Today is the start of an investigation into DOE loan guarantees and Solyndra’s $535 million.
The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations has a hearing scheduled today entitled “OMB's Role in the DOE Loan Guarantee Process.”*See:
And you can trust that the topic of Solyndra will be front and center.
Solyndra of Fremont, California, the beleaguered cylindrical CIGS solar manufacturer, received a $535 million loan guarantee from the DOE in March of 2009.
That loan guarantee, Solyndra's subsequent layoffs, and IPO-withdrawal placed it in the crosshairs of those opposing the allegedly less-than-transparent loan guarantee process. Accusations of political favoritism and shady deals were traded based on the fact that George Kaiser, one of the larger investors in Solyndra, through Argonaut Equity, was a bundler of campaign funds for the Obama presidential campaign.
Greentech Media received a copy of some of the loan guarantee process paperwork via the FOIA -- but it was too highly redacted to be of use. The United States DOE Loan Guarantee Program has disbursed $32 billion and claims to have created or saved 62,350 jobs.
Solyndra is also using project financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank to facilitate the sale of its solar panels to a private-sector project in Belgium. Ex-Im Bank is guaranteeing a $10.3 million loan provided by KBC Bank in Belgium to finance the sale of Solyndra's solar panels for a three-megawatt rooftop PV project. This is the company's first transaction with Ex-Im Bank and its largest rooftop solar project globally to date....MORE
"Solyndra Spells Disaster for DOE Loan Guarantee Program"
Solar upstart Solyndra mothballs IPO plans (Funny what a 'Going Concern" Letter will Do) GS
Solar: Goldman Sachs-backed Solyndra to Close a Factory and Delay Expansion
Was Solyndra the Reason Goldman Sachs Threw First Solar Under the Bus? (FSLR; GS; SPWRA)
and many more.
