SALON

Tuesday, Oct 30, 2012 9:30 PM UTC

Panel probes White House support of Colo. company

By

Topics: From the Wires,

DENVER (AP) — Emails between an independent consultant and the Obama administration suggest the consultant felt pressure to help arrange a loan guarantee for a Colorado solar panel manufacturer that later went bankrupt.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce asked the administration this month to explain what the U.S. Department of Energy knew about problems with a $400 million federal loan guarantee awarded to Abound Solar.

The Loveland-based company filed for bankruptcy protection this summer and laid off about 125 workers after spending approximately $70 million of its loan guarantees.

An Abound spokesman didn’t return phone calls seeking comment.

Abound has been compared to Solyndra, a California solar panel maker that went bankrupt last year after spending a $535 million federal loan guarantee.

Department of Energy spokesman Damien LaVera said the agency provided documents about Abound Solar to Congress and insisted politics were not a factor in granting the loan guarantees.

Republican Colorado Rep. Cory Gardner, a member of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power, said Tuesday the administration knew in advance there were problems with the company’s finances.

Emails between the department and an independent consultant, Jim McCrea, suggest McCrea felt pressure to help arrange the loan guarantee.

In a 2010 email sent about two months before the loan was announced, McCrea said technical analysts “have major issues with the transaction,” including company plans for a second plant and the high price of mineral supplies needed by the firm.

Despite the warnings, the Energy Department told an agency contractor that the “WH (White House) wants to move Abound forward.”

The documents first appeared on CompleteColorado.com, a website operated by the Colorado-based, free-market-oriented Independence Institute. The Denver Post reported on the documents Tuesday.

The Department of Energy said the documents were just a few of more than 1 million pages of records provided to Congress.

“While some in Congress continue to cherry-pick individual emails in a misguided effort to misrepresent the facts, nothing in any of the … documents the department has voluntarily provided to Congress demonstrates anything except what we have consistently said from day one: Decisions on loan applications were made on the merits after careful review by career officials and technical experts in the loan program,” LaVera said in a statement.

The Weld County district attorney’s office said last week it is investigating Abound Solar for possible securities fraud, consumer fraud and financial misrepresentation, but that no charges have been filed. That investigation, which is separate from the congressional review, involves allegations that Abound knew it was selling defective products.

More Steven K. Paulson.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations