Solyndra hearing to go on, despite execs' silence

[September 23, 2011]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- Top executives from a bankrupt California solar energy company are to appear before a congressional hearing investigating their government loan, but they're not expected to say much.

Solyndra Inc. CEO Brian Harrison and the company's chief financial officer, Bill Stover, have notified the House Energy and Commerce Committee they will invoke their Fifth Amendment right to decline to testify to avoid self-incrimination.

Silence from the two executives will not stop committee leaders from pursuing their investigation into a $528 million loan Solyndra Inc. received from the Energy Department in 2009.

GOP lawmakers say they will ask questions about Solyndra, regardless of whether they are answered.

In a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, GOP lawmakers said they were expanding their inquiry into the Solyndra loan, which has become a rallying point for Republican critics of the Obama administration's push for so-called green jobs.

Lawmakers said they want the administration to turn over all communications between the Energy Department and White House related to Solyndra, as well as all communications between Energy and the Treasury, which lent Solyndra the money.

Committee leaders said the Obama administration may have violated the law when it restructured Solyndra's loan in February in such a way that private investors moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of default. The economic stimulus law provides for taxpayers to be ahead of other creditors in the event of bankruptcy or default.

Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman said Thursday that the restructuring was "entirely legal," noting that another aspect of the law requires Chu and other officials to protect the overall interests of taxpayers. He said the restructuring accomplished that because it gave the struggling company a better chance to succeed.

Solyndra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month and laid off its 1,100 employees.

The Fremont, Calif.-based company was the first renewable-energy company to receive a loan guarantee under a stimulus-law program to encourage green energy and was frequently touted by the Obama administration as a model. President Barack Obama visited the company's Silicon Valley headquarters last year, and Vice President Joe Biden spoke by satellite at its groundbreaking ceremony.

Since then, the company's implosion and revelations that the administration hurried Office of Management and Budget officials to finish their review of the loan in time for the September 2009 groundbreaking has become an embarrassment for Obama as he tries to sell his new job-creation program.

[Associated Press; By MATTHEW DALY]

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