Did Energy Department officials run amok and blow off their Treasury Department counterparts when they were refinancing bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra earlier this year?
That’s what Republican lawmakers want to find out this Friday morning when they hear from two Treasury officials on the exchange between their department and DOE as efforts to rescue Solyndra from insolvency were under way.
House Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on Wednesday published its Friday hearing witness list. On it are Gary Grippo, Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary for fiscal operations and policy, and Gary H. Burner, the chief financial officer for Treasury’s federal financing bank.
The subcommittee wants to hear from them because their e-mail communications regarding the refinancing of Solyndra showed that they had concerns with the way that DOE was handling it.
In particular, Treasury officials appeared to think that the U.S. should not have been put second-in-line after private investors for pay back in the case of default. They also thought that DOE should have consulted the Justice Department during the process.
But DOE didn’t consult Justice, and their lawyers interpreted a 2005 energy bill establishing the loan guarantee process differently than their Treasury colleagues.
“Based on a careful analysis of the terms of the restructuring, the career officials in the DOE loan program determined that the restructuring was legal, and that it did not require Justice Department review,” Damien LaVera told TPM in an e-mail.
House Energy and Commerce Democrats on Wednesday asked their Republican counterparts to include DOE officials in the Friday morning hearing so that the world can hear their interpretation of the complex web of rules that govern the loan guarantee restructuring process.
“You have invited representatives of the Department of the Treasury to testify on Friday about these emails,” wrote the full committee’s Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA), and subcommittee Ranking Member Diane DeGette (D-CO) in a letter to subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-FL). “We believe that DOE should also be represented. DOE lawyers looked closely at the legal authority issues. To understand the communications between Treasury and DOE and DOE’s legal analysis regarding subordination, the Subcommittee should have both Department of Energy and Treasury representatives at the witness table on Friday.”
Failing that, the hearing should be postponed, they said.
