Solyndra Emails: WH Pushed to Hold Off Layoffs Until After 2010 Elections

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The Obama administration urged the now-bankrupt solar-energy firm Solyndra and its top investor to hold off announcing planned layoffs in 2010 until after the Nov. 2 elections, according to e-mails released by House Republicans on Tuesday.

Solyndra received a loan guarantee from the federal stimulus program in September 2009, but it went bankrupt this September—leaving taxpayers on the hook for most of the $535 million initial loan. Struggling financially, the company announced layoffs and plans to consolidate some of its businesses on Nov. 3, 2010, according to press reports at the time.

“They did push very hard for us to hold our announcement of the consolidation to employees and vendors to Nov. 3—oddly, they didn’t give us a reason for that date,” states an October 2010 e-mail exchange between advisers for Argonaut Private Equity, the top investor in Solyndra that was founded by George Kaiser, an Oklahoma oil billionaire who bundled campaign donations for presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008.

The memo released by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee states that “several e-mails produced by Argonaut to the Committee reference the fact that the layoff announcement was postponed because of the November 2 elections.” The memo does not include the name of the adviser who wrote the e-mail.

The Energy Department responded that the e-mails released by House members add little to the debate about the Solyndra loan. “The Republican report cites internal e-mail from Argonaut about the timing of a press release,” department spokesman Damien LaVera said regarding the Election Day 2010 references. “But as the 180,000 pages of documents that the Department of Energy turned over to the committee indicate, the department’s decisions about this loan were made on the merits, based on extensive review by the experts in the loan program—and nothing in this Republican committee memo changes that.”

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee released the 14-page memo ahead of Thursday’s highly anticipated hearing, where Energy Secretary Steven Chu will testify on the failed loan. The memo includes many already publicized e-mails and also previously unpublished ones, including the e-mails referencing Election Day 2010. The document seeks to create a chronology of administration actions from September 2009,  when the Energy Department awarded the loan guarantee to Solyndra, until Aug. 31 of this year, when the company announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

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