The Obama administration engaged in a pattern of approving loans that were not qualified to receive taxpayer money, according to one Republican House chairman who says that is as disturbing as the loss of billions of dollars in investments.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Relations Committee, said Sunday that the administration’s approval of a loan guarantee for solar power company Solyndra — which went belly up shortly after a half-billion dollar investment by the federal government — is just one example of a “breach of protocol” in approving loans.
Issa said the Energy Department actually approved $4.75 billion worth of loans on the last day that the law allowed for financial backing of alternative energy firms.
“We’re finding it’s not just Solyndra. It’s a pattern of these sorts of investments,” Issa told “Fox News Sunday.” “One of the questions we have for (Energy) Secretary (Steven) Chu is, tell us why that last day, somehow, you had everything you needed and you didn’t have it over a period of time before?”
He said that his committee is less interested in debating the merits of “green energy” and what qualifies as jobs created in that field than at looking to see whether political connections interfered in the approval process for struggling companies, and whether that interference pushed the Obama administration to back a loan for a creditor who otherwise would have been left holding the bag after Solyndra’s bankruptcy claim.
“The American people have a right to except that the rule of law will guarantee that even if we don’t like the policy, that it’s done properly,” Issa told “Fox News Sunday.”
“Remember this was a $500 million earmark, effectively, by political appointees, something you hear about with Congress you don’t always hear about with the president. … We’re going to look for political interference because you have to ask — why would we put the government at a disadvantage when we’re putting in more money?”
President Obama has made no bones about his decision to invest in green energy companies. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, he said that his administration did due diligence, but the loss comes with the risk of doing business.
“The nature of these programs are going to be ones in which, you know, for every success, there may be one that does not work out as well. But that’s exactly what the loan guarantee program was designed by Congress to do, was to take bets on these areas where we need to make sure that we’re maintaining our lead,” Obama said during a White House press conference.
Several of the president’s biggest backers have been tied to Solyndra, including George Kaiser, a big investor in Solyndra and a big fundraiser for the president. Kaiser said he did not intervene on Solyndra’s behalf.
Another presidential backer, Steve Spinner, raised about $500,000 for candidate Obama back in 2008 and got a top job in the Energy Department, where he reportedly used his post to push for Solyndra to get the $535 million loan guarantee. Spinner’s wife worked for a law firm representing Solyndra at the time. Spinner has since left the Department of Energy and is at a Democratic think tank now.
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3 Responses
like duh!
All cheap loans and bailouts are politically motivated (whether directly to companies, or to union, or through specialized tax credits). Corporate welfare is just as politically motivated and regular welfare – but at least the latter is designed to help poor people and isn’t motivated by a desire to get campaign contributions. At present, groups opposed to corporate welfare are co e.g. the “Tea party”.
Wow! This from a president who is supposedly the wisest person to hold that seat. That line of thinking is what got us into the current financial mess we’re in. Force banks to give mortgages to people who couldn’t afford to repay it.
Well as the genius in the Whitehouse would say for every loan that worked you’ll have one that doesn’t, but you have to take risks in life.
Sure, with your own money, Barak, you could do whatever you please but not with the governments money.
Now he’ll have to tax the rich people even more to cover this loss of 1/2 a billion dollars.
This is just the biggest scandal since the president was not born in America! That whole crowd of obama, pelosi, reid, etal, should all be put in jail. They’re the so corrupt it’s pathetic. I don’t know why they’re not doing a real probe about this. Believe me, if it were the other way around, those democrats would be howling.