It’s yet another inauspicious announcement the Obama Administration didn’t want you to hear. Late on Friday, the White House announced that it ordered an independent review of loans made by the Department of Energy to energy companies after months of weathering criticism for its $528 million loan to the now-bankrupt Solyndra solar panel company.
The White House’s independent investigation, though, isn’t the only one in town. The FBI raided Solyndra after it declared bankruptcy, and Congress is diving in with an investigation of its own. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who has been a strong advocate of this federal loan program, is set to testify before a congressional committee in mid-November on his involvement in the scandal. And Heritage’s Lachlan Markay reports that the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced Friday that it will vote to subpoena a host of White House documents related to Solyndra, including messages from the President’s Blackberry. The White House, though, would not comment on whether it will comply with the subpoena.
Even the mainstream media is picking up on the story. On yesterday’s Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked White House senior adviser David Plouffe whether, in times of dire economic straits, the government should be playing venture capitalist and trying to prop up green energy industries. Plouffe’s answer? In a nutshell, other governments are doing it, so we should, too: “Listen, you see what’s happening in other countries, you know, huge investments in this clean energy sector. We have to do everything we can.”
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