A Republican-controlled House subcommittee continued its quest to dredge up damning information from internal White House communications on Thursday when it voted along party lines 14-9 to subpoena records relating to the bankrupt solar panel start-up Solyndra.
Republicans decided to go ahead and subpoena the White House even after they have already received thousands of documents relating to the Department of Energy’s decision to award a $535 million loan guarantee to what was the flagship alternative energy company that the department was promoting.
The subpoena came just after, as MSNBC points out, the House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee received 20,000 pages of DOE and White House documents.
“Throughout this investigation, now nearing nine months, the White House has failed to cooperate in this inquiry, hampering our effort to determine how $535 million in taxpayer funds were put at risk,” Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), the subcommittee’s chairman said in a press statement issued before the vote.
But Democrats on the committee said that Republicans were on a fishing expedition and should focus their inquiry to specific issues at hand, such as whether political campaign campaign contributions influenced the White House’ interactions with DOE, Solyndra and the loan guarantee process.
Subcommittee Ranking member Rep. Diana DeGette, (D-CO) and full House Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Henry Waxman, (D-CO) said in a letter sent to their Republican colleagues in the House Wednesday night that the White House had made good progress producing the documents and that they opposed the subpoena.
Though Republicans have constantly criticized the Obama administration for making the loan guarantee to Solyndra and taxpayer money, there have been plenty of stories that have put the DOE’s loan guarantee program and the Solyndra loan guarantee in particular, in perspective.
For one literal big-picture take on the the loan guarantee and where it stands compared to other green energy loan guarantees, a well as another $1.2 billion failed loan to Enron, check out this great infographic from One Block Off The Grid, a company that tries to arrange for group discounts for consumers wanting to make the leap to purchasing solar power.
House Energy & Commerce’s ongoing fight with the White House over Solyndra is just one of many attacks against the administration that all try to portray Obama as beholden to campaign contributors.
Republicans on the House Science Committee, for example, are also demanding records on contacts between White House officials and hedge fund manager Phillip Falcone of Harbinger Capital, which backs the wireless communications company Lightsquared.
Lightsquared is seeking approval from the Federal Communications Commission to use a band of the spectrum used by satellites to offer its proposed wholesale 4G LTE service. GPS providers say that Lightsquared’s services will interfere with their systems.
House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) is also demanding information about potentially improper coordination between the White House and the FCC regarding the enactment of its net neutrality rules — recently enacted standards that prohibit telecommunication network providers from arbitrarily discriminating against various kinds of traffic on the internet.
