The Washington Post reports that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has acknowledged making the final decision to continue funding Solyndra even after the failed solar company technically defaulted on its initial $535 million loan guarantee:
Chu spokesman Damien LaVera said in a statement that the secretary approved the restructuring agreement for Solyndra because it gave the company “the best possible chance to succeed in a very competitive marketplace and put the company in a better position to repay the loan.”
…
In April 2010, the company’s auditors raised doubts about whether the company could continue as a “going concern” because of cash-flow problems. The following month, Obama visited the company to praise it as an “engine of growth.”
In late autumn of 2010, company executives confided to the Energy Department that they were running out of cash and could not make a required payment to a cash-reserve account. The company was supposed to begin making the first of $5 million payments to create a $30 million cash reserve on Dec. 1.
Solyndra officially defaulted on its loan that day. Chu approved a softening of the loan requirements so that the company could continue receiving loan installments.
“Ultimately, the choice was between imminent liquidation or giving the company and its workers a fighting chance to succeed,” LaVera said in the statement, first reported by Politico.
The agency authorized the Federal Financing Bank to give two additional cash installments to Solyndra — one in December 2010 and another in January 2011. Both payments came before Energy Department officials finalized a deal to restructure the loan and forestall the company’s collapse in late February.
As you’ll recall, that restructuring agreement gave private investors priority over American taxpayers with respect to the first $75 million recovered in the event of Solyndra’s collapse.
Chu is tentatively scheduled to testify next month before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
That's not the Steven Chu I thought I knew. - Barack Obama
With this kind of financial acumen, can we expect that Chu will win yet another Nobel Prize, only this one in Economics?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseECON?
Scott! You disappoint this Friday!
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF GAME THEORY!
Disregard my sarcasm, and best regards for the weekend.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAlternate blog post title: "Obama decides Solyndra scandal getting too close to Oval Office; Feeds Chu to the Hounds"
Cover up.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor a White House notoriously slow to make anyone take blame, that was lightening fast.
Expect Chu to walk the plank in an effort to shield the President from further scrutiny. Expect that effort to fail.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere was a time when someone responsible for blowing more than half a billion of the tax payer's dollars would resign in disgrace. It would be nice if those times would return.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJustice Dept. investigation to keep documents
from Congress, now Chu is the fall guy. Sounds
like a cover up.
It comes down to "What did he know and when did
he know it"?
This also applies to the gunning running racket.
Couple of field guys kicked way upstairs. For
silence?
For my money the gun racket scandal is the biggest.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTwo American border personnel killed as a direct
result of the actions of a criminal white house.
I don't particularly care if Obama feeds Chu to the wolves. Hopefully, Chu will be out (which is a really good thing) and he is still the responsibility of Obama. I don't see a down side.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTakes responsibility? How? Is he going to pay it back? Give the taxpayers his Nobel Prize to be melted down to sell off the gold for the treasury?
Even when government officials "Take full responsibility" for their terribly bad judgement using other people's money, they really don't.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOmertà + White House = Obomerta.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseChu takes responsibility for sustaining the _narrative_.
As Suskind's book makes clear, for the Joker-in-Chief it's all about "storytelling", and the story here is Green = Jobs. Never mind whether these jobs were ephemeral concoctions unrelated to any real demand for a real product.
* Green Jobs *, children. Doesn't that sound nice?
Pay no attention to the cronies behind the curtain!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYeah, we're all supposed to merely celebrate our arrival in the Emerald City, and praise the Wizard for our deliverance.
Well, I for one wish to click the heels of my ruby slippers. I WANT OUT!
And, as we figure out how many more of Obama's socialist cronies were propped up in this fashion (don't doubt for a second that Solyndra wasn't special), the smug-academic-in-chief will be floating away on his hot air balloon.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Dark Side of Oz"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI wonder if Steven Chu will plead the fifth?
I hope he does. That way, it can be used against him in a criminal trial.
When someone's plea of the fifth amendment is used against them, in a civil or criminal proceeding, the verdict merely becomes pro forma.
A jury seldom concludes that anything but guilt caused the person to plead the fifth.
Really sad to read that the spokesman for the Sec. of Energy admit that this administration cares more about Solyndra and its employees than it does the remaining 300 million people under their jurisdiction:
“Ultimately, the choice was between imminent liquidation or giving the company and its workers a fighting chance to succeed”.
Better we should all be on the hook for $535 million utterly wasted.
So much for representing "all Americans in all 57 states".
CAPTCHA: "Oops a daisy"
Say that again!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe first part is off. Evidence that Chu pleads the 5th before a Congressional committee would never make it to a jury's ears, and if he chose not to testify in his own trial (if there were one) he would not have to take the 5th, and if he did decide to testify he has then waived his 5th amendment rights against self-incrimination.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf someone pleads the fifth in one tribunal, they are not immune from that being used against them in another tribunal.
And, when a defendant does not testify at his or her own criminal trial, their lack of testimony cannot be held against them by the jury. Granted, they are not actively pleading the fifth.
But if you don't testify at your civil trial, the jury can draw any and all negative inferences. That's what I meant.
Perhaps a prosecutor would not attempt to present a fifth plea in Congressional testimony to a criminal jury.
That's silly, because the case law provides the criminal defendant ABSOLUTELY NO PROTECTION against prior pleas of the fifth -- not in federal court, and not here in NY.
On that point, you are wrong.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo, we are to believe a "Nobel Prize Winning" Physicist can't do some simple math and figure out that spending money on a firm that accountants said wasn't viable was a good idea! There is something rotten here and it isn't in Denmark. (Apologies to the Danes.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere is no news here.
Chu is a hard left environmentalist wacko and a liberal ideologue. Therefore he is incapable of looking at a clear set of facts and drawing the logical conclusion if those clear set of facts conflict with his liberal ideology.
Any passing knowledge of his background prior to taking this post makes his actions in this situation totally expected.
The analogy is the most liberal US Senator becoming President and governing as a hard left liberal ideologue. Why should this surprise anyone?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Ultimately, the choice was between imminent liquidation or giving the company and its workers a fighting chance to succeed"
a) By all accounts, Solyndra had no chance fighting or otherwise, to succeed. It was always on the road to insolvency. Therefore, this is either a lie or a sign of massive incompetence. Oh, pardon me. That's a false choice. It could be both.
b) A larger issue that should be considered is that the Secretary of Energy should not be in the position of judging whether a private company has (or deserves) a chance at survival. Outside of bankruptcy court, no government agency should ever make that kind of decision.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse“the best possible chance to succeed in a very competitive marketplace and put the company in a better position to repay the loan.”
So I guess their chances went from 1 in a million to 1 in 900,000 ... better yes ...
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"the best possible chance to succeed in a very competitive marketplace and put the company in a better position to repay the loan.”
I'm flabbergasted. If that "marketplace" is so competitive, why would it need government to prop it up? I thought the purpose of these government loans was to build up a new industry, not pick winning companies in an already crowded field.
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