umbrella39
Lifer
- Jun 11, 2004
- 13,816
- 1,126
- 126
I have read a few articles that say that the Solyndra Scandal actually covers two administrations as Bush tried to push through loans before leaving office. Just Google "Solyndra timeline"
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/13/317594/timeline-bush-administration-solyndra-loan-guarantee
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/09/15/solyndra-advanced-by-bush-for-2-years-solyndra-timeline
The timeline definitely deflates the partisan argument that Obama pushed hard for companies that were doomed to fail. If anything it is more a combination of a failing economy and the Chinese undercutting market prices.
Timeline:
December 2006: Solyndra Applies for a Loan Guarantee under the 1703 program.
Late 2007: Loan guarantee program is funded. Solyndra was one of 16 clean-tech companies deemed ready to move forward in the due diligence process. The Bush Administration DOE moves forward to develop a conditional commitment.
October 2008: Then Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet touted reasons for building in Silicon Valley and noted that the “company’s second factory also will be built in Fremont, since a Department of Energy loan guarantee mandates a U.S. location.”
November 2008: Silicon prices remain very high on the spot market, making non-silicon based thin film technologies like Solyndra’s very attractive to investors. Solyndra also benefits from having very low installation costs. The company raises $144 million from ten different venture investors, including the Walton-family run Madrone Capital Partners. This brings total private investment to more than $450 million to date.
January 2009: In an effort to show it has done something to support renewable energy, the Bush Administration tries to take Solyndra before a DOE credit review committee before President Obama is inaugurated. The committee, consisting of career civil servants with financial expertise, remands the loan back to DOE “without prejudice” because it wasn’t ready for conditional commitment.
March 2009: The same credit committee approves the strengthened loan application. The deal passes on to DOE’s credit review board. Career staff (not political appointees) within the DOE issue a conditional commitment setting out terms for a guarantee.
June 2009: As more silicon production facilities come online while demand for PV wavers due to the economic slowdown, silicon prices start to drop. Meanwhile, the Chinese begin rapidly scaling domestic manufacturing and set a path toward dramatic, unforeseen cost reductions in PV. Between June of 2009 and August of 2011, PV prices drop more than 50%.
September 2009: Solyndra raises an additional $219 million. Shortly after, the DOE closes a $535 million loan guarantee after six months of due diligence. This is the first loan guarantee issued under the 1703 program. From application to closing, the process took three years – not the 41 days that is sometimes reported. OMB did raise some concerns in August not about the loan itself but how the loan should be “scored.” OMB testified Wednesday that they were comfortable with the final scoring.
January – June 2010: As the price of conventional silicon-based PV continues to fall due to low silicon prices and a glut of solar modules, investors and analysts start questioning Solyndra’s ability to compete in the marketplace. Despite pulling its IPO (as dozens of companies did in 2010), Solyndra raises an additional $175 million from investors.
November 2010: Solyndra closes an older manufacturing facility and concentrates operations at Fab 2, the plant funded by the $535 million loan guarantee. The Fab 2 plant is completed that same month — on time and on budget — employing around 3,000 construction workers during the build-out, just as the DOE projected.
February 2011: Due to a liquidity crisis, investors provide $75 million to help restructure the loan guarantee. The DOE rightly assumed it was better to give Solyndra a fighting chance rather than liquidate the company – which was a going concern – for market value, which would have guaranteed significant losses.
March 2011: Republican Representatives complain that DOE funds are not being spent quickly enough.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI): “despite the Administration’s urgency and haste to pass the bill [the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] … billions of dollars have yet to be spent.”
And House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-FL): “The whole point of the Democrat’s stimulus bill was to spend billions of dollars … most of the money still hasn’t been spent.”
June 2011: Average selling prices for solar modules drop to $1.50 a watt and continue on a pathway to $1 a watt. Solyndra says it has cut costs by 50%, but analysts worry how the company will compete with the dramatic changes in conventional PV.
August 2011: DOE refuses to restructure the loan a second time.
September 2011: Solyndra closes its manufacturing facility, lays off 1,100 workers and files for bankruptcy. The news is touted as a failure of the Obama Administration and the loan guarantee office. However, as of September 12, the DOE loan programs office closed or issued conditional commitments of $37.8 billion to projects around the country. The $535 million loan is only 1.3% of DOE’s loan portfolio. To date, Solyndra is the only loan that’s known to be troubled.
Meanwhile, after complaining about stimulus funds moving too slowly, Congressmen Fred Upton and Cliff Stearns are now claiming that the Administration was pushing funds out the door too quickly: “In the rush to get stimulus cash out the door, despite repeated claims by the Administration to the contrary, some bets were bad from the beginning.”
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/13/317594/timeline-bush-administration-solyndra-loan-guarantee
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/09/15/solyndra-advanced-by-bush-for-2-years-solyndra-timeline
The timeline definitely deflates the partisan argument that Obama pushed hard for companies that were doomed to fail. If anything it is more a combination of a failing economy and the Chinese undercutting market prices.
Timeline:
December 2006: Solyndra Applies for a Loan Guarantee under the 1703 program.
Late 2007: Loan guarantee program is funded. Solyndra was one of 16 clean-tech companies deemed ready to move forward in the due diligence process. The Bush Administration DOE moves forward to develop a conditional commitment.
October 2008: Then Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet touted reasons for building in Silicon Valley and noted that the “company’s second factory also will be built in Fremont, since a Department of Energy loan guarantee mandates a U.S. location.”
November 2008: Silicon prices remain very high on the spot market, making non-silicon based thin film technologies like Solyndra’s very attractive to investors. Solyndra also benefits from having very low installation costs. The company raises $144 million from ten different venture investors, including the Walton-family run Madrone Capital Partners. This brings total private investment to more than $450 million to date.
January 2009: In an effort to show it has done something to support renewable energy, the Bush Administration tries to take Solyndra before a DOE credit review committee before President Obama is inaugurated. The committee, consisting of career civil servants with financial expertise, remands the loan back to DOE “without prejudice” because it wasn’t ready for conditional commitment.
March 2009: The same credit committee approves the strengthened loan application. The deal passes on to DOE’s credit review board. Career staff (not political appointees) within the DOE issue a conditional commitment setting out terms for a guarantee.
June 2009: As more silicon production facilities come online while demand for PV wavers due to the economic slowdown, silicon prices start to drop. Meanwhile, the Chinese begin rapidly scaling domestic manufacturing and set a path toward dramatic, unforeseen cost reductions in PV. Between June of 2009 and August of 2011, PV prices drop more than 50%.
September 2009: Solyndra raises an additional $219 million. Shortly after, the DOE closes a $535 million loan guarantee after six months of due diligence. This is the first loan guarantee issued under the 1703 program. From application to closing, the process took three years – not the 41 days that is sometimes reported. OMB did raise some concerns in August not about the loan itself but how the loan should be “scored.” OMB testified Wednesday that they were comfortable with the final scoring.
January – June 2010: As the price of conventional silicon-based PV continues to fall due to low silicon prices and a glut of solar modules, investors and analysts start questioning Solyndra’s ability to compete in the marketplace. Despite pulling its IPO (as dozens of companies did in 2010), Solyndra raises an additional $175 million from investors.
November 2010: Solyndra closes an older manufacturing facility and concentrates operations at Fab 2, the plant funded by the $535 million loan guarantee. The Fab 2 plant is completed that same month — on time and on budget — employing around 3,000 construction workers during the build-out, just as the DOE projected.
February 2011: Due to a liquidity crisis, investors provide $75 million to help restructure the loan guarantee. The DOE rightly assumed it was better to give Solyndra a fighting chance rather than liquidate the company – which was a going concern – for market value, which would have guaranteed significant losses.
March 2011: Republican Representatives complain that DOE funds are not being spent quickly enough.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI): “despite the Administration’s urgency and haste to pass the bill [the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] … billions of dollars have yet to be spent.”
And House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-FL): “The whole point of the Democrat’s stimulus bill was to spend billions of dollars … most of the money still hasn’t been spent.”
June 2011: Average selling prices for solar modules drop to $1.50 a watt and continue on a pathway to $1 a watt. Solyndra says it has cut costs by 50%, but analysts worry how the company will compete with the dramatic changes in conventional PV.
August 2011: DOE refuses to restructure the loan a second time.
September 2011: Solyndra closes its manufacturing facility, lays off 1,100 workers and files for bankruptcy. The news is touted as a failure of the Obama Administration and the loan guarantee office. However, as of September 12, the DOE loan programs office closed or issued conditional commitments of $37.8 billion to projects around the country. The $535 million loan is only 1.3% of DOE’s loan portfolio. To date, Solyndra is the only loan that’s known to be troubled.
Meanwhile, after complaining about stimulus funds moving too slowly, Congressmen Fred Upton and Cliff Stearns are now claiming that the Administration was pushing funds out the door too quickly: “In the rush to get stimulus cash out the door, despite repeated claims by the Administration to the contrary, some bets were bad from the beginning.”
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I predict that this thread will attract so much spin that it will have its own moon in short order.
The best part is watching how it drives Republicans nuts :biggrin:
Well I guess blocking this investigation will go toward the gazillion bills the Republicants have blocked in order to drag the Economy down even farther...Pay back is a bitch.
SUCK IT REPUBLICANTS!
SUCK IT REPUBLICANTS!
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Yawn. Call me when they appoint a special prosecutor & the whole White House staff lawyers up, as wrt the Plame affair... or when the Prez commutes the obstruction of justice sentence against the vice-prez's right hand man...
Or do I need to remind everybody of the multiple scandals & coverups w/ pardons etc from the RR/GHWB years?
This is just an exercise in preening & posturing by HOR Repubs, a little dose of faux outrage for their outrage addicted base, a diversion from their own failed policy & ongoing attempts to keep the economy depressed so they can Beat Obama! & keep winning the class warfare they started 30 years ago.
Or do I need to remind everybody of the multiple scandals & coverups w/ pardons etc from the RR/GHWB years?
This is just an exercise in preening & posturing by HOR Repubs, a little dose of faux outrage for their outrage addicted base, a diversion from their own failed policy & ongoing attempts to keep the economy depressed so they can Beat Obama! & keep winning the class warfare they started 30 years ago.
Nemesis 1
Lifer
- Dec 30, 2006
- 11,366
- 2
- 0
OH yes you can. Obummer promised change and you got it . So stop cring . Besides he is a neccessary evil required to fulfill the promises made thousands of years ago . You can go back and check befor he became The One. What I had to say about it . Debates are made to be won and loss . Your loss is my gain .
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Attic
Diamond Member
- Jan 9, 2010
- 4,282
- 2
- 76
A lot of folks are tired of the blame game the current admin engages in.
Given the current administrations willingness to deflect responsiblity as opposed to showing any, it is not that surprising to see them take this tack, but it is concerning regarldess. Some are trying to make the case that the Bush admin may have tried to push it through, but the bottom line is that the Bush administration did not approve the Solyndra loan guarantee. It reasons that whether or not they were trying to push it through, the Bush administration didn't approave the loan because it wasn't ready. There are numerouse cited reasons from that admin that go into details of why the loan wasn't ready.
Have you ever worked with someone who doesn't take responsiblity for anything and always relies on blaming others when their work is under review? It's absured we have an administration that is such a lousy employee for the american people,... Folks that always blame others lack motivation to do better in the future,... after all any future mistakes can just get blamed on someone else.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/solyndra-blame-bush-obama-officials/story?id=14513389
Slew Foot
Lifer
- Sep 22, 2005
- 12,379
- 96
- 86
Oh jesus. People are so willfully blind. Every administration blames screwed up things on their predecessor. Bush spent all eight years of his presidency blaming Clinton, or did you somehow forget?
It seriously amazes me how selective the memories are around here.
You admit the subpoena is probably lawful but say that they shouldn't comply anyway. Do you think Obama is above the law?
No, of course not. Do you think that companies litigating an issue where they think they are probably wrong is some sort of declaration that they are above the law?
Modelworks
Lifer
- Feb 22, 2007
- 16,240
- 7
- 76
This whole thing is a joke and solyndra isn't the only company given absurd amounts of money for nothing in return. It is hard to understand how anyone could give the okay on something like this when they interview the people who worked constructing the plant and they say that they knew it while they were building it, that the workers often wondered how they could succeed when the panels were already half the cost that solyndra was targeting being able to match in the coming months.
It is like someone says lets make widgets and we can sell the widgets at $1 and it only cost us $2 to make them, fine business proposal .
I think I understand now.
They did find a buyer for the panels solyndra made, Greece ! It all makes sense now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHGlbpIzD3A
Solyndra last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6gDrKrG_eM&feature=related
It is like someone says lets make widgets and we can sell the widgets at $1 and it only cost us $2 to make them, fine business proposal .
I think I understand now.
They did find a buyer for the panels solyndra made, Greece ! It all makes sense now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHGlbpIzD3A
Solyndra last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6gDrKrG_eM&feature=related
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Thump553
Lifer
- Jun 2, 2000
- 12,839
- 2,625
- 136
I suppose you think everything was peachy keen under GWB? Under any possible objective rational view GWB and Cheney did just about everything possible to drive the country off a cliff-after inheriting it in pretty top shape after Clinton's administration.
It's a matter of honestly acknowledging the crappy hand this Administration was dealt. The vast majority of Obama's first term has been damage remediation-and to make things worse nearly all of which is currently being blocked by the current GOP Congress.
- Oct 30, 2000
- 42,589
- 5
- 0
Both Obama and Bush inherited crappy hands.
The stock market .COM crash destroyed a lot of economic prospderity. Then came 9/11. Fairly tough situation to handle.
Obama gets the financial sector meltdown and the final results of the housing fiasco.
The concern is how to they address the issue. Actions or words. Obama's actions have not Ben decisive.
QFT.
If you're attempting to compare the .com bust to the debacle of the ownership society, you're making the usual false equivalency claims so common on the Right. Not to mention that 9/11 was trumped up and exploited to the max by the Bushistas and their talking head choir of sycophants. Yes- it was a tragedy, a paradigm shift created by the exploitation of a security loophole.
It enabled the Patriot Act, Gitmo, domestic snooping, the invasion of Iraq and the total clusterfuck of Afghanistan, all of which were entirely voluntary on the part of the Bushistas. The electorate was also flimflammed into 4 years of Repub control of the govt, probably the most damaging aspect of it all. The stinking residue of that will be with us for decades.
- Oct 30, 2000
- 42,589
- 5
- 0
Most military contracts are reviewable as long as not sole source. Losers on bids can appeal awards. Sole source is normay awarded if no other qualified contractor exists or time is of the essence.
What is inside the contract may require clearance and/or need to know.
theeedude
Lifer
- Feb 5, 2006
- 35,787
- 6,197
- 126
Right, but those contracts are often earmarked by Congress for their political goals, not because the Defense Department wants the product. So let the light shine in. If that's the standard GOP wants to apply to DOE, it should be applied to their defense appropriations.
Executive privilege is massively abused in current times, we shouldn't love it at all.
Attic
Diamond Member
- Jan 9, 2010
- 4,282
- 2
- 76
Again, that has nothing to do with the current administrations approval of the Solyndra loan. We don't need to argue about the shortcomings of the past administration, most folks looking for an improvement in government will readily admit there were plenty and do so without a desire to hide behind a tired blame game.
It should not be this difficult to acknowledge weaknesses of the current administration.
Unfortunately the Republicans are offering nothing better, but a return to the failed policies of their party from the past 30 years. Better a devil you know than one you don't.
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