Via the Inhofe press blog:
House Republicans can’t get enough of Solyndra. Senate Democrats across the Capitol? Not so interested.
“I certainly appreciate the hearings the House has held,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said on Wednesday. “And I think it would be good if we did more here [on the Senate side] to call to light obviously all the issues with Solyndra.”
Two committees in the Republican-controlled House are probing the solar manufacturer’s spiral into bankruptcy after receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee in 2009.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee has examined the matter three times already and plans to hear from top administration officials, such as Energy Secretary Steven Chu. It and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are reviewing tens of thousands of pages of documents about that guarantee.
The investigation is probing decisions top administration officials made in approving the loan guarantee and throughout the two years the government was on the hook for Solyndra’s loan.
But the Democratic-controlled Senate has not held a Solyndra hearing and has no plans to.
Some Republican senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions of Alabama, have cited Solyndra when claiming that President Obama’s green-jobs agenda hurt the economy and wasted taxpayer money. But floor speeches do not carry the same weight as a Senate hearing.
The rest here.
And as I said yesterday, since the Senate won’t hold investigations, it’s even more important for the House to widen its investigation beyond Solyndra to the entire DOE program.