The Stench From Solyndra Continues To Rise

Most informed Americans should be somewhat familiar with the whole Solyndra affair so far:

• Solyndra was a California solar panel manufacturer that received a Federal loan guarantee worth about $535 million.
• The company received the loan even though they had never posted a profit during their existence.
• The company received the loan even though analysis from PriceWaterhouse showed that the company's long term viability was doubtful
• The company received the loan even though due diligence by the Office of Budget Management was not completed regarding the full analysis of the company's financial viability.
• The company received the loan even though a major Democrat fundraiser had emailed the White House about his concerns about whether Solyndra would survive financially.
• The reason for this short circuiting the due diligence was to provide photo opportunities for the President to visit the plant, a short circuiting that may have cost the country and its taxpayers more than a half billion dollars.
• As the company sank further into financial troubles, the Federal government possibly broke the law by putting private Solyndra investors ahead of the Federal government and American taxpayers' rights in any bankruptcy laws and distribution of bankrupt assets. 
• One of the private, institutional investors who leapfrogged the bankruptcy rights of taxpayers has a deep relationship with a major Obama fundraiser.

All of this is bad enough but the latest news and investigations are uncovering even more bad and disgraceful behavior and facts, as reported in a Reuters article from October 7, 2011:

• An Obama appointee at the Energy Department pressured White House personnel to sign off on the Solyndra Federal loan even though his wife worked for Solyndra's law firm. Conflict of interest?
• At the time of the loan approval, the appointee was an advisor to the Energy Department on its use of economic stimulus funding to encourage new energy technologies and the appointee made constant inquiries on the status of the loan application.
• In one email, the appointee reveals that the Office of the Vice president and the White House are "breathing down my neck on this (the loan approval process)," a probable reference to the administration wanted to short cut the due diligence process.
• The appointee was a major Obama fundraiser during the President's 2008 Presidential campaign.
• Other recently released emails show that Treasury officials, who I believe had responsibility for administering stimulus funds, were distressed about the Energy Department's decision to restructure the company's debt in early 2011, a restructuring that placed $75 million in private investments ahead of taxpayers' rights in an event of a bankruptcy.
• One set of emails indicate the reordering of bankruptcy rights was done by the Energy Department and that the Energy Department had not informed the Treasury of the changes. This set of emails stated the legal position that the stimulus law did not allow for the government loan to be subordinated to private investors.
• The article reports that the House Energy and Commerce Committee has now requested that the Treasury Department turn over all documents related to the loan guarantee which will add to the tens of thousands of documents already collected from the White House and Energy Department.
• The chairman of the Committee, Fred Upton, is quoted: "the paper trail released by the White House portrays a disturbingly close relationship between President Obama's west wing inner circle, campaign donors, and wealthy investors that spawned the Solyndra mess."
  

An interview with Congressman Cory Gardner, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, revealed the following findings by the committee's investigation:

• Taxpayers are unlikely to ever recover any of the $535 million loan guarantee.
• The head of the Energy Department agency that approved the loan resigned this past week, raising additional issues of who is at fault within the Energy Department.
• The Congressman stated that a 2005 law clearly states that a loan like this cannot be subordinated to other investors' assets and claims.
• The FBI is also investigating the company for fraud.
• A market analyst had predicted that the company would fail when the loan was approved in 2009 but the administration ignored this warning, and many others, and approved the loan anyway.
• The Congressman claims that the President stated this week that the success to failure ratio on these types of programs would likely be one to one, i.e. for every successful Federal loan to energy companies there will be one failure, not a great success rate when you are talking about billions of taxpayer dollars.

What a disgrace and waste. Given that the political class has shown a constant inability to successfully, efficiently, and effectively operate any component of government:

1. What made them think they could pick a winning company in an emerging energy field?
2. What made them think that a company that had never shown a profit could turn around their business and be successful and not a taxpayer liability?
3. What made them think they were smarter than PriceWaterhouse, the aforementioned market analyst, the Office of Budget Management, and other experts who warned and/or predicted a Solyndra collapse?
4. What made them think they could ignore a Federal law and move private investor bankruptcy rights ahead of taxpayer bankruptcy rights?
5. What made them think clean energy photo ops were more important than extensive due diligence, are they that vain that their political careers take precedence over taxpayer wealth?

I think the answer to all of these questions is that they did not think at all and we are out over half a billion dollars as a result of their lack of thinking.

A number of changes from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" are needed so that we do not continually waste taxpayer money on political class escapades:

• Step 1 would reduce Federal government spending by 10% a year over five years so that the Federal government focuses on far fewer but more important issues. This focus would hopefully allow them to do some things right from a governance perspective. One of the activities they would not and could not do as a result of limited funding and limited responsibilities would be handing out taxpayer money to politically connected friends and companies.
• Step 39 would institute term limits so that the incestuous relationship between incumbent politicians and campaign donators would be greatly reduced, removing the incentive for politicians to direct taxpayer money to their campaign fundraisers and for politicians to place fundraisers assets and liabilities ahead of taxpayers'.
• Step 23 proposes a process, with minimal political class input, that would establish once and for all an effective and strategic national energy plan, a plan that actually works and is far more effective than this very tactical, corrupt, and flawed approach of funding individual companies with taxpayer money without an overarching strategic plan to guide it.

Solyndra, a stench of corruption and political incompetence that continues to rise and which cost over a half a billion dollars of taxpayer money to create.






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