The chairman of the House subcommittee investigating a federal loan guarantee to the bankrupt solar panel company Solyndra admitted on Wednesday that the White House had delivered documents to committee Republicans in a timely fashion.
On Tuesday Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) had accused the White House of providing the documents the panel was seeking to Democrats on the committee first, and of delaying providing the documents to committee Republicans.
Not so, Stearns now admits.
“It appears that the White House delivered the latest documents to both offices after hours ar nearly 7:00 pm on Friday evening, which caused the confusion,” Stearns said in a statement to Politico.
Stearns had complained to Politico’s lead energy reporter Darren Samuelsohn that the White House had provided the 685 pages of documents to Democrats first, enabling them to take the lead in framing the nature of the communications between the White House and the Department of Energy regarding Solyndra.
The memo, published Monday by the Democrats on the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, showed that OMB staff was critical of the way the DOE was handling the Solyndra loan, and that Lawrence Summers, then director of the National Economic Council, was especially critical. He called the process of government playing venture capitalist “crappy.”
The e-mails also showed Obama campaign bundler Steve Westly contacting the White House and asking whether it was a good idea for Obama to visit Solyndra because of the company’s shaky financial position.
That picture is a direct contrast to the ones the Republicans have been painting with the selective e-mails that they’ve been leaking to the press.
The slip-up hasn’t stopped Stearns from continuing to voice his criticisms of the way the administration handled Solyndra however.
On Wednesday, he issued a statement shooting back at the White House for slamming him for ceding the clean energy technology market to China.
“We can’t compete with China’s low labor costs, its access to raw materials, its lack of environmental and safety regulations in manufacturing, and the burdensome regulations imposed by the Obama Administration,” Stearns said in a statement to the press.
“Instead, we need to utilize our advantages in technology and innovation to become more competitive in the global market. China and developing countries have clear advantages in manufacturing certain products — How many TVs, computers, or t-shirts are made in the United States? Just like solar panels, they’re made overseas because it’s more economical – and making solar power and other renewables more economical will allow them to flourish in our nation.”
