Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. You know, today's vote culminates a nearly 2-year investigation into how the administration has mismanaged the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program, allowing the loss of $535 million in the interest of gaining a political win on solar energy. Emails and documents show that the White House and political appointees at the Department of Energy had a heavy hand in pushing the Solyndra application forward despite multiple misgivings, misgivings from the credit committee at the Department of Energy, both in President Bush's administration before and career staff at the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Treasury. Moreover, when it was clear that by rushing the Solyndra application it actually could result in a very embarrassing bankruptcy for the President, the Department of Energy pushed for a questionable legal move that actually subordinated the taxpayer interests below that of private equity interests, a move that we have now seen will result in the complete annihilation of the $535 million from the perspective of the taxpayer. But one of the glaring issues that the investigative committee uncovered was that because no penalties existed in the 2005 loan guarantee authorization, officials at the Department of Energy had nothing to fear in actually breaking the law as it was written by our committee and passed by this Congress.…”