Obama advisors raised warning flags before Solyndra bankruptcy

LA Times ^ | September 26, 2011, 6:35 p.m. | Tom Hamburger, Kim Geiger and Matea Gold,

[¢ommon ¢ents]

Treasury chief Timothy F. Geithner and others were worried that the selection process for federal loan guarantees fell short and raised the risk that funds could be going to the wrong firms.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters / September 27, 2011

Solyndra President and Chief Executive Officer Brian Harrison, left, and Chief Financial Officer W.G. Stover are sworn in before a hearing on Capitol Hill.

Reporting from Washington— Long before the politically connected California solar firm Solyndra went bankrupt, President Obama was warned by his top economic advisors about the financial and political risks of the Energy Department loan guarantee program that boosted the company's rapid ascent.

[¢ommon ¢ents]

It's a very long article, but it seems there's a paper trail back more than a year about this.

I still think that the Party Propaganda Ministry would be ignoring this story unless they had an "all clear" from the administration. I think anything really incriminating has been seized and locked up by the FBI (if not outright destroyed).

[Marty62]

Just from the small amount I have read, it looks like there is a run on potted plants going on in D.C. Even a Blind person can see this is prison time for someone.

RATS SCURRING FROM THE SINKING DUMORAT SHIP.

[Don Corleone]

I think anything really incriminating has been seized and locked up by the FBI (if not outright destroyed)

That white smoke coming from the chimney at the Hoover building was not an announcement of a successful Papal election.

[nathanbedford]

The following excerpt seems to contain the important news. It is clear that Obama was personally negligent in failing to reform his administration's methods either before or after the loan was made to Solyndra. Typically, it appears that Obama dithered. His fingerprints are all over this.

Clearly, all this represents the triumph of ideology over good governance. It represents the danger of fostering cronyism when furthering ideology. Green commerce blinded the administration or the administration seizes the rationalizations offered by the environmental movement to camouflage its leftward lurch toward socialism.

"In late October 2010, administration officials took their opposing views directly to Obama. In preparation, a memo was drafted by Summers, who remained wary of the program, and two others who were more supportive: then-energy advisor Carol Browner and Ron Klain, then chief of staff to Vice President Joseph Biden. The memo laid out their different concerns and options to fix a "broken process" for getting loans approved.

"Warning that the program could "fail to advance your clean-energy agenda" by investing in companies that didn't need help, the memo proposed alternatives, including diverting the funds into grants available to the entire industry. By contrast, Energy Department officials wanted to end the "deal by deal" reviews by the Treasury and OMB, the memo said.

"After the meeting, officials worked to streamline the process but didn't make significant changes.

"It is unclear whether an overhaul would have helped anticipate the problems at Solyndra. In February, the Energy Department agreed to restructure the company's loan. A little more than six months later, Solyndra declared bankruptcy, laying off 1,100 people and triggering FBI and congressional investigations.