The House of Representatives’ lead investigator into federal loans given to bankrupt solar company Solyndra will preview his hearing on the issue in a discussion at the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday at noon.
Speaking at the weekly Bloggers Briefing, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight panel, will discuss Solyndra, the loan programs that propped it up at taxpayers’ expense, and the larger issue of federal intervention in private industry. You can watch the Bloggers Briefing live here.
Stearns and full committee chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) released this joint statement on the upcoming hearing:
…Solyndra was a bad bet from the beginning and put taxpayers at unnecessary risk. President Obama’s signature green jobs program went from a darling of the administration, to bankruptcy, to now the subject of an FBI raid in a matter of days. As our investigation continues, we hope to hear directly from Solyndra’s executives next week – the same executives who visited Capitol Hill as part of a PR campaign in July and misrepresented the company’s financial situation.
Over the last six months, our investigation has encountered a number of needless partisan roadblocks and repeated pushback, protest, and even misleading claims on Solyndra’s viability by administration officials, company executives, and congressional Democrats. Irresponsibly choosing winners and losers on projects like Solyndra is a perilous and often doomed method to create jobs. There is much to learn as the investigation moves forward, and it is imperative that the American taxpayers are not paying the price for the sins of Solyndra.
The hearing will feature Solyndra’s president and CFO, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and the official in charge of the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program, which guaranteed a $535 million loan to Solyndra.