{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://foxx.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=338428", "NO MORE SOLYNDRAS", "2012-09-14", "2012", "2012-09", "Republican", "House", "NC", "Virginia Foxx", "F000450", "foxx.house.gov", "foxx", "https://foxx.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx", "scraper", "FOXX: NO MORE SOLYNDRAS\n\nFor the Sake of Taxpayers, the Inept Largesse of Big Government Bureaucrats Has Got to Stop\n\nCongresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), a member of the House Energy Action (HEAT) Team, today spoke out in defense of taxpayers and in support of the No More Solyndras Act (H.R. 6213) in the House of Representatives. H.R. 6213 passed with a bipartisan vote of 245-161.\n\n\u201cThe Obama Administration\u2019s energy policies have failed the American people,\u201d Congresswoman Foxx stated. \u201cKeystone was squashed, but a half billion taxpayer dollars were approved to be wasted in support of now-bankrupt Solyndra.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe inept largesse of Big Government bureaucrats has got to stop. The No More Solyndras Act will help impose protections for taxpayers against the politically-motivated spending binges that stream from this Administration.\u201d\n\nNo More Solyndras\n\nTo watch Rep. Foxx\u2019s floor statement, click here.\n\nCourtesy of the House Energy & Commerce Committee:\n\nThe \u201cNo More Solyndras Act,\u201d draws upon the lessons of the House Energy & Commerce Committee\u2019s investigation into the Department of Energy\u2019s (DOE\u2019s) $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, the California solar panel manufacturer that ultimately went bankrupt last September.\n\nHere are some of the startling facts discovered during the committee\u2019s investigation into the Obama administration\u2019s highly touted stimulus \u201csuccess story\u201d:\n\n1) The White House ignored its own experts\u2019 warnings.\n\nThe administration was warned that Solyndra was a bad bet from the beginning. One Obama administration Office of Management and Budget (OMB) employee wrote in an email in March of 2009 that the Solyndra \u201cdeal is NOT ready for prime time.\u201d Another DOE employee prophetically warned that Solyndra would be out of cash in September 2011 \u2013 the exact month that the company was raided by the FBI and its doors were shuttered.\n\n2) Solyndra\u2019s rushed approval was for a previously scheduled press event.\n\nDocuments obtained by the committee show the White House rushed to approve the loan in spite of the warning signs to coincide with the press event for Solyndra\u2019s groundbreaking. An e-mail between OMB staff noted, \u201cGiven the time pressure we are under to sign-off on Solyndra, we don\u2019t have time to change the model\u2026\u201d As scheduled, Vice President Biden appeared via satellite at the groundbreaking ceremony just days later and touted Solyndra\u2019s ability to create \u201cpermanent jobs.\u201d\n\n3) DOE failed to monitor Solyndra\u2019s financial condition.\n\nWhile a 2010 SEC filing showed Solyndra had never reported a profit, was experiencing negative cash flows, and had cancelled a $300 million initial public stock offering, the DOE failed to adequately monitor Solyndra\u2019s financial condition. After this filing, and after Solyndra laid off employees, Republican members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee began asking questions about the Solyndra loan. Solyndra later attempted to mislead members of the committee by producing a document in July of 2011, entitled \u201cExceeding Expectations: Solyndra Today\u201d that claimed the company\u2019s financial condition was improving.\n\n4) The Obama administration stonewalled the committee\u2019s investigation.\n\nAfter OMB\u2019s refusal to provide any of its communications and internal documents regarding Solyndra, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations was forced to issue a subpoena in July 2011, for documents pertaining to the loan. Four months later, after the White House refused to respond to the committee\u2019s request for documents, the committee issued two subpoenas to President Obama\u2019s and Vice President Biden\u2019s Chiefs of Staff for Solyndra-related documents.\n\n5) Solyndra went belly up precisely when predicted.\n\nOn September 6, 2011, Solyndra, the company that President Obama heralded as \u201cleading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future,\u201d filed for bankruptcy, resulting in the loss of nearly 1,900 jobs. Just 2 days later on September 8, 2011, the FBI raided the Fremont, California company. Regrettably, the bankruptcy wouldn't have come as a surprise to the Obama administration. In an August 2009 email, DOE staff warned that Solyndra would be out of cash in September 2011: \"(T)he issue is cash balances\u2026 (T)he model runs out of cash in September 2011 even in the best case\u2026\" (See Footnote 191 for The Solyndra Failure HERE.)\n\n6) No regrets.\n\nIn an interview on October 3, 2011, ABC News asked President Obama whether he had any regrets over the Solyndra deal. The president replied, \u201cNo I don\u2019t,\u201d and simply that, \"hindsight is always 20-20.\" Several months later the president doubled down on deflecting responsibility for Solyndra\u2019s failure by stating, \u201cBut understand: This was not our program, per se.\u201d Even as recently as July of 2012, the Acting Executive Director of the DOE Loan Program Office called the program responsible for Solyndra an \u201cenormous success.\u201d\n\n7) The Department of Energy\u2019s restructuring of the Solyndra loan violated the law.\n\nThe committee\u2019s investigation discovered that DOE knowingly violated the law when it restructured the terms of the loan guarantee and put the interests of wealthy investors ahead of taxpayers. The committee also found DOE employed the \u201cClinton Defense\u201d in distorting the definition of the word \u201cis\u201d in the statute to legally justify subordination. OMB\u2019s oversight and review of Solyndra\u2019s restructuring occurred under then-director, now White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew\u2019s tenure. Despite warnings from an agency analyst that saving Solyndra could cost taxpayers more than allowing the solar company to fail, Lew failed to stop the restructuring when he had the opportunity. (See section VII of The Solyndra Failure HERE.)\n\n8) It wasn\u2019t just Solyndra.\n\nDocuments obtained by the committee exposed a startling relationship between Solyndra and another stimulus-backed project. Solyndra was a key supplier for Prologis\u2019 Project Amp, a solar panel installation project and the recipient of a partial loan guarantee for $1.4 billion. The committee\u2019s investigation showed the White House was well aware of Solyndra\u2019s deteriorating financial condition when it allowed DOE to move forward with Project Amp. DOE would later use the relationship between Project Amp and Solyndra as a key bargaining tool to push for a second restructuring while directly engaging in last minute negotiations between Solyndra and the Project Amp sponsor. Additionally, other DOE loan guarantee recipients under the same loan guarantee program have either failed or are running out of cash. It is this program that the \u201cNo More Solyndras Act\u201d phases out.\n\n9) Solyndra backers had close political connections to the White House.\n\nAs reported by ABC News, \"One of Solyndra's major investors was George Kaiser, an Oklahoma billionaire who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama during the 2008 election.\" ABC also reported that \"Kaiser is one of several Obama campaign supporters who had a stake in companies that later received federal loans\u2026\" George Kaiser was closely involved in important decisions related to Solyndra through the life of the loan guarantee. According to the committee\u2019s report, \u201cIndividuals connected to the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) \u2014 whose primary investment arm, Argonaut, was Solyndra\u2019s largest shareholder \u2014 played important roles in a series of critical discussions and negotiations with DOE. George Kaiser, whose fortune funds the GKFF, was closely involved in financial decisions related to Solyndra, often authorizing key disbursements and restructuring proposals, as well as in Solyndra\u2019s lobbying, public relations, and government procurement strategies in Washington.\u201d (See page 4-5 of The Solyndra Failure HERE)\n\n10) As Solyndra\u2019s bankruptcy unfolds, it\u2019s like rubbing salt into the taxpayers\u2019 wound.\n\nWhile American taxpayers are stuck footing the bill for the Solyndra failure, Solyndra\u2019s private investors, including George Kaiser, now stand to gain hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks from Solyndra\u2019s bankruptcy.\n\nFor more information on the \u201cNo More Solyndras Act,\u201d click here.\n\nTo view the committee report, The Solyndra Failure, click here.\n\nTo view The Solyndra Failure\u2019s supporting documents, click here.\n\n# # #", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T21:11:34Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://foxx.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=338428"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 38.2923549041152, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}