WASHINGTON, DC - Exactly three years ago today, Vice President Joe Biden famously participated in Solyndra’s groundbreaking following the Obama administration’s rushed approval of the $535 million loan guarantee to the now-bankrupt solar company. Appearing via satellite, the vice president heralded Solyndra and announced the loan was made as part of the administration’s efforts to create “permanent jobs" that “won’t be exported." An Energy and Commerce Committee investigation into Solyndra’s loan revealed that the loan’s approval was rushed, and the White House had scheduled the groundbreaking before the loan had been properly vetted. Just two weeks before Biden’s enthusiastic comments at Solyndra’s groundbreaking, a DOE expert had prophetically warned that Solyndra would be out of cash in September 2011 - the exact month that the company was raided by the FBI and its doors were shuttered.
During Solyndra’s groundbreaking, Vice President Biden declared:
“I’m really happy, along with the Secretary, to announce today that we’ve closed a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, more than a half billion dollars… And once your facility opens, there will be about 1,000 permanent new jobs here at Solyndra and in the surrounding business community, and hundreds more to install your growing output of solar panels throughout the country. It’s important. It’s important because these jobs are going to be permanent jobs. These are the jobs of the future. These are the green jobs. These are the jobs that won’t be exported. These are the jobs that are going to define the 21st century and the jobs that are going to allow America to compete and to lead like we did in the 20th century. …"
Even now, a year after Solyndra filed for bankruptcy, the administration still refuses to admit any wrongdoing or take responsibility for any mistakes in choosing to invest taxpayer money where it clearly should not have been. The permanent jobs Vice President Biden promised never materialized, and instead, nearly 1,900 people lost their jobs as a result of Solyndra’s bankruptcy. Despite the many failures associated with the loan guarantee program, administration officials continue to laud the program as an “enormous success." The Energy and Commerce Committee recently approved the “No More Solyndras Act" to end the mismanaged loan guarantee program, protect taxpayers, and eliminate wasteful spending.
View the DOE expert’s Aug. 20, 2009, prophetic warning of Solyndra running out of cash by September 2011 HERE (Footnote 188). At the time, the author of the email, Kelly Colyar, served as Director of Credit Policy in DOE’s Loans Programs Office.
