Treasury: Solyndra loan was probably illegal

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Treasury officials, on several occasions, questioned the legality of the Department of Energy’s approval of a loan restructuring for the now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer, Solyndra, according to internal government emails obtained by FOX Business.

The emails show Treasury officials and a handful of accounts raised concerns with officials at the Departments of Energy and Justice that the proposed restructuring violated federal regulations. The Department of Energy eventually approved the agreement that brought in more private capital on the condition those investors would largely stand before the federal government in the event Solyndra filed for bankruptcy. The solar company did so nearly seven months later.

“The Title XVII statute and the DOE regulations both require that the guaranteed loan shall not be subordinate to any loan or other debt obligation,” wrote one Treasury official in an email to another in August. “I will bet a quarter that the DOE lawyers have some kind of theory on how whatever restructuring they have done and whatever they are considering doing does not violate these requirements. Can’t wait to hear it.”



Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/solyndra/2011 ... z1ap1bHDWQ

Well this isn't exactly a surprise, sounds like the Chicago way afterall.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 62792.html

A major investor in Solyndra LLC was instrumental in helping the troubled solar-power firm compete for a potentially lucrative U.S. Navy deal, a previously unreported connection that will likely fuel controversy surrounding the company

There is no evidence linking the loan guarantee to Mr. Kaiser, who was a significant donor to President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/1 ... ostpopular

It's been a major embarrassment to the Obama administration, which oversaw the last steps of the guarantee and granted it in spite of internal debate over Solyndra's prospects

So Republicans have been exploiting the ugly issue, with National Republican Congressional Committee Tuesday distributing a press release that left out the fact that the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program was launched by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, created under the auspices of Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas).

And the Solyndra application was started by the Bush administration, which selected Solyndra as one of the 16 most promising green energy programs in the country.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/1 ... asury.html

Asked by Republican members of Congress whether they had seen that occur in a federal loan, Treasury officials Gary Grippo and Gary Burner said no.

Grippo is a deputy assistant treasury secretary, and Burner is chief financial officer at the Federal Financing Bank, which made a $528 million loan to Solyndra in 2009.

The two men stopped short of declaring the loan restructuring illegal, as Republican allege. "'I'm unaware of - I can't give you a legal interpretation on that, sir," Burner told Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla.[i]


Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/1 ... z1aq5zwBDe




Yep, Fox News is being unfair and biased again.

Solyndra-gate???

ruveyn

Since in my experience "accounts" are something filled with sorted numbers that are not capable of human thought, I question the accuracy of that piece.

Yes, I'm punchy today. Working nearly 24/7 on the 10/17 tax deadline. But, still, that smacks of lazy reporting.

Even your own article notes that someone did the legal research to conclude it would be OK, I'm not sure where the fire is.

lol, I was wondering the same thing about "accounts." I know Fox has made some cuts to their fact checking department, but can't they at least hire a proofreader?

Anyway, a single start-up company flopped. So what, it happens, quite often actually. That's what happens with new technology. It takes a lot of trial and error to get it right.

Well the interesting part is that when stuff got handed out via the bankruptcy stuff, it was done in a way that violated a 2005 law, that stated that Government investments with taxpayer money goes first.



Fox Nation is a large editorial section, not the News section.

Furthermore, Fox Nation's article which is taken from Fox Business is referring to actual e-mails by the Treasury Department to the Energy Department.

@ number5

Actually what Fox Nation said was factually accurate due to what they are referring to, and that is e-mails from the Department of Treasury to Department of Energy.

Fox Nation has been placing the blame at the foot of the Democratic party as usual. I think we can say that Fox Nation comes under the auspices of Fox News. It is clear that the fault lies with individuals of both parties, so Fox Nation's focusing on Democrats is immoral. maybe Fox Nation should qualify, at least indicate, that Republicans have been as closely meshed in to this disaster as the Democrats. But no, they don't.

In this case the blame can be laid entirely at the feet of the Obama administration, because the Bush administration refused to loan Solyndra any money saying that Solyndra's business practice was a disaster waiting to happen.

I am now going to quote myself, and I want you to look at this very carefully.

Actually, I know when the program was started during the Bush Administration, maybe you didn't understand the first time around.

The Bush Administration, DENIED Solyndra's application for a loan and refused to give Solyndra money, because in their opinion Solyndra's business model was a disaster.

So how again are Republicans and Bush at fault when the Bush Administration would not loan Solyndra money because they thought it was a bad investment?

The White House also noted to ABC News that the Bush administration was the first to consider Solyndra’s application and that some executives at the company have a history of donating to Republicans. The results of the Congressional probe shared Tuesday with ABC News show that less than two weeks before President Bush left office, on January 9, 2009, the Energy Department’s credit committee made a unanimous decision not to offer a loan commitment to Solyndra.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/blogg ... 8241/posts

Why do you think I talked about Bush? I said Republicans. Not Bush. As you can see the two Republicans above were involved in a law that gave the Democrats the ability to do what they did. So why is this illegal? It isn't illegal. There was a law that the Republicans passed that allowed the Democrats to get involved in this pseudo-imbroglio in the first place. Two groups are to blame here.

How are Republicans to blame when the decision had been made not to loan Solyndra money, and the Obama administration gave Solyndra the money despite the evidence that it was a bad idea?

The Bush administration thought it was a bad idea. The Obama administration didn't. So? I can say that the Bush Administration's tax cuts and overseas wars were a bad idea. Obama's fixing of the economy so far hasn't been bad at all really. Unemplyoment is still too high of course, but that avoids the nub of the recovery: which is GDP growth, which in itself will heal the other factors as long as stupid people stop crying wolf.

The nub of the issue right now is why you thought it was illegal when the measure itself was approved by Republicans and forwarded by Republicans. It's only illegal to you because something Obama did went tits up. I'd rather get to criticizing him for a real reason now than having to defend him all the time by now from this impertinent and quite unjustified jabbing.

Actually there is more to it than that. I suppose it was only a coincidence that Nancy Pelosi had a family member that worked at Solyndra too?

There's more to it than that... So come on, deliver the goods. Oh wait, are you actually saying that this Nancy Pelosi line is evidence? That isn't good enough. It may be a good reason to check it out but to say that it's obvious some nepotism was going on because they're related isn't good enough since just because someone is related doesn't mean nepotism will occur.

There's about as much reason to believe that Obama was being controlled by green aliens to fund Solyndra because Solyndra is actually a front for evil 12-foot space reptiles.

I will make a correction on Pelosi, she is tied to the second solar firm scandal.

On SolarReserve's website is a list of "investment partners," including the "PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund (East) LLC." As blogger American Glob quickly discovered, PCG's number two is none other than "Ronald Pelosi, a San Francisco political insider and financial industry polymath who happens to be the brother-in-law of Nancy Pelosi, the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives."
http://www.drudge.com/news/148840/dems- ... er-another

Then we have:

Out of the hundreds of out-of-work employees, vendors, investors and other creditors in the bankruptcy of government-backed solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, one name stands out: the California Democratic Party.

Why California Democrats would be creditor to a company that received more than a half-billion dollars in federal loans to build a solar-panel plant isn’t clear. Even party officials say they’re not sure.

The California Democratic Party’s communications director, Tenoch Flores, said the organization was not owed “any funds in any form” by the California-based company. He said he was unclear why the party would be listed as a creditor in Solyndra’s bankruptcy filing.

According to campaign-finance records, Solyndra donated $7,500 to the California Democratic Party in October 2010. It’s legal in California for corporations to make donations. But that doesn’t explain why the company would identify the Democratic Party as a creditor in its bankruptcy filing a year later.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... /?page=all