndra at the end of the week)," an OMB staffer reported to Vice President Biden’s domestic policy adviser in 2009. "We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews and have the approval set the date for the announcement rather than the other way around."
As Bush was the “Education President,” Obama wants to be the “Green Technology President;” fair enough. Promote your agenda, drive your goals forward, but for the love of God could you possibly do a better job of choosing how to spend our money when the country is $14.7 trillion in debt? And if anything shady happened, which it’s starting to look like, must we keep repeating the Richard Nixon lesson that even the president isn’t above the law?
Rounding out this article it seems appropriate to offer up a quick review of some recent “oops” presidential quotes:
Nixon: “…the American people have a right to know if their president is a crook.”
Carter:” It’s clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper — deeper than gasoline lines of energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession.”
Reagan: "The United States gives terrorists no rewards and no guarantees. We make no concessions; we make no deals."
Bush 1: “Read my lips, no new taxes.”
Clinton: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” and “…it all depends what the meaning of is, is.”
Bush 2: “No one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn’t find the weapons.”
Obama: “The foundation of economic growth will always be companies — like Solyndra.”