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SOLYNDRA AND THE DOE LOAN GUARANTEE 

PROGRAM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND 

INVESTIGATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 

Serial No. 112–84 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

Chairman 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Chairman Emeritus 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

MARY BONO MACK, California 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

Vice Chairman 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California 

CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

Ranking Member 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

Chairman Emeritus 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

Chairman 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio) 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

Ranking Member 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California (ex officio) 

(II) 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Cliff Stearns, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 4 

Hon. Diana DeGette, a Representative in Congress from the State of Colorado, opening statement ...................................................................................... 6 

Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 25 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 27 

Hon. Joe Barton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 29 

Hon. Michael C. Burgess, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas, opening statement .................................................................................... 29 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 30 

Hon. Henry A. Waxman, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California, opening statement ............................................................................. 31 

Hon. Marsha Blackburn, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Tennessee, prepared statement .......................................................................... 153 

WITNESSES

Jonathan Silver, Executive Director, Loan Programs Office, Department of 

Energy ................................................................................................................... 33 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 36 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 167 

Jeffrey D. Zients, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management 

and Budget ........................................................................................................... 42 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 44 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 182 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Department of the Environment and Office of Management and Budget staff 

emails, dated January to August 2009, and OMB staff email, dated January 

31, 2011, submitted by Ms. DeGette .................................................................. 8 

Credit Committee Recommendation re: Solyndra Fab 2 LLC submission as 

of January 9, 2009, submitted by Ms. DeGette ................................................. 50 

Article, ‘‘The Solar Hype Cycle: Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me,’’ dated 

August 4, 2008, by Mark Modzelewski for Xconomy.com, submitted by 

Mr. Pompeo ........................................................................................................... 94 

Credit Committee Paper Request for Loan Guarantee Approval of Solyndra 

Fab 2, LLC, project, dated March 11, 2009, submitted by Ms. DeGette ......... 104 

Majority supplemental memo, dated June 23, 2011, submitted by Mr. 

Stearns .................................................................................................................. 129 

Majority slide presentation, submitted by Mr. Stearns ........................................ 154 

(1) 

SOLYNDRA AND THE DOE LOAN GUARANTEE 

PROGRAM 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:35 a.m., in room 

2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Cliff Stearns 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Stearns, Terry, Sullivan, Murphy, Burgess, Blackburn, Myrick, Bilbray, Gingrey, Scalise, Gardner, Griffith, Barton, Upton (ex officio), Pompeo, DeGette, 

Schakowsky, Markey, Green, Christensen, Dingell, and Waxman 

(ex officio). 

Staff present: Carl Anderson, Counsel, Oversight; Gary Andres, 

Staff Director; Sean Bonyun, Deputy Communications Director; 

Karen Christian, Deputy Chief Counsel, Oversight/Investigations; 

Todd Harrison, Chief Counsel, Oversight/Investigations; Carly 

McWilliams, Legislative Clerk; Andrew Powaleny, Deputy Press 

Secretary; Krista Rosenthall, Counsel to Chairman Emeritus; Alan 

Slobodin, Deputy Chief Counsel, Oversight; John Stone, Counsel, 

Oversight/Investigations; Kristen Amerling, Minority Chief Counsel 

and Staff Director, Oversight; Phil Barnett, Minority Staff Director; 

Brian Cohen, Minority Senior Policy and Staff Director, Investigations; Karen Lightfoot, Minority Communications Director; Elizabeth Letter, Minority Press Assistant; Alvin Banks, Minority Investigator; Matthew Siegler, Minority Counsel; Stacia Cardille, Minority Counsel; and Anne Tindall, Minority Counsel. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CLIFF STEARNS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 

Mr. STEARNS. Good morning, everybody. We convene this important hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations 

to examine the involvement of the Department of Energy and the 

White House Office of Management and Budget in the review, approval, and subsequent restructuring of the $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra. 

The Obama administration has repeatedly touted its green energy plan as the savior for our faltering economy. Solyndra was the 

first loan guarantee issued by the Obama administration using 

stimulus dollars. Administration officials held out the company as 

a shining example of how the stimulus was creating jobs and invigorating the economy. However, just after 2 years of receiving this 

2 

half-of-a-billion-dollar loan guarantee, and 6 months after DOE restructured the terms of the deal, Solyndra has closed its door, laid 

off over a thousand employees, and filed for bankruptcy. Last week, 

the FBI agents raided the facility. 

One of our witnesses today, Mr. Silver, attempts to claim in his 

written testimony that the Bush administration is equally at fault 

for approving Solyndra’s deal and that Solyndra was a train ready 

to leave the station when President Obama took office. But in reality, on January 9, 2009—at the end of the Bush administration— 

the DOE Credit Committee voted against offering a conditional 

commitment to Solyndra, saying that the real deal was premature 

and questioning its underlying financial support. Only after the 

Obama administration took control, and the stimulus passed, was 

the Solyndra deal pushed through. 

We have been asking questions for almost 7 months about this 

deal. We have gathered documents from the Department of Energy. 

In a party-line vote, the committee was forced to subpoena OMB 

in July in order to get even basic information showing their role 

in the Solyndra deal. Now, committee Democrats have questioned 

the basis of our investigation and actually have accused the committee of engaging in a fishing expedition and abusing our subpoena power. But what the committee’s review of these documents 

clearly show is that we were right all along to ask questions about 

this loan. It should not take a financial restructuring, bankruptcy, 

and FBI raid for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to put 

politics aside and join us in our efforts. 

The documents demonstrate that when DOE was reviewing the 

Solyndra guarantee in 2009, it was well aware of the financial 

problems the deal posed. What the documents also show is that the 

rush to push out stimulus dollars may have impacted the depth 

and quality of DOE and OMB’s review. In fact, the White House 

had scheduled Vice President Biden’s and Secretary Chu’s appearing at Solyndra’s groundbreaking event prior to DOE even making 

its final presentation to OMB on the terms of the Solyndra deal. 

An email from a senior OMB staff member to the Office of the Vice 

President sums up this disturbing revelation. In it, he states, ‘‘We 

have ended up with a situation of having to do rushed approvals 

on a couple of occasions. We would prefer to have sufficient time 

to do our due diligent reviews and have the approval set the date 

for the announcement rather than the other way around.’’ 

Only 6 months after the loan closed, Solyndra’s financial troubles 

became increasingly severe. In March 2010, an independent auditor 

issued a report stating, ‘‘the Company has suffered recurring losses 

from operations, negative cash flows since inception and has a net 

stockholders’ deficit that, among other factors, raises substantial 

doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.’’ Nonetheless, President Obama visited Solyndra in May and proclaimed, 

‘‘the true engine of economic growth will always be companies like 

Solyndra.’’ 

Just one year after the loan closed, Solyndra was almost out of 

cash. In late fall of 2010, DOE began negotiations with Solyndra 

and two of its main investors about restructuring the loan in order 

to keep the company afloat. Under the restructuring agreement, 

Solyndra’s private investors were given priority over the governVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:35 Jun 10, 2013 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\PROGRA~1\WS_FTP\74404.TXT WAYNE
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ment with regard to the first $75 million recovered in the event of 

liquidation. Documents reviewed by the committee staff raise serious concerns about whether this deal was better for the taxpayers. 

These concerns are spelled out in an email between OMB staff in 

late January 2011, which notes that, ‘‘while the company may 

avoid default with a restructuring, there is also a good chance it 

will not. At that point, additional funds would have been put at 

risk, recoveries may be lower, and questions will be asked.’’ 

So my colleagues, we are here today to ask those very questions. 

If Solyndra really is the ‘‘litmus test for the Loan Guarantee Program’s ability to fund good projects quickly,’’ as DOE’s stimulus advisor called it in an email to DOE officials, I am very concerned 

about where the $10 billion DOE that they have left to spend before the September 30 deadline is gone, taxpayers would be better 

served by not risking even more of their money, instead using it 

to reduce our mounting national deficit. 

Thank you, and with that I recognize the distinguished colleague 

from Colorado, Ms. DeGette. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stearns follows:] 

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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DIANA DEGETTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

While China’s initiatives continue to threaten our Nation’s renewable energy industry and while we continue to try to revive our 

economy, it should be clear to everybody in this room that solar energy development is not a Democratic or a Republican issue; it is 

an issue of securing American energy innovation for decades to 

come. And so we should have a larger discussion about how government can appropriately support the development of domestic clean 

energy technologies. As we all know, and as we can tell from the 

chairman’s opening statement, there has been a great deal written 

in the media about today’s hearing, and unfortunately, the issue 

has become very politicized. 

The narrow purpose of today’s hearing is to thoroughly examine 

the process and decisions surrounding the Solyndra loan guarantee, but we can’t help but look at the issue through the larger 

lens of what our national energy policy should be going forward. 

And as we think about the broader issues, it is important to see 

just what happened with the Solyndra loan. 

Now, the chairman said that the minority opposed this investigation, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth. We believe this 

investigation into Solyndra is important to understand both what 

happened here and also what our appropriate energy policy is. And 

furthermore, we never oppose production of any documents. We oppose the subpoena because we believe that the documents were 

being produced in good time. But having said that, I am happy that 

we now have the documents, and I think those documents should 

be made available to everybody. 

The documents and briefings that I have reviewed show that the 

Department of Energy in both the Bush and Obama administrations supported Solyndra’s loan guarantee application. In 2007, the 

Bush administration DOE invited Solyndra to submit a full application, and by the end of the Bush administration, DOE had submitted the application to its Critical Committee for review. After 

President Obama took office, DOE continued to work on the application and ultimately approved the loan guarantee in September 

2009. 

In spring of 2010, a pre-IPO audit of Solyndra raised concerns 

about Solyndra’s viability, and by late 2010, DOE had determined 

that the company was headed towards default. DOE was faced with 

a choice at this point: restructure the loan to increase the chances 

that Solyndra could repay the taxpayers’ funds or cut their losses 

and accept the high possibility of default. Ultimately, DOE determined restructuring was the course of action most likely to preserve the full recovery of the loan value. Under terms approved in 

February 2011, Solyndra was given more time to repay the loan, 

the government obtained additional collateral, and Solyndra was 

required to raise an additional $75 million from private investors 

that would have primacy over the government’s interest in the 

event of liquidation before 2013. 

Now, this July, Solyndra’s CEO visited my office as well as other 

members’ and talked about the strong demand for the company’s 

7 

product and how 2011 revenues were projected to double from 

2010. Now, as we all know, less than 2 months later, the company 

announced it would file for bankruptcy. And now, the Federal Government’s recovery of over $500 million loaned to Solyndra is at 

grave risk. It is always easier to assess decisions in hindsight, but 

particularly with a loan this big, it is critical that we get answers 

to several key questions. 

First, did the Bush and Obama administrations conduct appropriate due diligence before September 2009 guarantee approval? 

Second, did the Department of Energy sufficiently monitor the financial status of Solyndra after loan disbursements began, particularly as the market forces seemed to be against them? Third, did 

Solyndra make accurate representations to the government about 

its financial prospects both before and after approval of its loan 

guarantee? And when Solyndra’s financial situation deteriorated, 

did the government make the correct decisions about restructuring 

the loan? 

In examining these issues, I want to underscore that we not only 

lose sight of the policy context for the Loan Guarantee Program 

that supported Solyndra. This program was designed to help U.S. 

companies to grow and compete in a global clean energy market in 

which countries like China and others are providing a wide range 

of incentives and support for domestic industry. Even if we conclude that bad judgments were made on the Solyndra loan, we 

have got to continue to work hard to develop and implement appropriate policies that give American clean energy investors the support they need to make the U.S. a market leader in the future and 

also that protect the U.S. taxpayer. 

These are critical decisions. Ranking Member Waxman and I 

have asked that the Solyndra CEO and CFO be called, and I believe that is going to be happening in short order. Because I am 

perplexed at how they can be in my office in July telling me things 

were looking better and filing for bankruptcy 2 months later. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentlelady mentioned in her opening statement about the documents we have been reviewing. Would she consider a unanimous consent request that all those documents be 

made part of the record? 

Ms. DEGETTE. Yes. 

Mr. STEARNS. So ordered. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. STEARNS. With that, we recognize the distinguished full 

chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman 

from Michigan, Mr. Upton. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. UPTON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. In 2009, Solyndra 

was the first company to receive a DOE energy loan funded with 

stimulus dollars. Just 2 years after getting $535 million in taxpayer money, and being touted by President Obama as a model for 

how the government’s venture capital program in green technology 

should work, the company has filed for bankruptcy and been raided 

by the FBI. 

We are starting to look at the DOE Loan Guarantee Program 

and Solyndra’s deal in February. Some questioned the basis for this 

investigation. And after 4 months of wrangling with the administration to produce relevant documents, the committee was forced to 

issue a subpoena to OMB. I think Solyndra’s recent bankruptcy filing and last week’s FBI raid clearly show that the committee was 

more than justified in its scrutiny of the deal. Pursuant to our 

oversight functions, we have an important responsibility to pursue 

answers regarding the use of taxpayers’ money. 

Our investigation raises several questions about whether the administration did everything that it could to protect taxpayer dollars. Why did the administration think Solyndra was such a good 

bet? Why did the administration push ahead with restructuring the 

Solyndra guarantee this year, when some in the government voiced 

serious concerns about the commercial viability of the company? 

Why did DOE and OMB allow the government to be subordinated 

to the private investors in apparent violation of the law? 

I look forward to the testimony of Mr. Zients from OMB and Mr. 

Silver, Executive Director of DOE’s Loan Program Office. I want to 

know what the Solyndra failure means for the Loan Guarantee 

Program. Was Solyndra just one bad bet by an administration 

rushing to claim credit for the first loan guarantee, or is it the tip 

of the iceberg? DOE has closed over $8 billion in loan guarantees 

to other ‘‘green tech’’ companies, and it has about $10 billion left 

to spend in the next few weeks before the September 30 deadline. 

If the administration was so wrong about Solyndra after 9 months 

of due diligence, how can it possibly exercise the proper controls 

when doling out another $10 billion in the next couple of weeks? 

In this time of record debt, I question whether the government is 

qualified to act as a venture capitalist, picking winners and losers 

in speculative ventures and shelling out billions of taxpayer dollars 

to keep them afloat. 

We began this investigation to shine a bright light on a program 

shrouded in secrecy and uncertainty. New details are coming to the 

forefront today about who decided to allocate billions in taxpayer 

dollars, and where, and why. This is important information, and 

the public has a right to know how their hard-earned dollars are 

being spent. But it is not the end of our inquiry. The answers we 

have turned up so far spark additional questions, and I am committed to pursuing this investigation and conducting rigorous oversight of the Loan Guarantee Program and its recipients. I hope the 

26 

administration and our friends on both sides of the aisle will share 

our commitment to getting answers. 

I yield to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Barton. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:] 

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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE BARTON, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Chairman Upton. 

I think this is a litmus test of how this subcommittee is going 

to work together to investigate something that obviously needs to 

be investigated. I was very gratified to hear Ranking Member 

DeGette’s request that the record include all the documents that 

have been discovered so far because at the beginning of this investigation, my friends on the minority side did not support the subpoena to get those documents. 

Mr. Chairman, I support Loan Guarantee Programs for alternative energy. Having said that, I do not support the process by 

which this particular loan guarantee was announced. It is curious 

to me that in January of 2009, the Credit Committee unanimously 

recommended against this loan guarantee, but 2 months later after 

President Obama had been sworn in, the Credit Committee approved, as far as I can tell, the identical loan commitment with no 

intervening improvement in the process. A DOE staff member at 

the time said this project is going to run out of cash in September 

of 2011. And how prescient was that, Mr. Chairman? As we all 

know, they declared bankruptcy last week. 

I look forward to the testimony of these officials and I look forward next week to the testimony of the members of the company. 

And Mr. Chairman and subcommittee chairman and Ranking 

Member DeGette and Ranking Member Waxman, I strongly support you all working together to pursue this investigation on a bipartisan basis. And I yield back to the chairman. 

Mr. UPTON. I thank the gentleman and I yield the balance of the 

time to Dr. Burgess. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL C. BURGESS, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Ranking Member DeGette referenced the fact that going back to 

the Bush administration this discussion was going on in the Department of Energy. I just do want to take a moment to point out 

that the Credit Committee at the Department of Energy January 

12, 2009, the last dates of the Bush administration, the day after 

their meeting it was a unanimous decision not to engage in further 

discussions with Solyndra at this time. 

Now, we all know the stimulus bill was about shovel-ready 

projects. It appeared that the shovel that this project was ready for 

was to bury it somewhere. And yet it was resurrected. Now, I believe in redemption, I believe in the afterlife, but I don’t believe 

this was this wisest and best use. I do want to convey the message 

to members of the administration that when this committee calls, 

you respond. When we ask for documents, you produce them. When 

we schedule a hearing, you show up. We are a coequal branch of 

government. We have a responsibility to protect the people’s money 

as well, and it does not appear that those interests were followed. 

And unfortunately, now the taxpayer is going to suffer. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Burgess follows:] 

30 


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Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman yields back. The distinguished 

ranking member, the gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman, is 

recognized. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Today, we are holding a hearing on the loan guarantee provided 

by the Department of Energy in 2009 to Solyndra, a U.S. solar 

panel manufacturer. And this is an important hearing. Taxpayers 

have over $500 million at risk as a result of Solyndra’s bankruptcy. 

We need to understand what happened, who should be held accountable, and how we can avoid future losses. We also need to ask 

whether Solyndra misled federal officials. 

In July, the company’s CEO met with me in my office. He assured me that the company was in a strong financial condition and 

in no danger of failing. In fact, he said the company was going to 

double its revenues in 2011. I have a hard time reconciling those 

representations with the company’s decision to file for bankruptcy 

1 month later. Committee staff have now reviewed thousands of 

pages of internal documents from the Department of Energy and 

the Office of Management and Budget. And they raise a number 

of questions. The documents show that under both the Bush administration and the Obama administration DOE officials strongly 

backed Solyndra. They believed its silicon-free solar panels—Mr. 

Chairman, may I have an opportunity to speak? 

Mr. STEARNS. Absolutely. Committee will be in order to listen to 

the gentleman’s statement. 

Mr. WAXMAN. They believe that silicon-free solar panels offered 

cost savings and its tubular shape reduced installation costs. And 

they thought the internal reviews they conducted and the external 

studies they commissions showed Solyndra could compete successfully in the global marketplace. Well, these rosy scenarios were not 

realized. Today, we will ask why. Is the reason unforeseen developments in the global marketplace as Solyndra and DOE argue? Or 

is the reason sloppy or inadequate vetting, or worse yet, corporate 

malfeasance? 

By late 2010, both DOE and OMB knew Solyndra was facing difficulty in meeting its loan obligation. This triggered a vigorous internal debate about what the government should do to protect the 

taxpayers. DOE projected that an immediate liquidation would return less than 20 cents on the dollar, so they favored restructuring 

because of the potential for recovering more of the taxpayers’ investment. Some OMB officials warned against restructuring on the 

grounds that it might not be enough to avoid bankruptcy and default. Well, that was not an easy decision and we need to ask 

whether the right choice was made. 

Given the bankruptcy of Solyndra and the dollars now at risk, 

we have an obligation to the taxpayer to investigate the transaction 

thoroughly. That is why I welcome this hearing and why Ranking 

Member DeGette and I have urged Chairman Stearns to hold another hearing where we can question Solyndra’s CEO. 

32 

I disagree vehemently, however, with the policy conclusions my 

Republican colleagues have already drawn. They say the collapse 

of Solyndra shows the folly of federal investments in solar and 

other clean energy technologies, and they argue the government 

should not pick winners and losers in the energy marketplace. This 

sounds superficially appealing but there is a fundamental flaw in 

their logic. The majority of Republicans on this committee deny 

that climate change is real. If you are a science-denier, there is no 

reason for government to invest in clean energy. 

It is ironic that at this very moment in Washington, CEOs of a 

number of corporations, including Bill Gates from Microsoft; Mr. 

Immelt from GE; Norm Augustine, former Lockheed-Martin chairman; Chad Holliday, Bank of America; Tim Solso, CEO of 

Cummins, are all here representing American Energy Innovation 

Council, and they are calling for major new investments in alternative energy and renewable energy so that we don’t fall behind 

the Chinese and others who are competing in this area and 

outcompeting us. 

If you live in reality, you know the world cannot continue its dependence on fossil fuels, that we are in danger of losing this industry to our competitors, especially China. And last month alone, 3 

U.S. solar manufacturers have declared bankruptcy because they 

couldn’t compete with Chinese companies. 

This weekend, the business columnist Steve Pearlstein wrote in 

the Washington Post, ‘‘listening to the Republicans talk about the 

economy and economic policy is like entering into an alternative 

universe.’’ He is right. Republicans on this committee oppose putting a market price on carbon emissions. They oppose EPA regulation of carbon pollution, and now they oppose government investment that promote clean energy alternatives. That is an economic 

dissonance for fledgling clean energy companies that have to compete against both an entrenched fossil fuel industry and heavily 

subsidized foreign firms. And it is a grievous blow to our future 

prosperity. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STEARNS. I thank the gentleman. And with that, the opening 

statements are concluded. And I ask unanimous consent that the 

written opening statements of the members be introduced into the 

record, anyone who wishes to do it. Without objection, the documents will be so entered. 

To our witnesses, you are aware that the committee is holding 

an investigative hearing, and when doing so has had the practice 

of taking testimony under oath. Do you have any objection to taking testimony under oath? 

The chair then advises you that under the rules of the House and 

the rules of the committee, you are entitled to be advised by counsel. Do you desire to be advised by counsel during your testimony 

today? No. In that case, if you would please rise and raise your 

right hand, I will swear you in. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. STEARNS. You are now under oath and subject to the penalties set forth in Title XVIII, Section 1001, of the United States 

Code. 

33 

We welcome you to give a 5-minute summary of your written 

statement. So with that, Mr. Silver, we welcome you with your 

opening statement. 

TESTIMONY OF JONATHAN SILVER, DIRECTOR, LOAN PROGRAMS OFFICE, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY; AND JEFFREY D. 

ZIENTS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF 

MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET 

TESTIMONY OF JONATHAN SILVER 

Mr. SILVER. Thank you, Chairman Stearns, Ranking Member 

DeGette, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Jonathan 

Silver, and I am the executive director of the Loan Programs Office. I joined with the Department of Energy and took this position 

in November of 2009. 

In 2005, recognizing that there was a systemic shortage of private debt financing for innovative clean energy projects from renewable to clean coal to nuclear power, President Bush signed bipartisan legislation that established the Title XVII Loan Program. 

The program was specifically designed to support next-generation 

energy projects, which involved technology and market risks that 

private sector lenders often cannot or will not underwrite. 

Other governments have recognized the value of such programs 

as well. Germany and Canada already operate government-backed 

clean energy lending programs. The U.K., Australia, and India 

have announced the intent to do the same. But none have been as 

aggressive as the Chinese Government, which last year alone provided more than $30 billion in credit to its country’s largest solar 

manufacturers. That is roughly 20 times larger than America’s investment in the same period. Why is China making this investment? Because the race for solar manufacturing jobs is a race 

worth winning. Over the next few decades, this will become a global market worth trillions of dollars. 

In 1995, the United States manufactured more than 40 percent 

of the solar cells and modules sold worldwide. Today, it is 6 percent. Meanwhile, China’s share has grown from 6 percent in 2005 

to 54 percent today. China is now home to 5 of the 10 largest solar 

panel manufacturers in the world. Seven of the 10 largest are in 

Asia. Only 2 are in the United States. It is in this context that we 

should discuss the Solyndra transaction. 

Solyndra submitted its initial application in 2006. By late 2008, 

the Loan Program staff considered Solyndra the most advanced of 

the projects it had reviewed and the likely recipient of the program’s first loan guarantee. In fact, by the time the Obama administration took office, the career staff had already established a 

timeline for issuing the company a conditional loan commitment in 

March of 2009. In March, on the exact schedule that had been developed during the Bush administration, the program issued 

Solyndra a conditional commitment. In September, after several 

more months of additional due diligence and documentation, DOE 

finalized the loan guarantee. Although I was not at the Department at that time, it is my understanding that the transaction 

went through nearly 3 years of rigorous internal and external due 

diligence, including reviews by a leading independent engineering 

34 

firm, the Department’s own solar experts, and a blue chip law firm 

all before any taxpayer funds were put at risk. 

The Federal Government was not alone in its assessment of 

Solyndra’s potential. Some of America’s most sophisticated professional investors collectively invested nearly $1 billion in the company after conducting extensive due diligence of their own, and 

again, before any taxpayer dollars were deployed. 

In 2009, Solyndra appeared to be well positioned to compete and 

succeed in the global marketplace. Solyndra manufactures cylindrical thin-film solar cells, which avoided both the high cost of 

polysilicon—a critical component in making conventional solar panels—and certain costs associated with installing flat panels. But 

polysilicon prices subsequently dropped significantly taking 

Solyndra and many industry analysts by surprise and by providing 

a significant benefit to several of the company’s Chinese competitors. 

These developments made Solyndra’s business model more challenging. The company took steps to respond, cutting costs even as 

revenues increased 40 percent between 2009 and 2010 from $100 

million to $140 million. Despite increasing revenue, the company 

ran short of cash and faced imminent bankruptcy without an emergency influx of new capital from its investors. The Department of 

Energy faced a difficult choice: whether a) to refuse the proposed 

terms of that financing ensuring that the company would close and 

the government would recover only a small amount of its loan; or 

b) to allow the company to take the financing, giving it and its almost 1,000 workers a fighting chance at success and the government the possibility of a higher recovery on that loan. 

After extensive analysis both internally and from independent 

market and financial advisors and using the same tools and approaches that private lenders use in such circumstances, the Department concluded that restructuring the loan gave the U.S. taxpayer the best chance of being repaid. Unfortunately, the changes 

in the solar market have only accelerated. Chinese companies have 

flooded the market with inexpensive panels, and Europe, historically the largest purchaser of solar panels, is in the midst of an 

economic crisis that has significantly reduced demand. The result 

has been a further and unprecedented 42 percent drop in solar cell 

prices in the first 8 months of 2011 alone. 

These changes were particularly damaging to Solyndra, and as 

you know, the company declared bankruptcy earlier this month. 

While we are all disappointed in the outcome, Solyndra’s situation 

should not overshadow the professional work that the Department’s loan programs have done to date or the need to continue to 

find ways to support clean energy in this country. 

Developing a robust clean energy manufacturing sector in the 

United States is critical to our long-term national interests and one 

of the most important tools as our global competitors have already 

learned is low-cost financing effectively targeted and deployed. This 

isn’t picking winners and losers; it is helping ensure that we have 

winners here at all. We invented this technology and we should 

produce it here. The question is whether we are willing to take on 

this challenge or whether we will simple cede leadership in this 

vital sector to other nations and watch as tens of thousands of jobs 

35 

are created overseas. The administration believes this is a battle 

we must fight and win. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank the members of the committee and I look 

forward to answering your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Silver follows:] 

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74404.028
42 

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you. Mr. Zients? 

TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY D. ZIENTS 

Mr. ZIENTS. Chairman Stearns, Ranking Member DeGette, members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today to 

testify on OMB’s role in the implementation of the Department of 

Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program. 

The DOE Loan Guarantee Program authorized by Congress in 

Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 is a key part of the administration’s efforts to promote economic growth and create jobs 

across the country and to jumpstart the clean energy economy. As 

you know, OMB engages in general oversight of the programs being 

executed by federal agencies. Therefore, OMB has been an active 

participant in interagency discussions about major milestones and 

DOE’s implementation of Title XVII helping to ensure they are consistent with the statutory framework and administration policy. 

These interagency discussions are an important forum for asking 

tough questions and pressure-testing assumptions, respectful of 

DOE’s statutory authority to make final programmatic decisions on 

Title XVII loan guarantees. 

OMB also has a particular statutory role in the Title XVII program under the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990, known as 

FCRA. Pursuant to FCRA, OMB reviews and must approve credit 

subsidy cost estimates for all loan and loan guarantee programs, 

including the credit subsidy cost estimates generated by DOE for 

the Title XVII program. OMB ensures that costs are accounted for 

appropriately. In performing its statutory role under FCRA, OMB 

works closely with agencies’ credit subsidy cost models. Based on 

these models, OMB reviews and exercises final approval authority 

over credit subsidy costs to ensure that the costs of direct loans and 

loan guarantees are presented, and reflect estimated risks, consistently across federal agencies so that taxpayer funds are invested in 

a prudent and effective fashion. By contrast, the final decision on 

whether to issue the loan or guarantee rests with the agency implementing the applicable program—DOE in the case of Title XVII. 

In the Solyndra loan guarantee, OMB’s approval of DOE’s proposed credit subsidy cost was conducted in August and September 

of 2009. While I was not directly involved in this aspect of the 

transaction, what I have learned since indicates that the approval 

process reflected a thorough examination and analysis of DOE’s 

calculation of this estimated cost. OMB staff addressed with DOE 

a series of specific questions about its analysis. Based on these discussions, OMB and DOE ultimately agreed on the credit subsidy 

cost, and OMB ensured it was budgeted and accounted for appropriately. The loan guarantee was then issued in September 2009. 

In February 2011, DOE undertook a restructuring of Solyndra’s 

debt in light of the acute financial troubles the company was experiencing. OMB’s statutory role in the restructuring transaction was 

the same as its role in the original transaction—to ensure that the 

credit subsidy cost was appropriately accounted for, consistent with 

OMB’s responsibilities under FCRA. OMB worked closely with 

DOE to understand the specifics of the proposal before making a 

cost determination. DOE ultimately provided information and analysis to OMB to show that the loan was in imminent default and 

43 

that the restructuring proposal was expected to be less costly to 

taxpayers than other options, including liquidation. OMB determined that DOE’s analysis was reasonable and reflected the information as it was understood at that time. 

Since then, a challenging global solar market has continued to 

affect a number of solar manufacturers, including Solyndra. The 

company’s recent announcement that it was suspending operations 

and filing for bankruptcy is without a doubt a very unfortunate 

outcome and one that will limit the government’s recovery of funds 

loaned to the company. 

Congress designed the Title XVII Loan Guarantee Program to 

fund innovative clean energy projects that might not otherwise receive the necessary capital for deployment. The program envisions 

that while some of these projects might not succeed, others will 

contribute to the country’s ability to achieve its clean energy goals. 

OMB will continue to work diligently with DOE to help make the 

Title XVII program a success and to ensure that the costs associated with the inherent risks in the program are budgeted and accounted for to protect taxpayers’ interests. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I would be 

pleased to answer any questions you have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Zients follows:] 

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47 

Mr. STEARNS. I thank the gentleman, and I will start with opening questions. And they are directed to you, Mr. Silver, and if you 

could possibly just answer yes or no. 

In your testimony, you claim that some of Solyndra’s due diligence was done by the end of the Bush administration. Is that correct? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, the application was received—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Yes, that is all I need. Isn’t it true, though, that 

at the end of the Bush administration a DOE Credit Committee 

met on January 9, 2009, to consider the Solyndra guarantee? Were 

you aware of that? 

Mr. SILVER. The Credit Committee is made up of—— 

Mr. STEARNS. No, I am not asking you—just answer the question. 

Mr. SILVER. Which met in early 2009—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Right. OK, so you agree. That Credit Committee 

recommended that the Solyndra loan guarantee be remanded to the 

Loan Programs Office stating, ‘‘The number of issues unresolved 

make a recommendation for approval premature at this time.’’ 

Were you aware of the Credit Committee’s meeting when you submitted your testimony to the committee this morning? 

Mr. SILVER. I was. And, as I said, Congressman, I was not there 

at the time, but it is my understanding that it was not—it was remanded back for additional data—— 

Mr. STEARNS. No, I am asking the questions. I just need a yes 

or no. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Let him give the answer. 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, I think he has given an answer. In an email 

sent a few days after the January Credit Committee meeting, a 

member of that Credit Committee sent an email to his fellow members. In that January 13, 2009, email he states, ‘‘After canvassing 

the committee, it was a unanimous decision not to engage in further discussions with Solyndra at this time.’’ Do you understand 

that the Credit Committee in the Bush administration essentially 

decided that the due diligence was not complete at this point? 

Mr. SILVER. No, Mr. Chairman. In fact, the Credit Committee 

that you are referring to, as I said, made up of a group of career 

professionals is also exactly the same Credit Committee that then 

approved—— 

Mr. STEARNS. I understand that, but the point is what I just 

quoted to you is the truth, isn’t that correct? That quote is accurate? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t—haven’t seen that email, sir. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. 

Mr. SILVER. I wasn’t there at the time. 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, you can assure it is. And the DOE should 

quit talking with Solyndra. That was the recommendation. Now, 

Mr. Silver, in your testimony, you stated that regarding Solyndra, 

‘‘Much of the extensive due diligence on the transaction was conducted between 2006 and the end of 2008.’’ I would like to bring 

this information to your attention. Isn’t it true that the Loan Programs Office didn’t hire its first federal employee until August 1, 

2007? 

Mr. SILVER. I am not aware of that but it sounds about right. 

48 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. If you don’t know, we can provide this information. We provided it to the committee staff through a 

PowerPoint presentation. Now, by the end of 2007, isn’t it true that 

the office had only 8 federal employees? 

Mr. SILVER. Again, I don’t know the exact numbers. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. So who was doing all this extensive due diligence that you keep talking about in 2006 and 7 at the loan program? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, sir, the Department—if you would like an answer to that question—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Sure. 

Mr. SILVER [continuing]. The Department is made up of 115,000 

working professionals, including about 70,000 scientists a number 

of whom are solar experts—— 

Mr. STEARNS. But the DOE Credit Committee was the responsible authority for approving the credit of Solyndra. Isn’t it—— 

Mr. SILVER. No, actually—— 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. 

Mr. SILVER [continuing]. Technically, sir, the Credit Committee 

actually simply reviews a transaction and recommends it—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Right. 

Mr. SILVER [continuing]. For approval. 

Mr. STEARNS. I think we have established they did not think 

they should go ahead. Isn’t it also true that during that time period, DOE was reviewing the 140 or so applications that it received 

in response to its first solicitation, how did DOE have time to do 

extensive due diligence on Solyndra from 2006 to 2007 like you indicated? That baffles us. 

Mr. SILVER. If you will give me a moment to explain, I think I 

can. The 2006 solicitation resulted in 143 submissions. The loan 

program staff and others at the Department reviewed those for eligibility, which is a thinner review than the full due diligence, and 

recommended 16 applications to file a full application. 

Mr. STEARNS. But—— 

Mr. SILVER. Eleven did so. Solyndra was one of those and the Department conducted due diligence on all of those 11. 

Mr. STEARNS. But Mr. Silver, isn’t it true the first draft of the 

independent marking report wasn’t even submitted until March 

2009? You were there. Isn’t that correct? 

Mr. SILVER. No, I was not there at that time, sir. It is my understanding, though, from reviewing the record that there were several market research reports that were directly relevant that were 

used as the basis for assessment, and there was subsequently a direct marketing report done for the project, which was produced in 

the time frame—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Our records show an independent engineer report 

that you cited in your testimony was submitted in early January 

2009. Is that correct? 

Mr. SILVER. I think that is the case, yes, sir. 

Mr. STEARNS. The due diligent legal memorandum submitted by 

the Morrison and Forester, which you have also cited in your written testimony, that also was submitted in early 2009, correct? 

Mr. SILVER. I believe that is the case. 

49 

Mr. STEARNS. Given this, how do you explain the statement in 

your testimony that the extensive due diligence was conducted in 

2006 and 2008? 

Mr. SILVER. Actually, I didn’t say it was conducted in 2006. I 

said the application was receive in 2006 and due diligence began 

and continued from late 2007 through 2008. It would be logical for 

the reports that you are making reference to here to be completed 

after that work was done during that period. 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, Mr. Silver, I think my time has expired, but 

I think what we have established is that the Credit Committee 

during the Bush administration found the Solyndra deal to be premature and remanded it for further work. And we have all the evidence and all the clear evidence, so we are a little puzzled with 

your opening statement. With that, my time has expired and I recognize the ranking member, Ms. DeGette. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to start my questions by asking unanimous consent 

to put the Credit Committee Recommendation that the chairman 

referred to into the record so that we can know what we are talking about. 

Mr. STEARNS. By unanimous consent, so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 

50 


74404.032
51 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Silver, I had staff hand you a copy of this Credit Committee 

Recommendation. Have you seen this document before? 

Mr. SILVER. No, ma’am, I have not. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. This is the document that the chairman was 

referring to where the Credit Committee remanded the project to 

LGPO that they denied the application and they remanded it for 

more information. That is the thing the chairman was referring to. 

And it was also the information that he had up on the screen. It 

was from this memo. Now, as I read this document, it says, ‘‘While 

the project appears to have merit, there are several areas where 

the information presented did not thoroughly support a finding, but 

the project is ready to be approved at this time.’’ And then it lists 

4 areas that it says need to be supplemented. Do you see that? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And then at the bottom is said, ‘‘the Credit Committee is appreciative of the hard work done by the origination 

staff but believes the number of issues unresolved makes the recommendation for approval premature at this time.’’ Do you see 

that? 

Mr. SILVER. I do. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And then it concludes, ‘‘Therefore, the committee, 

without prejudice, remands the project to the LGPO for further development of information addressing the issues outlined above. 

Correct? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So this document is not a complete denial of the 

application; it is remanding it for more information, correct? 

Mr. SILVER. Not only is it not a complete denial, it would be typical of a credit committee in both the public and the private sector 

to perform its function in exactly this way. If they believed additional data was—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. And was that data eventually developed and submitted to the DOE? No? 

Mr. SILVER. The—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. The data that was requested—— 

Mr. SILVER. The data was additionally developed and the summary of that data was represented to the Credit Committee. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And subsequently, in March of 2009, the application was approved, correct? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And was that data submitted as part of that application, this data that was requested? 

Mr. SILVER. Again, I wasn’t there, but it is my understanding 

that that was the case. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK, thank you. Now, I wanted to ask you a couple 

of questions about what kind of policies and incentives that we 

need to have in the United States to promote competitiveness in 

the clean energy market? This is what you talked about in your 

testimony. In your written testimony, what you said was in between 1995 and 2010, the share photovoltaic cells and panels manufactured in the U.S. dropped from over 40 percent to just 6 percent. We have seen this with some Colorado companies that are 

trying to develop solar but they can’t actually find cells that are 

52 

manufactured in this country. Since 2005, China’s market share 

has actually increased from 6 percent to 54 percent, and half of the 

world’s 10 largest solar panel manufacturers are now Chinese. So 

the question I have is what does that tell us about the state of play 

in the solar manufacturing industry? 

Mr. SILVER. Congresswoman, I think it tells us that the rest of 

the world takes this industry and this industry opportunity enormously seriously, has a multi-decade perspective on its importance, 

believes, as we do, that it will be a multi-trillion-dollar market that 

will generate tens of thousands of jobs and is deeply committed to 

it. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now, what is the Chinese Government doing that 

you know of to provide support to its solar industry? 

Mr. SILVER. The Chinese Government has already committed up 

to $30 billion of credit to its 4 or 5 largest solar panel manufacturers. It generally and frequently provides both zero-cost financing, 

occasionally free land, and other kinds of incentives and subsidies 

to that sector. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And does cheap labor play a part in China’s ability to dominate the world market on this solar development? 

Mr. SILVER. It certainly has in the past and cheap labor does 

play a material role in other parts of the world in their competitiveness. Increasingly, however, the challenge is becoming one related to government support for the industry itself, financially. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So it is not as much cheap labor as capital that 

the Chinese Government is providing in your view? 

Mr. SILVER. Correct. Access to inexpensive debt capital, yes, 

ma’am. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. So based on your experiences at DOE and the 

private sector and your understanding of initiatives of other governments like China, do you really think it is worth us having policies like this Title XVII Loan Program and other policies to support 

solar or should we just walk away from it altogether as a government? 

Mr. SILVER. I can’t imagine a scenario in which we would willingly as a country walk away from what will be undoubtedly one 

of the largest if not the largest industries in the world over the 

next several decades. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Well, do you think though that there is any way 

we can actually compete? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, we have an incredibly strong and innovative 

workforce, but what we have got to be able to support not only innovation at the R&D level, we also have to be able to support commercial deployment. Without commercial deployment, we cannot 

continue to recognize the benefits that come from innovation. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So irrespective of the details of the Solyndra case 

which are still unfolding to this day, you think that these kinds of 

loan-support programs are important to development of the U.S. 

solar energy and jobs. Is that right? 

Mr. SILVER. I think they are critical. They are only part of the 

fabric of what is necessary but they are critical. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now, Mr.—pronounce your name for me. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Zients. 

53 

Ms. DEGETTE. Zients. Mr. Zients, I wanted to ask you because 

you talked about this Title XVII funding and there are a number 

of other projects that are receiving—and I believe over 40. Has that 

worked in other projects? Is it working in other loan situations? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Well, the program is, as you know, relatively new, 

so loans have recently closed for the most part. And we have every 

reason to be optimistic that the portfolio as a whole will perform. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And how large is the portfolio as a whole? 

Mr. ZIENTS. I defer to Jonathan on specific numbers. I think you 

have a good estimate in what you said. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Barton, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just for the record, are you two gentlemen career civil service 

employees or are you political appointees? 

Mr. SILVER. Political appointees, sir. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Political appointee. 

Mr. BARTON. Both, OK. Chairman Stearns alluded to this but I 

want to follow up a little bit. While President Bush was still in office on January the 9th of 2009, the Credit Committee, which is a 

part of the Department of Energy I believe did recommend against 

going forward with the Solyndra loan. Less than 2 months later, 

on March the 12th of 2009, the Credit Committee conditionally approved the loan. First of all, is that factually correct? 

Mr. SILVER. The timeline is correct, sir. The Credit Committee— 

the first Credit Committee that met did not reject the loan. They 

remanded it back for further analysis. But your timeline with respect to the 2 Credit Committees is correct. 

Mr. BARTON. The individuals that are on the Credit Committee, 

are those political appointees or civil service? 

Mr. SILVER. Civil service. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. Were the 2 Credit Committees identical in 

their makeup? 

Mr. SILVER. I believe that to be true. 

Mr. BARTON. So the same people in the same agency—to use 

your terminology—needed additional information—or anyway, they 

did not approve it in January but in March, the same committee 

made up of the same people did approve or conditionally approve. 

That is correct, right? 

Mr. SILVER. No, sir. Technically, the Credit Committee does not 

approve a conditional commitment. The Credit Committee recommends a transaction for approval, which is then further reviewed by a group called the Credit Review Board, the CRB, and 

they—— 

Mr. BARTON. Well, instead of putting up a red light, they put up 

a green light or at least a yellow light? 

Mr. SILVER. They indicated that the initial questions that had 

been—they had raised in the first meeting had been addressed. 

And they—— 

Mr. BARTON. All right. Now, what changed in the intervening period? 

Mr. SILVER. Additional due diligence was conducted—— 

Mr. BARTON. Specifically, what changed? 

54 

Mr. SILVER. Well, as I say, additional due diligence was conducted—— 

Mr. BARTON. Well, specifically, what additional due diligence? 

Mr. SILVER. Market—additional market research was developed 

and—— 

Mr. BARTON. Is that available and does the committee staff have 

it? 

Mr. SILVER. I believe the committee staff has it. We have turned 

over over 35,000 pages of materials. 

Mr. BARTON. But for purposes of this hearing under oath you are 

saying that what changed is additional information that wasn’t 

available in January became available in the intervening period, is 

that correct? 

Mr. SILVER. Additional due diligence was done—— 

Mr. BARTON. But additional due diligence doesn’t cut it, OK? We 

need, you know, half a billion dollars was not supported in January 

under the Bush administration was supported, conditionally recommended in March. We know the one thing changed is that the 

President changed. We know that changed. 

Mr. SILVER. I will be happy to get back to you, sir, with the additional information—— 

Mr. BARTON. But due diligence is a generic term. 

Mr. SILVER. Well, it is a generic term but it covers very specific 

things, particularly research on market conditions, financial conditions, technical—— 

Mr. BARTON. Is it possible that one of the things that changed 

was political influence? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t believe so, sir. I wasn’t there but there is no 

indication in the record—— 

Mr. BARTON. Nobody commented to the White House that this 

project should go forward? There were no supporters of the President that stepped forward and had meetings and there were no 

White House officials that encouraged people at the Department of 

Energy to just—this was all done under a bubble top and purely 

on merit? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, sir, I can’t speak to that because I wasn’t 

there, but what I will say to you is that the loan program career 

staff that was doing—did the work in 2008 under a Republican-appointed CFO continued to do that work under the same individual 

who was a—— 

Mr. BARTON. Well, let me ask one final question because my time 

is about to expire. Is it typical of a loan guarantee that a project 

1) gets a half a billion dollars, and 2) that half a billion is 2/3 of 

the cost of the project, and 3) that the federal obligation is subordinated to private sector capital, which is a direct violation of federal 

law? 

Mr. SILVER. There is no typical, sir, in answering that because 

every project financing is different and depends on the size, structure, and the technology that is being—— 

Mr. BARTON. So if myself and Mr. Scalise and Mr. Gardner and 

maybe for good measure Mr. Markey and Mr. Dingell put together 

a deal and asked for a half a billion dollars, it is acceptable under 

this program for it to be approved? 

55 

Mr. SILVER. Well, sir, if you had a legitimate project that went 

through—— 

Mr. BARTON. I think we could have a legitimate project that 

wouldn’t go bankrupt within 2 years. 

Mr. SILVER. If you had a project that met the criteria of the solicitation and was deemed to be eligible and went through technical, 

legal, financial regulatory and other kinds of due diligence and was 

deemed to be a potential process, then perhaps yes. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STEARNS. I thank the gentleman. The distinguished ranking 

member, Mr. Waxman, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As I understand it, in 2005, the Congress passed the Loan Guarantee Program. We did this on a bipartisan basis because we wanted to move forward with these enterprises that would give us renewable and alternative energy rather than continue our reliance 

on fossil fuels. The idea of a loan guarantee is that we want them 

to borrow the money but we know there is an inherent risk in a 

new startup. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Silver? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. When Congress set up the program, it set 

it up specifically to compensate for the lack of debt financing for 

innovative energy and recognized the inherent risks in that by providing credit subsidy, which is essentially loan loss reserve. 

Mr. WAXMAN. No one wants to go and invest in the market in 

a solar energy, wind power, anything else, unless they know it is 

really going to return the investment and give them a profit. So the 

government has decided we will help these groups get started because it is important for our Nation to move to alternative energy. 

Mr. SILVER. I agree with that and I would only add one caveat. 

We don’t actually start these companies. They—the private sector 

does. In the case of Solyndra, almost a billion dollars of private equity had gone into this company before the government made its 

loan. And all the transactions that we work on have very, very significant private capital behind them. 

Mr. WAXMAN. I was taken aback by the figure that between 1995 

and 2010 the share of photovoltaic cells and panels manufactured 

in the United States dropped from 40 percent to just 6 percent. At 

the same time just since 2005, China’s market has increased from 

6 percent to 54 percent. So half of the world’s largest 10 solar panel 

manufacturers are now Chinese. And we would like to be able to 

compete as well. And I gather your answer to Ms. DeGette is one 

of the reasons that China is outmaneuvering us is that the government is putting a lot more money behind their solar industry than 

we are doing. Is that right? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. As I said, China has committed at a minimum $30 billion from the China Development Bank and another 

several billion—— 

Mr. WAXMAN. And that is 20 times more than we are providing 

by way of any subsidies or loan guarantees. 

Mr. SILVER. At least because there are other subsidies and incentives that the Chinese Government provides as well. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, who would be against such a thing? Well, I 

will tell you who would be. Entrenched fossil fuel industry wouldn’t 

like this. This is competition for them. And I think that is playing 

56 

a part in some of the reactions that I am hearing. But one of the 

key issues of this investigation, as identified by Chairman Stearns, 

has been whether DOE issued the Solyndra loan guarantee as a 

favor to George Kaiser, a major donor to President Obama’s campaign. These are serious allegations. Mr. Stearns said the administration gives ‘‘some of this money out to people who are either contributors or strong supporters.’’ And he implied that the Solyndra 

loan decision was based on political favoritism. 

Before I ask you about these allegations, I would like to get a bit 

of background on this loan guarantee. My understanding is 

Solyndra applied to this loan in 2006 when Bush was president. 

Mr. SILVER. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And the DOE invited the company to submit a full 

application to the program in October 2007. 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And December 4, 2008, DOE documents outline 

the Solyndra loan as one of the three highest priorities of the next 

45 days. And all of this took place during the Bush administration. 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Now, in fact, January 5, 2009, email to a DOE official, John Scott of Solyndra, said, ‘‘We think that a public announcement would acknowledge the hard work of the existing administration and the appointees in DOE and the LGPO as well as 

benefit Solyndra’s fundraising efforts for the equity contribution.’’ 

And in this email Mr. Scott was talking about the Bush administration. But the fact that the loan didn’t close until President 

Obama took office seems to have given rise to allegations of political favoritism. Well, this Kaiser Group wasn’t the only private investment. A lot of the investment came from another group that is 

called Madrone, and that is a Walton family. They give to Republicans. But they were looking to make an investment in a loan that 

was being guaranteed by the Federal Government. 

I would like to you ask you, Mr. Silver and Mr. Zients, about 

your interactions with Mr. Kaiser and his impact on this loan. Did 

you or your staff have any interaction with Mr. Kaiser relating to 

the Solyndra loan guarantee? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, sir, as I said before, I was not here at that 

time. But no, I have never met or spoken to the man. And as I understand from my staff, neither have they. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And the staff of civil servants? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Who have been around—— 

Mr. SILVER. Yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN [continuing]. Even to the time of the Bush administration. Mr. Zients, is that the same answer for you? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Same for me, both personally and my knowledge of 

the OMB staff interaction. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Did either of you instruct anyone to give the loan 

guarantee to Solyndra or restructure the loan because of the donations to the President by Mr. Kaiser? 

Mr. SILVER. No, sir. 

Mr. ZIENTS. No. 

57 

Mr. WAXMAN. Did anyone in the administration instruct you or 

your staff to grant or restructure the loan guarantee because of the 

donations to the President by Mr. Kaiser? 

Mr. SILVER. No, sir. 

Mr. ZIENTS. No. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Are you aware of anything that would suggest that 

Mr. Kaiser’s donations to the President were a factor in determining whether to grant the Solyndra loan guarantee? 

Mr. SILVER. No, sir. Again, I wasn’t there but I have no reason 

to believe that. 

Mr. ZIENTS. I was not actively involved but have no reason to believe that. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Can you assure us if the Solyndra decisions were 

made on the merits and that there was no favoritism shown towards Solyndra for any reason? 

Mr. SILVER. It is my understanding that that is correct. 

Mr. ZIENTS. My understanding is the same. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Our chairman has made some serious allegations. 

I think the real question before us is whether the vetting was done 

appropriately and whether it was done based on full representation 

by Solyndra about their economic viability. And I don’t think we 

ought to use this failure of this particular guarantee to discredit 

was it an important loan guarantee in order to move to be able to 

compete in this area with China and to move our country away 

from dependence on fossil fuel. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STEARNS. I thank the gentleman. Dr. Burgess, the gentleman 

from Texas, recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BURGESS. And I thank the chairman. And I will agree with 

Ranking Member Waxman. We do want the availability of solar at 

the retail level of this country. I look forward to the day where I 

can reduce my electricity bill by putting some type of solar panel 

on my roof or in my yard, but have we advanced that vision of the 

future with the activities that have occurred in regards to this case, 

and in particular, the jurisdictions for which you two are responsible for, the Department of Energy and the Office of Management 

and Budget, which does have the responsibility for direct oversight? 

Now, Mr. Zients, in your testimony to us today, you talk about 

pressure testing I believe when you were talking about the interagency discussions, an important forum for asking the tough questions and pressure-testing assumptions. Well, let us think about 

that for a moment. A lot of emails that have now been produced 

to the committee, to the committee staff, and in going through 

those, we keep coming up against the notion that there was pressure all right but this is a pressure cooker. This wasn’t a pressure 

test. This was we got to get this thing out the door because we 

have got a groundbreaking. And it might involve a trip by the 

President or a satellite appearance by the Vice President. So yes, 

there was pressure but it was pressure applied in pushing this 

thing out the door. In retrospect, was that the wrong kind of pressure to apply? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Are there specific emails that you are referring to? 

Mr. BURGESS. Yes, I would be happy to do that. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Can I get a copy? 

58 

Mr. BURGESS. Were we providing him a copy of those emails? I 

think we are. I don’t want to reference anyone’s name because that 

is not appropriate. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Mr. Chairman, if I could be provided a copy of 

those emails, that would be helpful. 

Mr. BURGESS. Will do it. We will be glad to do it. 

Mr. ZIENTS. I am just looking at the top line at the dates 

here—— 

Mr. BURGESS. These are all available. 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. They appear to be in the August time 

frame where I am not, best of my knowledge, and the author of any 

of these emails are actually even on any of these emails as I was 

not actively involved. So I will comment but I don’t know the intention of any specific email. 

At that period of time, OMB was playing its statutory role under 

FCRA to ensure that an appropriate credit subsidy score was given 

to the project. So this is not about whether the loan should go forward or not. This is about the accounting for the loan. And there 

was some scheduling requests from the VP’s office and the VP’s office was interested in potentially being part of an announcement of 

the closing of the very first loan. But I want to be crystal clear as 

to my understanding from my interactions with the staff in preparation for this hearing that those scheduling requests had no impact whatsoever on the credit subsidy score that was given to this 

project. OMB staff, based on its analysis, decided to increase the 

credit subsidy score to make it more conservative and DOE agreed 

with that, so the closing occurred after OMB staff had done a thorough analysis of the credit subsidy score and decided to increase 

the credit subsidy score to make it more conservative. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, let us—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. But the scheduling logistics had not been—— 

Mr. BURGESS. I am running out of time. Let me just reference 

August 27, 2009, 4:40 p.m., and this is an email from someone in 

OMB—‘‘as long as we make it crystal clear to the Department of 

Energy that this is only in the interest of time, there is no precedent set that I am OK with it, but we also need to make sure that 

they don’t jam us on later details so there isn’t time to negotiate 

those, too,’’ implying that there was pressure placed upon—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. Well, again, not being involved and not being on this 

email chain, I think what is clear is that OMB staff was—to the 

best of my understanding based on my discussions with OMB staff 

because I was not actively involved—comfortable with the credit 

subsidy score, which is the statutory responsibility of OMB, and in 

fact, the credit subsidy score was increased during the period of 

time—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Yes, and with all due respect, sir—— 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. And DOE agreed with that—— 

Mr. BURGESS [continuing]. It doesn’t sound like they were comfortable. They say it is in the interest of time. This time we will 

let it go, but tell those guys over at DOE that they are not going 

to jam us on this also. 

Mr. ZIENTS. In preparation for this hearing, I talked to the OMB 

career staff and no one hesitated in my discussions with them as 

to whether they were comfortable with the final determination of 

59 

the credit subsidy score for this project. And as I said, the credit 

subsidy score was increased—i.e., made more conservative—as a 

result of the OMB analysis and DOE agreed with that. 

Mr. BURGESS. Let me just in the remaining time, Mr. Silver, ask 

you, this is the filing with the SEC on the S–1 report from March 

2010 on the planned initial public offering, and Solyndra’s auditor, 

PricewaterhouseCoopers, stated the company’s S–1 amended, 

‘‘though the company has suffered recurring losses from operations, 

negative cash flow since inception, it has a net stockholder deficit, 

and it raised substantial doubt about its ability to continue as 

going concern,’’ did this prompt any curiosity on your part or did 

it change anything about the Department of Energy’s behavior 

about this application? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, let me respond first, Congressman, as a former 

venture capitalist and tell you that frequently companies, particularly high-growth companies like Solyndra, will make filings for 

companies that, while they are growing rapidly, still are continuing 

to burn case. A going concern review by an independent auditor 

is—accompanies that kind of scenario. I should also point out that 

in the time frame—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Sir, I am going to run out of time, but with all due 

respect, venture capital is different from a government investment, 

a taxpayer subsidy—— 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. BURGESS. This is a different universe and your response as 

a venture capitalist is likely not consistent with being a good steward of the taxpayers’ money. And I will yield back to the chairman. 

Thank you. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman yields back. We recognize the chairman emeritus of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Dingell, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DINGELL. You are most kind. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 

am very pleased to see that we are having proper oversight and it 

is my hope as we move forward that if the majority has evidence 

of wrongdoing, they will present it to us so we can take proper action. 

Mr. Silver, you say in your testimony that Solyndra first applied 

for a guaranteed loan in 2006 when President Bush was still in office, is that correct? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. I understand you had people who worked within 

the Loan Program Office and who do the due diligence on determining the quality and feasibility of loan applications. Are these 

people political appointees? 

Mr. SILVER. No, sir, career—— 

Mr. DINGELL. They are career? 

Mr. SILVER. And analysts and advisors. 

Mr. DINGELL. Good. So the staff reviewing application for a guaranteed loan over the past 5 years are not political appointees but 

instead are rather career, nonpolitical employees who serve from 

administration to administration, is that right? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. All right. Now, although I understand that you 

haven’t yet been at the loan office, is it your assessment that the 

60 

guaranteed loan was awarded based on the project proposal and 

the strength of the application and not on any political influence? 

Remember, you are under oath. 

Mr. SILVER. To the best of my knowledge—and as you point out 

I wasn’t there—but to the best of my knowledge, yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. So nonpolitical career Department of Energy 

employees while serving under the Bush administration recommended a timetable to award Solyndra a guaranteed loan. Was 

this the timetable against which the loan was eventually committed? 

Mr. SILVER. The career staff identified the timeframes after having brought it forward in the first Credit Committee as marked for 

a second Credit Committee and produced it at that time, yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. All right. Let us go fast-forward a year to 2010 

when Solyndra approached the Department of Energy for further 

assistance. Was this due to low-cost competition from Chinese manufacturers, Solyndra needed help? If your office had not agreed to 

restructure the loan, would Solyndra have gone bankrupt in 2010? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, without the structured loan or restructured 

loan, would Solyndra have had any chance of success? 

Mr. SILVER. It is hard to imagine how since they had a liquidity 

crisis. They were out of operating capital. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, would the company’s 1,100 workers been laid 

off in 2010, then? 

Mr. SILVER. I would assume so, yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Solyndra secured an additional $75 million from 

investors as part of a loan restructuring. Is it a standard in loan 

restructuring for new investment to have priority in the case of a 

liquidation? 

Mr. SILVER. It is very typical. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, Mr. Chairman, I have been waiting anxiously 

to hear what we have to show that there is wrongdoing here, and 

I am still waiting to see something that makes me be concerned 

that we have here some wrongdoing. And I don’t want us to proceed just on suspicions or doubtful questions or misinterpretations 

of emails or finding emails where none exist. Now, let us try and 

see what took place. 

First, during the Bush administration, Solyndra submitted a preapplication for a loan guarantee. Second, that then a financial and 

technical review were conducted. In October 2007 the Department 

of Energy invited Solyndra and 15 other applications to submit full 

applications. Solyndra submitted their full application in 2008. 

Later, in 2008, the Department of Energy indicated that Solyndra 

was in the best position to receive the first loan guarantee. You remember this was under the Bush administration. In January 2009, 

during the final days of the Bush administration, the Department 

set forth a timeline to complete due diligence on the Solyndra application that would lead to approval by the spring of 2009. Next 

came in the administration of President Obama. Now, during that 

spring of 2009, the Department continued to do its due diligence 

and completed its work in August. The loan guarantee was issued 

in September 2009, 3 years after the pre-application was originally 

submitted. 

61 

I am looking forward to hearing from the committee leadership 

and from the committee staff is there anything in the record to 

suggest this proposal was rushed through or that improper consideration was given or that there was any improper or illegal pressure or political activity which might have led to us being where 

we are today? I would urge my colleagues to look hard for the facts 

and take all the facts into consideration and to see to it that as we 

go about our business, we are careful in finding the truth and not 

just having a splendid time making unjust accusations regarding 

the program and the administration. Thank you. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. I recognize the 

gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Terry. 

Mr. TERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would agree with 

the chairman emeritus that we do need to do our due diligence and 

find out on behalf of the taxpayers what went wrong here. And 

that does need to be our ultimate mission. 

There is a theme that I am picking up in the questioning, and 

that is I think everyone must agree that there is some scandal involved in this. And I am reaching this conclusion by the amount 

of time spent to ensure that people believe that this was somehow 

approved and all of the work done under the Bush administration. 

That seems to be the MO is if there is a crisis that occurs today, 

blame it on the past administration. 

And so just to set some facts straight because even you, Mr. Silver, mentioned in your written testimony provided to us that 

Solyndra submitted its initial application in 2006 and much of the 

‘‘extensive due diligence on the transaction was conducted between 

2006 and 2008,’’ but the irrefutable fact is that on January 9, 2011, 

the Bush administration DOE Credit Committee remands the 

Solyndra application calling it premature and citing unresolved 

issues. So it seems to me that not all of the ‘‘extensive due diligence’’ on the transaction was conducted between 2006 and 2008 

but that the Bush administration said very specifically that the application required much more due diligence. 

Then you said, Mr. Silver, if I am correct that you said in 2011 

more due diligence was done that led to the approval. Is that a correct statement? 

Mr. SILVER. I believe you mean 2009, Congressman? 

Mr. TERRY. Well, yes. 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, additional due diligence—it is my understanding that additional due diligence was done from the time the 

initial Credit Committee remanded it back to the loan program effort through to the next Credit Committee, which met subsequently 

in March. And during that time, additional work on market research and legal and technical matters and other kinds of things 

that would normally make up the responses to the questions that 

the Credit Committee had asked were developed and answered. 

Mr. TERRY. Then after the president was inaugurated, an email 

from a DOE staffer states that we are approaching the beginning 

of the approval process for Solyndra again. So the work continued 

on the application, correct? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, that is my understanding. 

Mr. TERRY. Now, what we would like to know is—Mr. Waxman 

was going down this path so I am going to follow up on his quesVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:35 Jun 10, 2013 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\PROGRA~1\WS_FTP\74404.TXT WAYNE
62 

tions—he asked in a way that made you responsible for assuming 

motives of other people. I am just going to ask you point-blank. 

After you started your role at DOE or in your role, did you receive 

any communications from a White House employee, personnel, 

Carol Browner, Rahm Emanuel, anybody regarding the Solyndra 

loan? 

Mr. SILVER. You mean in—— 

Mr. TERRY. Yes or no. Did you—— 

Mr. SILVER. When I joined? 

Mr. TERRY. Yes. 

Mr. SILVER. No, when I joined—— 

Mr. TERRY. You had no communications from anyone—— 

Mr. SILVER. The Solyndra loan, it was closed in September, sir, 

and I arrived in November. 

Mr. TERRY. What about the restructuring time period? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, the restructuring occurred approximately a 

year later, was largely conducted on a staff-to-staff basis. There 

were interactions—— 

Mr. TERRY. Were there interactions then—if you are denying 

that you received any communications directly from the White 

House to you—— 

Mr. SILVER. No, what I am trying to describe to you—— 

Mr. TERRY. That is my question, so please answer my question. 

Did you receive during your time there any communications from 

anyone from the White House regarding the Solyndra loan? That 

is an easy question. It is either yes or no. 

Mr. SILVER. And it actually has an easy answer. We work regularly on this transaction and every other transaction with our 

interagency colleagues at OMB and at the—— 

Mr. TERRY. I said White House. 

Mr. SILVER. I am not sure what distinction that is. We work with 

the OMB—— 

Mr. TERRY. Oh, really? 

Mr. SILVER [continuing]. And any—— 

Mr. TERRY. How about—you want me to start naming individuals. Carol Browner and her staff, did you receive any communications? I think the question is very clear and you are—— 

Mr. SILVER. It is and what—the answer to this—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Silver, you are under oath and you need to answer the question yes or no. 

Mr. SILVER. The question is do we interact with elements—with 

different agencies and the answer to that question is yes, extensively. 

Mr. TERRY. I did not say different agencies. I said White House. 

Mr. SILVER. Well, individuals in those agencies, we work—— 

Mr. TERRY. OK. So you did receive communications directly to 

you from somebody in the White House? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t recall who would have been involved directly. 

What I can tell you is the discussions around these transactions as 

Mr. Zients referred to are conducted on a staff-to-staff—career 

staff-to-career staff basis working to develop the transaction. 

Mr. TERRY. So once again, have you received—you received any 

communications regarding the Solyndra loan from anyone from the 

White House? 

63 

Mr. SILVER. Well, I mean Mr. Zients and I have talked about it. 

Mr. TERRY. OK. Mr. Zients, have you? It is fairly clear obviously 

Mr. Silver is not going to answer the question. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Well, again, as to the loan itself, I wasn’t involved 

when the loan was closed. As to the restructuring, yes, I do interact 

with components of the White House. I would make a distinction 

between OMB and the White House to get—to tap into their expertise on energy and on financial markets. 

Mr. TERRY. OK. And who was the person that you were communicating with in the White House? 

Mr. ZIENTS. The primary expertise resided at the time what was 

then the Office of Energy and Climate Control. 

Mr. TERRY. That was Carol Browner’s office? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Carol Browner led that office, yes. 

Mr. TERRY. Did they suggest to you—my time is up. 

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you, gentleman. And the gentleman from 

Massachusetts, Mr. Markey, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. I will just 

note, first of all, that if you want to waste American taxpayers’ dollars, let us talk about the oil industry at record high profits getting 

$41 billion worth of tax money from taxpayers. And secondly, if you 

want to talk about loan guarantees, the Southern Company has received a loan guarantee 15 times larger than Solyndra, and if we 

are going to reexamine whether or not that is a good investment 

after Fukushima, after the earthquake near the North Anna Plant, 

let us have that hearing, because I think that money is in jeopardy 

if you are really concerned. That is 15 times larger. We know we 

will never have a hearing on the oil industry or the nuclear industry in this committee. This is all part of an agenda here that deals 

with the solar industry, the wind industry. 

So let us go back in time here, Mr. Silver, and it is back in 2009. 

You are looking at this loan guarantee. What does the market look 

like for solar? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, although I wasn’t at the Department in 2009, 

I do have a point of view on the solar industry then. Polysilicon 

prices were extraordinarily high and the cost—what they call balance-of-systems costs of putting conventional solar paneling on 

roofs, which involved penetrating the roofs as well, was very, very 

expensive. So the Solyndra technology, which had received a lot of 

attention during that period, was particularly innovative because it 

addressed both of those key problems. 

Mr. MARKEY. In general you are not providing this financing to 

Fortune 500 companies. You are providing them to companies that 

are largely startups with innovative technologies to ensure that we 

are in this marketplace. Is that not correct? 

Mr. SILVER. That is, Congressman, and with the added addition 

that the companies themselves are required to raise substantial 

amounts of capital and Solyndra had already raised many, many 

hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Mr. MARKEY. Now, when these loan guarantees were being provided, at any time did your agency or any part of the Federal Government project a 42 percent drop in the price of solar panel prices 

in an 8-month period? 

64 

Mr. SILVER. Well, not only did they not project the 42 percent 

drop this year, but between 2008 and now, that price had dropped 

about 80 percent. And most analysts were surprised by that. 

Mr. MARKEY. So just so we can have an honest discussion here, 

there is a Moore’s Law for solar, and I hold up the chart, and that 

is that every time there is a doubling of solar panels worldwide in 

deployment, the cost of producing them goes down by 18 percent. 

And that phenomenon has become very predictable. Now, in 2011, 

so we can see the forest for the trees, the Chinese funded $20 billion for 4 solar companies in 2010. And we have seen in the first 

8 months of this year a 42 percent collapse in the price of these 

solar panels. Was that foreseeable in 2009? 

Mr. SILVER. It was not, although China’s commitment to this was 

increasingly clear. And actually, I believe, Congressman, that number is closer to $30 billion. 

Mr. MARKEY. Did anyone in the marketplace predict a 42 percent 

drop in the price of these solar panels in 2011? 

Mr. SILVER. I can’t speak for every analyst out there but certainly many, many professionals following the industry were surprised. 

Mr. MARKEY. Were surprised. Now, let us go to the marketplace 

at large. Evergreen went bankrupt this year in the United States. 

SpectraWatt went bankrupt. German Solar SE shut down their Arizona solar facility. BP Solar shut down their facility in Frederick, 

Maryland. Emerging Conversion and Daystar Technologies lost 80 

percent of their market value this year. This 42 percent drop this 

year is as a result of the Chinese intervention in this marketplace. 

This was not knowable in 2009. This was not knowable in 2010. 

This was a market intervention. 

Now, if the Republicans think that like Johnny Carson’s Carnac 

that there is an envelope, you know, with the answer in it that was 

available in 2009, they are kidding themselves. We are in a race. 

We are in a global race here and we are doing our best to make 

this case to the Republicans on this committee. While they keep 

the loan guarantees for nuclear intact as they pass their budget, 

while they continue to protect those oil company tax breaks up to 

$41 billion, they are turning on a pin on a collapsing market here 

in the United States on something that really is related to the fact 

that we are not focusing upon the Chinese intervention into this 

marketplace. 

So I just hope that the administration and their policy of financing these kinds of programs—and I think for the most part it has 

been a big success story and I think we have to keep that in mind 

as well—is something that this committee keeps in their mind as 

we move forward. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Sullivan is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding this. 

Mr. Silver, on January 9, 2009, the Credit Committee during the 

Bush administration found the Solyndra deal to be premature and 

stopped all further work. An email sent by DOE Credit Committee 

a few days later stated that it was a unanimous decision not to engage in further discussions with Solyndra at this time, and yet on 

65 

January 26, 2009, after the Obama administration came in, a DOE 

staffer notes in an email that ‘‘DOE has decided to restart the approval process for Solyndra.’’ What prompted this decision? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, Congressman, again, since I wasn’t there I can 

only give you my review of the record, but it appears to me when 

the first Credit Committee remanded it back, what they specifically 

did was to say we have specific questions which we need answered 

before we can take this application up again. The career staff in 

the loan programs office then went to work answering those questions, and when they had been resolved, brought the transaction 

forward again. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. This was about 2 weeks before the stimulus was 

signed into law. Didn’t that have something to do with it? 

Mr. SILVER. Not to my knowledge, no. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Secretary Chu directed DOE to accelerate the 

process and deliver the first loan in a matter of months. Is that 

right? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know what the Secretary said specifically, but 

the Recovery Act certainly had a focus on bringing projects forward 

quickly. In fact, as you know, Congressman, there is a sunset date 

of September 30 of this year to get the 1705 projects done. And you 

know, a lot of work has gone into this and other programs to move 

monies as efficiently, effectively, and yet as prudently as possible. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Solyndra’s application was part of Secretary Chu’s 

acceleration process. You know that is right, don’t you? 

Mr. SILVER. I assume that to be true, but again, I wasn’t there. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. So you say yes? 

Mr. SILVER. I assume that to be the case. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. OK. What did DOE do to accelerate this process? 

At this time, the DOE loan programs office was very thinly staffed, 

is that right? 

Mr. SILVER. It depends on your definition of thinly, but yes, there 

were not very many people there. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. How many employees did it have? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know at the time, sir, but I believe it was between 10 and 20. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Did it even have the resources to do the review 

under the Secretary’s accelerated time frame? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes. Remember, the loan program’s professionals 

make use of outside advisors as well. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, I want to resolve a discrepancy here. You 

stated that Solyndra was accelerated per Secretary Chu’s policy 

and yet in your testimony you state that Solyndra proceed, ‘‘on the 

exact timeline that had been developed under the Bush administration.’’ Which is it and can you clarify this? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, I don’t think those 2 statements are incompatible. The career staff in the loan programs office identified the 

March time frame as when they would come back to the Credit 

Committee when the proposal was originally sent back to them. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. You mentioned earlier when I just came in that 

you are a private equity or you worked on Wall Street or what did 

you—— 

Mr. SILVER. A bit of everything. 

66 

Mr. SULLIVAN. OK. So you have looked at businesses and you 

have seen if they are worthy or not. In that capacity, would you 

lend a half a billion dollars to this company in the information—— 

Mr. SILVER. Well, I am by training and background both a venture capitalist and a hedge fund investor, but I am in position really to second-guess having not been there what the transaction that 

occurred. What I can tell you is this. Extensive due diligence was 

done across multiple years on all of the relevant characteristics 

that would go into a typical project financing. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. OK. If we could look at Slide 10, could someone 

pull that up? 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

I would like to ask you about this, OMB. ‘‘Given the time pressures we were under to sign off on Solyndra, we don’t have time 

to change this model.’’ This is what they are saying between each 

other. ‘‘As long as we make it crystal clear to DOE that this was 

only in the interest of time and that there was no precedent set, 

then I am OK with it. But we also need to make sure they don’t 

jam us on later deals so there isn’t time to negotiate those, too.’’ 

This was on August 27. Biden wants to do an appearance very soon 

after that. The stimulus was done on September 4. What do you 

have to say about this? 

Mr. ZIENTS. I wasn’t involved in this but based on what is on the 

screen here, I think this has to do with the closing of the transaction and OMB’s role at that point is to make sure that the credit 

subsidy score is correct from a budgeting-cost perspective. It is not 

about the loan overall at that stage; it is about the credit subsidy 

score. And my understanding, having talked to staff in preparation 

for this hearing, is that staff was very comfortable and had no hesitation as to its final determination of the credit subsidy score, 

which as I mentioned earlier, the credit subsidy score has actually 

increased as a result of OMB’s analysis and DOE concurred with 

that. So the credit subsidy score was made more conservative in 

that period of time as it was signed off in preparation for closing 

of the loan. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, she said there was a problem with the 

model. Do you think that is a problem—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. Again, not having been there, not knowing the author’s intent, what I can tell you that in preparation for this hearing, I have talked to OMB career staff and there was no hesitation 

that they expressed to me as to whether the final credit subsidy 

score was indeed one that they were comfortable with. And it was 

increased as a result of the OMB analysis and DOE agreed with 

that increase. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, the Solyndra—— 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STEARNS. Ms. Christensen is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to also 

just thank our ranking members for insisting that we hear from 

the Solyndra officials. It is important that we get the fullest picture, especially since my reading of the testimony suggests that 

DOE and OMB appear to have done adequate due diligence and 

67 

that part of the collapse of Solyndra at least appears to be due to 

forces beyond their control. 

Nevertheless, this subcommittee has the responsibility to determine all the facts and apply relevant lessons learned going forward. But I also think it is important that we accept that innovation always carries some degree of risk, and it is also important 

that we not use the failure in this instance or even others as an 

excuse to turn away from the pursuit of green energy, a green 

economy, and the U.S. leadership in this area. 

So my questions, then, are to Mr. Silver. I would like to ask you 

to take me through the DOE’s monitoring system for loans as it existed in 2009, 2010, and how it exists now. I do want to point out 

that a series of GAO and DOE Inspector General reports dating to 

the Bush administration have identified problems with management and controls in the DOE Loan Guarantee Program. So it is 

fair to point out that these programs did not begin with you. Still, 

it is important to ensure accountability for how this program is 

run. 

So the first question, after the Solyndra loan guarantee was first 

closed in 2009, what mechanisms did DOE use to monitor 

Solyndra’s cash flow? 

Mr. SILVER. In addition to our origination teams, our credit 

teams, our legal teams, our technical teams, and our regulatory 

teams, we also have a portfolio management group, and their responsibility is to monitor transactions post-closing against the covenants in each individual transaction. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Were there site visits to California or—— 

Mr. SILVER. There are regular site visits. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. How did DOE’s practices change when the 

loan was restricted in 2011? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, the principle difference was that in addition to 

picking up certain additional collateral for the loan, we negotiated 

and took an observer’s seat in this particular transaction. Now, I 

should say, Congresswoman, that that is an unusual thing to do 

and to have. Typically lenders, including lenders in the private sector, do not have board seats or even generally board observe seats, 

but we thought it was important to do that in order to be able to 

continue to monitor it. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. So despite this ongoing monitoring, it does 

not appear that DOE anticipated Solyndra’s deep financial troubles 

this summer. So Mr. Silver, how would you explain this, that you 

were not able to anticipate the deep financial troubles? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, as several members have mentioned and as I 

mentioned in my opening remarks, the precipitous price drop of the 

silicon and panel prices has deeply contributed to that. I should 

note that we, too, anticipated there would need to be, you know, 

additional support for this company in the out years as it continued 

to grow, and that was built into the restructuring transaction as 

well. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Silver, I know that Solyndra was raided 

by the FBI and the DOE Inspector General following the bankruptcy announcement. Do you know why this raid occurred? 

Mr. SILVER. No, ma’am, I have no idea. I am not part of that investigation or privy to it. 

68 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Did Solyndra ever mislead DOE that you 

know of? Do you have any reason to think that the company was 

not providing you with all appropriate information? 

Mr. SILVER. I have no reason sitting here today to believe that 

we were misled. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. So what lessons have you learned? Have 

DOE’s loan monitoring practices changed since you began as director of the Loan Guarantee Program in the fall of 2009? Do you anticipate making further changes in response to the loss of taxpayer 

funds as a result of the Solyndra bankruptcy? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, the entire program has changed, Congresswoman. When I got there, there were about 35 people. We know 

have between 180 and 200 people, deep bench strength in each of 

the areas that I identified. We built out, among other things, an 

electronic portal which permits applicants to submit electronically, 

thereby capturing all their data and shrinking the intake time. I 

might mention as an aside that we won a national award for that 

software. We built out a complete records management piece which 

had not existed heretofore and we will continue to make additional 

improvements as can. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you for this information. One of the 

key roles for the committee moving forward will be to understand 

why DOE did not foresee the Solyndra bankruptcy earlier-you have 

helped us at least some information regarding that—and whether 

there are ways to improve the system from monitoring projects that 

better fit the program. Thank you for your responses. 

Mr. SILVER. Thank you, ma’am. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I yield. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady from 

Tennessee is recognized for 5 minutes, Ms. Blackburn. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you 

both for being here with us. Just a couple of questions and I know 

you have been here for quite a while. 

I have got a couple of emails I want to put up here. Mr. Silver, 

you said you had worked on Wall Street and—— 

Mr. SILVER. No, I didn’t work specifically on Wall Street. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK. 

Mr. SILVER. Midtown but for a hedge fund, yes. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. For a hedge fund. OK. So you are pretty used 

to reviewing companies and looking at the history of companies 

and deciding if something is going to be a good investment or not, 

correct? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK. And I would imagine that DOE had a file 

that was passed onto you when you came into your position. Did 

they have a file that contained the different loans that had been 

approved and the tracking on those, the accountabilities to the taxpayer? Because, you know, we are about fairness for the taxpayer. 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, as are we, and yes, there were files. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK. So you did have files. OK. Mr. Zients, did 

you get a file at OMB on Solyndra and the due diligence that was 

done and then the process that was followed? 

Mr. ZIENTS. I became involved with Solyndra around the period 

of the restructuring. 

69 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Not the question. Did you receive a file that 

goes back to day one? 

Mr. ZIENTS. No. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. So you had no knowledge of the history? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Well, OMB’s role here, as I have talked about before 

is specifically on FCRA around—— 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Sir, not my question. Did you get a file? Was 

there some history of the process? 

Mr. ZIENTS. I was briefed by our staff on the history of the process. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. But nothing in writing? 

Mr. ZIENTS. I reviewed documents that the staff produced but 

there is not one comprehensive—— 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Sir—— 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. File that I had been exposed to. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN [continuing]. There is no Solyndra loan guarantee file at OMB is what you are saying? 

Mr. ZIENTS. My assumption would be, although I don’t—I have 

not seen it—that the career staff, yes, maintains a file on Solyndra. 

That is not something—— 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. But you have not seen that? 

Mr. ZIENTS. No. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK. All right. Now, there are 2 emails here 

and let us talk about these for a minute. The first one, August 19, 

an email between the DOE staff—dated the 19th—stated that ‘‘We 

still have a major outstanding issue, the issue of working capital 

assumptions.’’ Mr. Silver, I assume you know a little bit about 

that—‘‘has been a major issue repeatedly raised since December 

’08. You want to pay attention to those dates. Now, let us look at 

the next day there is an email. Now, Mr. Markey was concerned 

that no one seemed to be Carnac and have a silver ball. Well, it 

looks like we might have somebody that was doing a little bit of 

looking ahead. So let us talk about this. That email says, ‘‘The 

issue of working capital remains unresolved. The issue is cash balances not cost. Solyndra seems to agree that the model runs out 

of cash in September 2011 even in the base case without any 

stress. This is a liquidity issue.’’ Mr. Silver, what do you say to 

that? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, that would not be surprising in a modeling scenario. That is, in fact, exactly what you use modeling to do, to identify where there are holes in the project. It also does—— 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Have you ever seen this email? 

Mr. SILVER. I have not seen this specific—— 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. This is the first time you have seen this email. 

Were you aware that the liquidity issue had arisen? 

Mr. SILVER. I was aware that the liquidity—— 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Was that in the file? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t honestly remember if that was in the file or 

not. Again, I arrived in November—— 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Just remember you are under oath. 

Mr. SILVER. I am deeply aware of that, Congresswoman. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK. Let us go on to the rest of this. 

Mr. SILVER. Just to be clear, though, I arrived in November of 

2009 and since the loan was already issued at that point, we essenVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:35 Jun 10, 2013 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\PROGRA~1\WS_FTP\74404.TXT WAYNE
70 

tially move into the role that a bank managing a mortgage would. 

We manage the loan. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Yes, sir. And I appreciate that. That is why I 

asked if you were passed a file. My assumption would be—and you 

know, Mr. Chairman, my goodness, I would think if we have got 

loan guarantee programs going in different agencies and there is 

not a comprehensive file that will give the history of that that 

would show the due diligence that would document this, that would 

show the orderly process that was followed, or as Mr. Waxman was 

so concerned about the vetting process, my goodness, we should be 

reviewing every one of these loan programs. Is OMB not looking at 

this on a comprehensive basis to make certain that individuals are 

meeting their timelines, that someone is following this. Are they 

just sending this money out in droves and nobody is doing the follow-up? So we will want to do that. Let us look at the rest of this 

email. And I am quoting—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Chairman, with all due respect, I believe she is 

badgering the witness and I would—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Let the gentlelady finish her testimony. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. ‘‘How we can advance a project that 

hasn’t’’—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Time has expired. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN [continuing]. ‘‘Funded working capital require- ments if it generates a working capital shortfall of $50 million 

when working capital assumptions are entered into this model?’’ 

Now, that was the question that was asked. And to all of my colleagues, I just think that, you know, when you look at this and you 

see that someone at DOE was asking those questions and was looking at that modeling, it should cause us to seek to do a little bit 

more review and oversight. And I yield back. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentlelady’s time has expired. Ms. Schakowsky 

is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You 

know, I agree that we should closely examine what went wrong 

and how the loan guarantee process can be improved if it needs improvement. But I am very concerned here that this is an attack on 

a program that, let us face it, when you invest in various innovative and novel technologies that we need to do, it is not true, Mr. 

Silver, that there is some inherent risk associated with each of 

these deals, not with just Solyndra? 

Mr. SILVER. There is risk and almost by definition in the identification of the innovation itself, in building out that innovation at 

scale, there is an old adage that every bank wants to be the first 

bank to do your second loan. The program is intended to be the 

first bank to do the first loan. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. You know, my colleagues certainly obviously 

want to make this a political issue, but they also talk about not 

wanting to pick winners and losers. And for heaven’s sake, as my 

colleague said, we are investing right now billions of dollars in oil 

and gas companies. We are investing, as my colleague Mr. Markey 

said, in a questionable technology, risky technology called nuclear. 

But I want to know that in selecting projects for loan guarantees, 

what efforts have you taken to ensure that you have appropriately 

diversified our portfolio? 

71 

Mr. SILVER. Well, thank you for that question. I want to be quite 

clear on this. The Loan Guarantee Program does not perceive itself 

to be in the business of picking winners or losers at all. In fact, the 

marketplace is the place to do that. And as someone who has come 

directly from that, I certainly support and attest to that. We don’t 

actually look at projects that have not already garnered or will, as 

part of the process, attract substantial private capital. In fact, private capital is one of the bedrock requirements for the issuance of 

a loan guarantee. 

The question isn’t really so much are we picking winners and losers because we not only, as you point out, invest across a diversified portfolio—we invest in wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels and 

the like—we also invest in directly competing technologies within 

those sectors because it is the program objective, the program mandate to introduce a wide range of innovative technologies so that 

the marketplace, seeing these projects, can then replicate them on 

their own. And when the markets are in those areas, we exit. 

But the real issue is how are we going to pick—if we are not 

going to substantially—if we are not going to be significant participants in this, then how are we going to build these American companies at all? Because China and the rest of the world are spending billions and billions of dollars to build out these industries. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Now, on September 2, 2011, a Forbes article 

noted that this program should be judged based on its entire portfolio as opposed to one individual loan. I wonder if you could talk 

about that, just put this particular loan in context, either one of 

you. 

Mr. SILVER. Absolutely. I am happy to do so. We have invested, 

as I said, in a wide range of technologies. I do want to point out 

that the vast majority of our investments have been in generation 

projects rather than in manufacturing projects. And the reason 

that is important is because generation projects have what are 

called off-take agreements through PPAs, power purchase agreements typically with utilities, which means that the power that is 

being created, the clean energy power that is being created is already contracted for. And it has—the generation projects which 

make up the vast majority of our portfolio have a vastly different 

risk profile than manufacturing projects do. We have actually only 

done 4 manufacturing projects in the 40-odd projects we have done 

across the program. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. What would be the consequences do you think 

if this investigation ended up in a conclusion that making investments in companies that do alternative energy, solar in particular, 

what would the consequences for our country be if we were to divest of those kinds of loans? 

Mr. SILVER. I think the consequences would be profound and 

they would be profoundly negative. We are competing with countries around the world who see this as one of the largest industrial 

sectors and industrial opportunities of the next generation, and if 

we cede the field, if we walk off of the field, there is no way that 

we can succeed because this—these industries are different in kind 

than perhaps the software industry. You need platform companies 

here in order to be able to succeed. 

72 

As I pointed out earlier in my testimony, five of the largest solar 

panel companies are in China. Seven are in Asia. The eighth is in 

Europe, and there are only two here. You need to build out at 

scale. You need to deploy commercially because that is how you 

build out the supply chains in these countries. You have to create 

what economists call demand pull. And if you don’t do that, you 

can’t keep those supply chains alive and they can’t, in turn, reduce 

their costs. So consequently, we have underinvested in the supply 

chains in this country in clean energy for decades and we are only 

now beginning to catch up. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you. Thank you for your work. 

Mr. SILVER. Thank you. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The gentleman 

from Georgia, Mr. Gingrey, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

I first off wanted to make a statement in regard to a couple of 

my colleagues on the other side of the aisle comparing Solyndra— 

this bankrupt company totally unproven technology—to the Southern Company. I take a little exception to that comparison. Southern Company owns Mississippi Power, Alabama Power, Georgia 

Power, among others, and employs literally thousands of people. It 

is closely regulated by the Georgia Public Service Commission, has 

3 nuclear power facilities, 2 in Georgia, 1 in Alabama with 5 reactors that have been in production for years. So this loan guarantee 

to start up 2 additional reactors at Plant Vogtle by the Southern 

Company, comparing that loan guarantee to this loan guarantee for 

a company like Solyndra is a little disingenuous. 

But let me go ahead and start the questioning with you, Mr. Silver. When you met with committee staff in March of this year, you 

represented that the restructuring agreement your agency reached 

with Solyndra in 2011, I believe February, had positioned the DOT 

and the United States taxpayer for maximum recovery. But the 

company is now bankrupt and it turns out the government is now 

in a second position to Solyndra’s investors in the deal, those that 

put up an additional 75 million in that restructuring. Why did the 

DOT allow Solyndra’s investors to be first in line to recover rather 

than the taxpayer? Under the Energy Policy Act, isn’t your number 

one duty to protect the taxpayer funds? 

Mr. SILVER. It is absolutely one of our essential concerns to focus 

as much as we can on the security of the taxpayer monies, and that 

is why we reached the decision we did. A restructuring is always 

by definition a decision among a set of tough choices because it 

means by definition a company is struggling. The fundamental 

question that we were trying to answer—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Yes, but let me interrupt you. If you have the legal 

authority to make those tough choices, the Energy Policy Act of 

2005 expressly states ‘‘the obligation on loan guarantee shall be 

subject to the condition that it is not subordinate to other financing.’’ This language makes Congress’ intent seem pretty clear to 

me, to protect the taxpayers’ money. Isn’t this exactly what the 

Solyndra restructuring did, make the taxpayers’ interest subject to 

other financing? Doesn’t the Solyndra restructuring violate the 

law? 

73 

Mr. SILVER. Congressman, I am not a lawyer but I will tell you 

that the decision was reviewed by the Loan Guarantee counsel, by 

DOE counsel, and by OMB counsel, and the conclusion of that 

analysis was that projects needed to have—be in the senior-secured 

position at issuance, as indeed this loan was, as indeed every of our 

loans is. But I will tell you—while not a lawyer, I will tell you as 

a businessman that if you do not permit restructuring of transactions and the tools required to do that, lenders will be—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Let me interrupt. I understand that. I understand 

that in the private sector, and of course, you came from the private 

sector. I think you mentioned earlier involved in hedge fund activity and that sort of thing and a lot of wheeling and dealing and 

that is permitted. But in this particular instance—now, you said 

you received a legal memorandum on DOE’s interpretation of the 

Energy Policy Act, correct? 

Mr. SILVER. As I said, counsel at—from the loan program at the 

general counsel of the DOE and at OMB all reviewed this matter. 

Mr. GINGREY. Who reviewed the memorandum? 

Mr. SILVER. Which lawyers? 

Mr. GINGREY. Yes. 

Mr. SILVER. I am not sure which. 

Mr. GINGREY. But it was approved by the general counsel. You 

just don’t know which lawyers? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know which staff lawyers did the work, no, 

sir. 

Mr. GINGREY. OK. But it was approved by the general counsel? 

Mr. SILVER. It was certainly reviewed. 

Mr. GINGREY. I want to discuss one part of the legal opinion. Will 

the committee clerk please put the language from the statute on 

the screen? I believe that is slide number 1. Yes. Just look at what 

it says and let me read it to you because I am kind of in the corner 

here and I can’t read the monitor. But number 3, subordination, 

‘‘The obligation shall be subject to the condition that the obligation’’—the loan—‘‘is not subordinate to other financing.’’ That is 

part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The DOE legal opinion seems 

to be based on the use of the word ‘‘is’’ in the statute. The legal 

opinion states, ‘‘The reading of the provision is reinforced by the 

use of the word ’is,’ which we viewed as confirming the intent that 

the condition be satisfied at a single point in time,’’ meaning you 

can’t subordinate when the guarantee is issued but you can at restructuring. Is DOE basing its opinion that taxpayers can be second in line to investors based on what the meaning of ’is’ is? 

Wasn’t DOE’s tortured interpretation exactly the opposite of that 

plain language in the statute? 

Mr. SILVER. I am not a lawyer, sir. I relied on counsel’s judgment 

on that. 

Mr. GINGREY. You didn’t have a very good lawyer and I think 

you got bad advice. I yield back. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes, Mr. Green. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I have some questions but I am shocked that my Republican colleagues be concerned 

about somebody coming from a private sector to the government 

payroll. I thought that is what we needed more folks from the priVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:35 Jun 10, 2013 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\PROGRA~1\WS_FTP\74404.TXT WAYNE
74 

vate sector. So, you know, I don’t like wheelie-dealie either but it 

sounds terrible when you hear it. 

But Mr. Silver and Mr. Zients, I want to ask some questions 

about that legal basis on restructuring the loan, and if you could 

put that section back up that my colleague from Georgia had because that is the series of questions I am going to ask about. 

The committee’s investigation revealed that there appears to 

have been 2 major legal questions under discussion as the Solyndra 

restructuring was going forward—the first to the extent which the 

DOE had authority to subordinate the U.S. creditor position to private investors, and second was whether the restructure should be 

considered a modification of the loan. The first question, Mr. Silver, 

what does it mean to subordinate an interest? 

Mr. SILVER. It means that new capital coming in would be in a 

prime position on exit depending on the structure of the exit. I 

might point out here, Congressman, that typically in a restructuring in which new capital comes in—and you have to ask yourself 

the very obvious question—why would any capital—new capital 

come into a troubled situation if they did not come in in a prime 

position? But here—and typically in the private sector and in loans 

in other federal agencies, the prime trumps other subordinated capital all the way through. In the transaction we structured, we actually were able to ensure that it was only in the event of liquidation 

that that would be a senior position. In the event that the company 

as a sold as a turnkey operation, which is still possible, it will not 

be in a senior position. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. There is language in Section 1702 that my colleague pointed out in the Energy Policy Act that the senior position 

is designed to prevent the subordination of government’s interest 

in these loans. It reads, ‘‘the obligation shall be subject to the condition that the obligation is not subordinate to other financing,’’ but 

your legal staff determined that there was a legitimate legal basis 

to subordinate the government’s interest in Solyndra in this case. 

Can you describe for us your staff’s legal rationale? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, as best I can not being a lawyer, and that is 

that the judgment was made that the law required that the loans 

at issuance be in a senior secured position as I said, indeed, as 

Solyndra was and in fact I want to assure the committee as all the 

transactions that we have closed to date are. But that in the event 

that a project struggled and there is no surprise as to the fact that 

projects struggle from time to time, we had the authority to figure 

out other solutions. I should remind the committee that absent the 

ability to do this, this company would have closed then with the 

1,100 jobs lost then and the likelihood of any real recovery to the 

taxpayer being relatively de minimis because at the time the loan 

was restructured, although the physical building has been built, 

the plant had not been fitting out. It is also an adage of project finance and particularly restructuring work in project finance that 

the value of a completed project is infinitely greater than an incomplete project. 

Mr. GREEN. The documents provided to the committee by the 

OMB suggest that your staff may have had some concerns about 

this approach. However, ultimately, you did not step in and stop 

DOE from subordinating the interest. Why not? 

75 

Mr. ZIENTS. OMB’s role here is in oversight of the program and 

OMB’s career staff and lawyers—and again I am not a lawyer—determined that—— 

Mr. GREEN. You know, I keep hearing that but I don’t know 

if—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. General counsel—— 

Mr. GREEN [continuing]. A law license shows anything on common sense. 

Mr. ZIENTS. General counsel’s determination was that this was— 

was that the DOE approach was reasonable. 

Mr. SILVER. Congressman, if I could just add one thing to that. 

You have asked—people have asked about the subordination. I 

want to make it clear that the billion dollars of equity—of private 

equity that went into this company originally is wiped out in that 

scenario. We are not talking about all of that private capital coming forward, just the newest piece of money that came in in order 

to provide the company with a fighting chance to restructure its operations. 

Mr. GREEN. The second legal issue raised by the restructuring 

was whether it was a modification of the loan agreement. My understanding is that the Federal Credit Reporting Act generally prohibits loan modifications that increase taxpayer cost but the definition of modification does not include a restructuring to work out a 

troubled loan or a loan that is in imminent default. Is my understanding correct? 

Mr. ZIENTS. This situation was ultimately deemed a workout for 

2 reasons: first, that the company was in imminent default, which 

it clearly—DOE had determined it was; and secondly, that it was 

in the best interest of taxpayers to restructure the loan as opposed 

to liquidation. So when those 2 conditions are met, a loan is considered a workout in that scenario. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. So it was a workout and not a modification? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Yes. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. Mr. Silver, what was the DOE’s rationale for determining that restructuring did not constitute a modification? 

Mr. SILVER. Exactly as Mr. Zients has indicated. 

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Zients, your staff has also expressed concern 

over whether the restructuring constituted modification. What 

analysis did your staff go through making the determination that 

the change is not a legal modification of the loan? 

Mr. ZIENTS. At the beginning of the process when we first heard 

about the financial troubles, the staff’s orientation is going to be 

that there could be a modification. As the staff worked with DOE 

to understand the dire financial situation and the fact that the 

company was in imminent default and that DOE’s analysis was 

reasonable, that the taxpayers were better served through a restructuring rather than a liquidation, OMB career staff determined 

that it was indeed a workout. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Murphy, is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

76 

Mr. Silver, I just want to get a couple things on this in terms 

of your expertise. When you were managing director of Core Capital Partners, had you ever managed something—a loan of this size 

before? 

Mr. SILVER. Core Capital Partners was a venture fund, sir, so we 

didn’t provide that. We provided equity. 

Mr. MURPHY. You provided equity. Have you ever provided equity of this size? 

Mr. SILVER. Not individually in a loan at Core Capital but in 

other configurations, yes. 

Mr. MURPHY. At Tiger Management had you ever—— 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MURPHY. So you are used to that. You are used to reviewing 

these things. And I go back to this on Slide 5 if somebody could 

up Slide 5. In this when they had in August of 2009, someone 

wrote this. I can’t quite read that up there—but wrote this in 

terms of saying that some issues with regard to the concerns about 

the health of the company there, major outstanding issues at the 

point in 2008, but it says an email the following day states, ‘‘the 

issue of working capital remains unresolved. The issue is cash balances, not cost. Solyndra seems to agree that the model runs out 

of cash September 2011 even in the base case without any stress. 

There is a liquidity issue.’’ When did you become aware of that 

email? 

Mr. SILVER. I have not seen this specific email. That email was 

written in August of 2009. I arrived in November of 2009. There 

would have been no reason for me to know of its existence while 

we worked on the company but—— 

Mr. MURPHY. So you would not have known of anybody’s concern 

that there wasn’t enough capital to keep the company going? 

Mr. SILVER. Certainly. The career staff monitoring this was deeply aware of the issues and—— 

Mr. MURPHY. And your job is to have oversight over this staff? 

Mr. SILVER. My job is to have oversight over the staff. 

Mr. MURPHY. So you are saying you had oversight but you were 

not aware of a memo saying this company didn’t have the money 

to keep going? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, I am not aware of this particular email, but 

certainly I was aware of the company’s status and situation. 

Mr. MURPHY. At that time? And yet things were still going 

through? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, the loan had already gone through, sir. We—— 

Mr. MURPHY. But what I am concerned about here is as we are 

looking at this—and next we can move forward to the restructuring. Now, the restructuring—— 

Mr. SILVER. Maybe I should clarify exactly what the loan was for. 

We provided a loan guarantee to support the construction of a 

physical plant called Fab 2. 

Mr. MURPHY. And when was that approved? 

Mr. SILVER. That is what the loan was for. It was approved in 

September and that plant actually was delivered on time and on 

budget. The way the loan worked—— 

77 

Mr. MURPHY. On time on budget for a company that staff are 

saying couldn’t function regardless of what they had in terms of a 

building. 

Mr. SILVER. No, that doesn’t actually say, sir, that the company 

can’t function. That says that there will be a liquidity issue in 

2011, several years in—— 

Mr. MURPHY. Meaning they run out of money. 

Mr. SILVER. No, meaning that they will have to address that 

issue. 

Mr. MURPHY. And if they don’t, they run out of money. 

Mr. SILVER. Conceivably, yes. 

Mr. MURPHY. I am just trying to establish your job is you have 

handled loans like this. Would you offer a loan to a company that 

says they are not going to have the money to pay it back unless 

they make some changes? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, again, I wasn’t there when this loan was 

issued, sir, but what I can tell you is—— 

Mr. MURPHY. But in the time you have been there, you became 

aware of this. Did you begin to address these issues with Solyndra 

to say show me the money? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, staff talked with the company on a regular—— 

Mr. MURPHY. Sir, I really want you to stop throwing everybody 

else under the bus. I hear you throwing all your staff under the 

bus. I want to know. You are in charge, you have handled loans 

of this size, and now you are saying it is everybody else’s fault but 

you except you are in charge. You tell me what you as a person 

in charge did with half a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money now 

saying it is all my staff’s fault, I didn’t know, I can’t do anything 

about it. You tell me what you are going to tell the taxpayers when 

we are in the hole for so much money in this country and you are 

dealing with this in a very casual cavalier way. Whose fault is it? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, sir, first let me say that the 200-odd professionals working in the Loan Guarantee Program are exceptional 

professionals—— 

Mr. SILVER. And you throw them all under the bus it is a pretty 

bumpy ride, but you are the driver, Mr. Silver. You are the driver. 

And now you are saying this is restructured. And going back to the 

slide that says, ‘‘the obligation shall be subject to the condition that 

the obligation is not subordinate to other financing and now it gets 

restructured so the taxpayers don’t get their money back. 

Mr. SILVER. The restructuring—any restructuring, Congressman, 

is based on a binary decision as to what is the better outcome for 

recovery, a liquidation, a sale of assets at a moment in time or a 

restructuring. 

Mr. MURPHY. Who was it that made the decision that this act 

passed into law by the Federal Government was going to not be adhered to? Who made that decision? 

Mr. SILVER. As I said it was reviewed by legal counsel for the 

loan program—— 

Mr. MURPHY. So you have no responsibility in this either. So we 

are throwing him under the bus, too? 

Mr. SILVER. I am not a lawyer, sir. I rely on counsel. 

78 

Mr. MURPHY. Are we throwing her under the bus, too? Did the 

Secretary of Energy have anything to do with this decision or is he 

under the bus, too? 

Mr. SILVER. Not to my knowledge. 

Mr. MURPHY. So no one is responsible. This is an incredible organization you work for. No one in the Federal Government is responsible for half a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money. This is phenomenal. What do you do for a living? If you don’t know what is 

happening and everybody else is to blame, what do we go back and 

tell our constituents who have to work hard with so many people 

in this country in poverty, so many people in problems, we are saying this federal agency is saying we don’t take any responsibility. 

It is everybody else’s fault. 

Mr. SILVER. We work to the fullest of our capabilities, Congressman, to ensure that these projects are as de-risked as possible—— 

Mr. MURPHY. I understand but now the taxpayers are on the 

hook for this. 

Mr. SILVER. As was pointed out earlier, there are always challenges in investing in innovation. And I should point out that Congress through the appropriation of $2.4 billion of credit—— 

Mr. MURPHY. When did this company actually get their check? 

Mr. SILVER. It doesn’t work like that, Congressman. They draw 

against a loan—— 

Mr. MURPHY. Exactly. And at any point you could have stopped 

it when you found out the information that they couldn’t exist. And 

that was under your watch, Mr. Silver. 

Mr. SILVER. Our transaction—our loan was for the construction 

of a physical plant. 

Mr. MURPHY. And at some point when you realized they couldn’t 

function anymore in that physical plant, that is when you step in 

and take leadership and stop throwing your staff under the bus. I 

yield back. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman yields back, but the question Mr. 

Murphy is really asking, should someone be fired, Mr. Silver? 

Should anybody be fired? Yes or no? 

Mr. SILVER. The people in the Loan Guarantee Program at the 

Department of Energy, at OMB, our colleagues at OMB and alike 

have worked—— 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. So you are saying no one should be fired. 

Mr. SILVER. I am saying that we are doing the best job we know 

how to do—— 

Mr. STEARNS. All right. All right. I understand what you are saying. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Griffith, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If we could have Slide 

1 again. Yes, I am concerned about this ‘‘is’’ situation, but I would 

point out in paragraphs 1 and 2 it references that ‘‘no guarantee 

shall be made unless’’ which gives some flexibility, but in paragraph 3 of Section 1702 it says, ‘‘the obligation shall be subject to 

condition that the obligation is not subordinate to other financing. 

Have you read the memorandum of law on this? 

Mr. SILVER. I have not read the full memorandum, no, but I have 

been briefed by counsel—— 

79 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Would it shock you to know that if you read it and 

you pay attention to what is being said—and I have it right here. 

I would be happy to give you a copy with my notes on it if you 

want them. It looks like it is a law school project where you are 

told to come up with an answer. Here is the question, give me the 

right answer, defend it the best you can. That is what it looks like. 

Because under this analysis, what it says is is that if we close 

the loan in the morning and at lunch somebody has an epiphany 

and says you know what? I think that we should see if we can get 

some more money from somebody else and we are going to subordinate that money and we are not going to follow this paragraph. Because there is no line. And in fact somebody raised that issue the 

memorandum points out. Somebody raised the issue. Should there 

be a line between when the loan is granted and possible default? 

And they said no, that is not necessary because the law doesn’t say 

that. You can change it anytime you want to if the Secretary 

thinks it is appropriate. Does that make good common sense as Mr. 

Green pointed out to you? You don’t have to be a lawyer to know 

good common sense. Does it make common sense that the Congress 

of the United States responsible for setting our legislative policy 

would say that you are not to subordinate but under the interpretation of your lawyers, they could subordinate it after lunch for a 

loan closed in the morning? Does that make good common sense to 

you, sir? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, Congressman, what makes sense to me is to 

ensure that we have the tools available to us to do whatever is necessary in a troubled situation to secure the taxpayers’ interest. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Even if it is in violation of the law and what common sense would tell you, the common English always trumps legal 

mumbo-jumbo and the common English makes it clear you are not 

to subordinate. But in January when you were at the helm your 

people subordinated $75 million of this money, American taxpayer 

dollars to private investors. And part of the deal was they were 

going to invest more money in August. Isn’t that true? 

Mr. SILVER. That is true. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And they did not do so. Isn’t that also true? 

Mr. SILVER. That is true. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And when did your observer tell you that they 

weren’t going to invest anymore money so that you might have 

been able to anticipate the bankruptcy? When did your observer 

tell you that? 

Mr. SILVER. In late July. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And weren’t we trying to get information from you 

all at that time or was that the other fellow? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know what you are referring to, Congressman. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. The documents that we were requesting when we 

had a subpoena. I guess that was in—— 

Mr. SILVER. We sent you, as I said, 35,000 pages of material. 

Mr. GRIFFITH [continuing]. July. All right. Just so we know, you 

have got all these other loans out there, 4 to manufacturers, which 

would be in a similar situation to this one. Have you subordinated 

any of that money? 

80 

Mr. SILVER. No other transactions have had subordinations. I 

would go further and say that of the 2—there are only 2 deals that 

have actually closed and completed construction and both of those 

are repaying on a timely basis. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right. And if you didn’t look at the memorandum, attached to the memorandum there are all kinds of charts 

on how Solyndra is going to make money. Did you look at those financial charts? 

Mr. SILVER. Sure, I have seen the company’s financials. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right. You earlier testified that part of the reason Solyndra went under was the fact that the Chinese were able 

to make their product cheaper and the Europeans stopped buying. 

Now, while it may have gotten worse, wasn’t that also true in January when you restructured this loan? 

Mr. SILVER. It has been true for the last several years. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. OK. In that I would have to ask you, then, when 

you look at these numbers, how in the world if you know that and 

your analysts have told you that, how in the world could you anticipate that profits at Solyndra would double next year? Because that 

is in all the models that are attached to the legal memorandum. 

Mr. SILVER. I will leave it to the company’s management team 

to describe their financial projections, but what I will say to 

you—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You are concerned 

enough you put an observer on the board and you subordinated 

American taxpayer dollars but you are going to leave it to their 

management to determine how they can say that they are going to 

double it? Doesn’t that sound like that is not common sense again? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, with all due respect, revenues are not actually 

the driver of how a loan or loan guarantee would necessarily get 

paid. What we focus on are cash flows and those can be managed 

in a variety of different ways. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. But you would acknowledge that if their model 

was somewhat weak to begin with—and I recognize there is risk 

whenever you are doing something new—but if their model was 

weak to begin with and then market gets worse, doesn’t that mean 

that maybe we should have just not thrown good money after bad 

because now we are in a worse position in the bankruptcy courts 

to get our money back, are we not? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, at the time—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Are we in worse position than we would have been 

if we had just let them go into bankruptcy, Chapter 11, last January? We are or are we not? 

Mr. SILVER. That will depend—not necessarily. That will depend 

on the outcome of the bankruptcy. As I tried to indicate before, 

when you are looking at this issue and admitting that there are no 

good choices, one of the issues is liquidation and you have to determine a liquidation—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Is it the administration’s policy that bankruptcy is 

a good thing? 

Mr. SILVER. I can’t speak for the administration but common 

sense would suggest that it is not. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I would agree with you. I yield back. 

81 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman yields back, time has expired. The 

gentleman from California, Mr. Bilbray, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, before I go on, I would like to just address the ranking member of this committee because I hope she recognizes and we all recognize this is not a Democrat or Republican issue when we are 

talking about this ‘‘is.’’ This is specifically a threat to the legislative 

process when you can have an attorney play this word game and 

does that mean that Democrat or Republican, when they specifically direct in legislation that we now have to say not only it will 

not happen but we must say it will not and shall never be allowed 

to happen? Do we have to play this word game? Because I don’t 

think it is a Democrat or Republican issue. I think this is an issue 

about the law is the law and I don’t care how convoluted an attorney wants to do it. This doesn’t pass the smell test in any way in 

the world. So I just think this is really an affront on both sides of 

the aisle by this manipulation. And just admit it that it was. We 

tried to get the job done and we crossed over a line to a commonsense person and anybody rational would say you crossed the line 

of what the law specifically said. 

Now, that aside, there are a lot people talking about solar power 

here, some of us who worked at citing solar factories here. Mr. Silver, are you comfortable, first of all, with the thin film technology 

that was chosen by this company? Did you have any concerns about 

them using thin film technology? 

Mr. SILVER. Congressman, I am, first of all, not a solar technical 

analyst but I am highly comfortable with the fact that the solar experts at the Department of Energy, of whom there are many, and 

the independent engineers which were well known and well respected firms were qualified—— 

Mr. BILBRAY. Were you informed that there has been more false 

starts and more failure in thin film than any other form of photovoltaic production? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know that to be true or not but—— 

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. And were you aware that when we talk about 

China that China has concentrated almost ostensibly in 

polycrystalline technology and avoid thin film? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, China has focused on the market segment you 

are describing in part because it is a very cost-effective way to 

mass produce those panels. The Solyndra technology was designed 

in its time and place to circumvent or to overcome 2 fundamental 

challenges—the very high price of polysilicon and the installation 

costs which they refer to as—— 

Mr. BILBRAY. And they also have in fact the historical problem 

of a lack of durability and the loss of proficiency of thin film as opposed to mono- and poly-technologies. But my question to you, you 

are a business man. You are looking at a company. Did you review 

their proposal for the construction of their factory, the technology, 

the siting of it, the planned development of it, and its related costs 

and oversight? 

Mr. SILVER. I am sorry. What is the—— 

82 

Mr. BILBRAY. Did you look at where they were talking about 

building this factory, how they were building it, and the related 

issues of the cost of just building the factory? 

Mr. SILVER. No, sir, because the loan was issued before I arrived 

at the Department. 

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. When you went and renegotiated it, did you 

take a look at what was being proposed? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, at that point, the plant was largely built, although it was not, as I say, fitted out. 

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. Did anybody down the line raise the issue that 

the proposal was to build the facility in the State of California in 

the Bay area in a nonattainment area, can you think of as a business man anywhere in America where you probably have more regulatory obstructionism to the construction of a manufacturing operation than you would have in a nonattainment area in the State 

of California? 

Mr. SILVER. I am not qualified to answer that question, but what 

I can say is that the investors that backed this company and the 

management team that originally led it must have concluded that 

this was the right place to do it. 

Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Silver, are you aware of anybody in your department that have notified grant applicants that if they want to 

go get the grant that their production should be moved out of the 

State of California to a State that has less regulatory obstructionism? 

Mr. SILVER. We don’t issue grants in the loan program, sir, but 

I am not aware of that, no. 

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. Well, maybe we ought to talk about the fact— 

let me just point out, this grant application was asking to take 30 

acres of agricultural land in the State of California in a nonattainment area. It was going to be required to be able to go not just 

through the DOD and the U.S. but having to get the Environmental Quality Act under Sequel for California, has to get a permit 

from the city, air quality from the Bay area, air quality which is 

nonattainment area with some of the strictest air pollution regs in 

the entire world. It was going to require a general permit for discharge and storm water, which means that not only did you have 

the California environmental agencies involved, not only did you 

have the State Water Quality Control Board involved, you had the 

local regional water Quality Control Board that you have to get a 

permit from. 

The fact is is that the California Department of Occupational 

Safety, which has some of the most restrictive regulations in the 

world you had to get a permit from, you had the hazardous waste 

generation, which California again under HAZMAT has some of the 

most restricted funds. Then you get into wastewater discharge, and 

these are just some of the permits down the line. 

Nobody in your department or when they reviewed this raised 

the issue that this is not only a terrible place to try to site a facility 

but you are proposing—didn’t anybody raise the issue of why build 

a whole new facility rather than moving into an existing abandoned facility in a State that has 12 percent unemployment and 

huge empty resources? Anybody even talk about the question of 

83 

why would you build a new facility when there are warehouses 

available? 

Mr. Chairman? Would he answer the question? 

Mr. STEARNS. Time has expired but you are welcome, Mr. Silver, 

to answer the question yes or no. 

Mr. SILVER. Sure, I will to the best of my knowledge. At the risk 

of repeating myself since I wasn’t there, I don’t know what the nature of the discussions were, but I can tell you that applicants for 

loan guarantees are required to have all of their siting permits and 

other kinds of permits in place by the time the project is undertaken. 

Mr. BILBRAY. And all of it was stated down that it will attain it 

before construction when they get in the line? And all I got to say 

is somebody who is siting—we are siting existing warehouses. It is 

absurd with the kind of vacancy we have in the State of California 

for anybody to even talk about or come to you or any government 

agency and say we want to build a whole new area on ag land. I 

yield back. 

Mr. STEARNS. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Scalise, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for 

calling this hearing. You know, we have been pressing on this issue 

and asking a lot of questions about this Solyndra loan program for 

months now on this subcommittee, but I think it is really important that we have this hearing now because while Solyndra was 

touted as really one of the poster children by President Obama of 

his first stimulus bill, and clearly there is a lot of evidence that 

shows that this was something that the White House really wanted 

to move through quickly and the emails indicate that. 

But while this was one of the poster children of the first stimulus 

bill, the President right now is touting what I call son of stimulus, 

another bill to come through, spend more taxpayer money, to do 

more things like this. And in fact if you look at some of the issues 

that we have raised about this loan program, some of these projects 

that were funded by stimulus, just Solyndra alone was touted to 

create 3,000 jobs. The President touted that. It is going to be a 

great success story. And of course, we have seen the failure there. 

And a lot of us are questioning this kind of double down son of 

stimulus approach where they are going to come back and do more 

of this kind of same failed policy of just spending money we don’t 

have. 

And, you know, of course the President said in front of our chamber last week, pass the bill now. We hadn’t even seen the bill. The 

President didn’t even give us the text of the bill and he said pass 

the bill now, called on the American people ask us to pass the bill 

now. I hope you understand now why a lot of us are real skeptical 

when the President says pass a bill now because he did that with 

the stimulus bill and we see the failure there. He did that with the 

healthcare bill. We are still unearthing problems there. So when 

the President says pass a bill, you can wonder why some of us say 

let me read the bill first and let us look at the details. 

But now when we get specifically to this issue of what happened 

with Solyndra, Mr. Silver, I know you have testified that you 

weren’t in your position until November of 2009. When you came 

84 

in, you have acknowledged there was a file on Solyndra. Did you 

read that file? 

Mr. SILVER. I read through all of the materials for the entire program when I arrived. 

Mr. SCALISE. Did you see the concerns that were being raised by 

your own agency back then prior to your coming that under what 

they were looking at, Solyndra could go bankrupt by September of 

2011? 

Mr. SILVER. I certainly saw all of the materials that were, you 

know, related to that discussion. I need to reemphasize, Congressman, that the loan guarantee was specifically for the construction 

of a physical factory, which was done. And the way that works—— 

Mr. SCALISE. And look, it is your job ultimately to go through 

that loan guarantee and see if there are things that meet the taxpayer interests—— 

Mr. SILVER. That is correct. 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. But also I think you need to also be 

aware of the way that the program is being implemented. After you 

came in, the Government Accountability Office did a report that 

was, I think, pretty scathing about your loan program. They actually made some recommendations. They pointed out some problems. They pointed out, again, after you came in, GAO put this report out. They pointed out that the loan program treated applicants 

inconsistently favoring some and disadvantaging others. And they 

gave examples. Did you read this GAO report? 

Mr. SILVER. I did, Congressman, and if you will give me a minute 

to respond to—— 

Mr. SCALISE. I can’t give you that long. I don’t have that much 

time. 

Mr. SILVER [continuing]. The GAO question. First, let me note 

that while the report did come out after I arrived, it covers the 

2008 and 2009 time period, and so I was there for approximately 

1 month—— 

Mr. SCALISE. So did you make any changes based on the problems that they now know? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, we have actually made substantial changes as 

we have grown the organization. 

Mr. SCALISE. All right. But let me ask you this. You were here 

after you all did the restructuring of Solyndra’s loan. Who made 

the decision to put the taxpayers in the back of the line and subordinate in violation of federal law? Who made that decision? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, first, Congressman, as I have said before, I 

don’t know that it was in violation of any law. There were multiple—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Someone made the decision. Did you make the decision to subordinate—— 

Mr. SILVER. There were a variety of legal—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Did you? Did you make it? 

Mr. SILVER. The loan program—— 

Mr. SCALISE. This is a yes or no question. Did you make the decision to subordinate the taxpayers and put them in the back of the 

line when the decision was made to restructure because you were 

there? 

85 

Mr. SILVER. The question is not—does not have a yes or no answer, Congressman. 

Mr. SCALISE. So you don’t know? You either made the decision 

or you didn’t. I think—— 

Mr. SILVER. The process—— 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. That is a straightforward question. 

And look, we have been asking for months now, in fact, we on this 

subcommittee asked your agency for some of these documents prior 

to the modification of the loan, prior to the restructuring, and you 

all stonewalled us as you are stonewalling right now refusing to 

answer a direct question. And $535 million of taxpayer money is 

at stake. Maybe if you would have given us that information back 

months ago when we asked for it before you restructured, the taxpayers wouldn’t be in the back of the line today. So you can understand, I would hope, why we are saying who made the decision to 

put the taxpayers in the back of the line? Can you get me that information if you can’t answer it directly now? 

Mr. SILVER. I am happy to meet with you to describe the—— 

Mr. SCALISE. No, I want in writing—I am going to ask on behalf 

of the committee, Mr. Chairman, if you can get us in writing the 

names of the people in the decision-making process—and it might 

be multiple people—who made the decision to put the taxpayers in 

the back of the line meaning subordinate the taxpayers in what 

many of us think are in violation of the law. I don’t know what 

your counsel thinks and your counsel may be part of this list, but 

I want to know if you are part of the list. I want to know if the 

Secretary is part of the list. I want to know if anyone in the White 

House is part of that decision-making chain that said we are going 

to subordinate the taxpayers of the United States in restructuring 

this Solyndra loan. I think we deserve that answer and I am asking you to get that information, however many people it is. But 

somebody made that decision or multiple people, but you can’t say 

nobody made it because the decision was made. Would you at least 

agree with that and then get that information to this committee? 

Mr. SILVER. We will work with you to provide you what you 

need. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you. And I yield back. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The gentleman 

from Colorado, Mr. Gardner, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GARDNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 

witnesses as well for your time today. And I would yield the 30 seconds to my colleague, Mr. Bilbray, from California. 

Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Silver, my biggest concern I just want to say 

in closing as somebody who supports solar energy, I think we got 

to keep the science not the blind faith, and it appears to me that 

this entire process was driven more by an assumption that anything solar was good and you could force it through and it was all 

going to work out. And the lack of critical review for this production I think is the greatest threat for future solar. It is this kind 

of blind faith that we have got to avoid. This should be driven by 

science and good investment, not by an assumption that whatever 

is renewable obviously is going to be great. And I think this failure 

was driven more by that. I don’t think it was a criminal intent. But 

that criminal intent you can bust one guy. The trouble is with this 

86 

kind of prejudice for a technology blindly, there is more threat to 

that happening in the future and not just financially but the energy independence of this country and the competitiveness of this 

country. And that is what I am critical on. 

Mr. SILVER. Congressman, I wholeheartedly agree with you that 

we ought to back the science, which is why a large group of sophisticated private investors who have done their own—had done their 

own due diligence, why the loan program staff from the 2007 to 

2009 time frame using independent engineers, other outside advisors, and the solar experts at Department of Energy came to that 

conclusion. 

Mr. BILBRAY. Well, the record shows that there was political 

interjection, there was PR issues. The preconceived idea that if it 

was solar, it had to be a great package, and frankly there is good 

stuff, there is bad stuff, and the greatest threat to the good stuff 

is allowing garbage to get through the system and being treated as 

if its sacred rather than being critical about it. And it wasn’t critical enough and history has proven that it wasn’t a critical review 

of this. We got to make sure that doesn’t happen again. I yield back 

to the gentleman. 

Mr. GARDNER. Thank you. And reclaiming my time. 

Mr. Silver, I want to go back to this issue of the emails and the 

dismissal by the Credit Committee of this project. January 9—it is 

a Friday—2009, an email was sent from the Credit Committee remanding the Solyndra application calling it premature and citing 

a number of unresolved issues. In your testimony, you have said 

that this was over nothing big, no big details—— 

Mr. SILVER. No, I didn’t. I never said that, Congressman. What 

I said was the Credit Committee remanded it back for additional 

work and due diligence was done on that work. And then it was 

brought forward in the time frame that—I should—if I may—— 

Mr. GARDNER. Well, let me just talk—— 

Mr. SILVER [continuing]. I would like to just point out one 

other—— 

Mr. GARDNER [continuing]. About this due diligence—— 

Mr. SILVER. I would like to just point out one other thing which 

is that—— 

Mr. GARDNER. Reclaiming my time. This is my time. I am sorry 

because I want to talk about these matters of due diligence on January 9, what you said, due diligence took place over. Let me read 

these to you. It is Slide #2 if you could put that on there. ‘‘There 

is presently not an independent market study addressing long-term 

prospects for this specific company beyond the sales agreement already placed. Since the independent credit assessment raised the 

issue of obsolescence in marketing this project, it is important to 

have an independent analysis of that issue as well as the current 

state of the competitive market.’’ Point 2, ‘‘while the sales agreement is said to have been analyzed by the outside legal advisor assigned to this case, the committee did not have access to this document.’’ Point 3, ‘‘there are questions regarding the nature and 

strength of the parent guarantee for the completion of the project.’’ 

Point 4, ‘‘while it is encouraging to see the apparent progress in the 

development of the product at the Fab 1 facility, there is concern 

regarding the scale-up of production assumed in the plant for Fab 

87 

2.’’ That was in an email on January 9. That is the areas of due 

diligence that you are saying that you did and you did it by January 26, a Monday, 2009? 

Mr. SILVER. Congressman, I don’t know where—what dates you 

are referring to. Let me—— 

Mr. GARDNER. These are the emails when the Credit Committee 

said no, we are not going to do this and then all of a sudden an 

email just days later, 10 working days later—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. GARDNER [continuing]. We are going to go forward. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Does the gentleman have copies of those emails? 

The minority has—— 

Mr. GARDNER. I am happy to provide—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. I would appreciate that. 

Mr. GARDNER. Sure. 

Ms. DEGETTE. We don’t have copies of those emails and I don’t 

think the witness does either and I am getting a little lost here. 

Mr. GARDNER. On January 9, 2009, the Credit Committee sent 

an email, and I think if you go to Slide 4 you can see what I am 

talking about. There we go, 2009, talking about the Credit Committee remand of Solyndra application calling it premature. January 26, we are approaching the beginning of the approval process. 

So the areas of due diligence that you said took place took place 

in 10 working days? These are pretty significant issues. 

Mr. SILVER. No, that is not accurate, Congressman, and if you 

will give me just a moment to try to answer your question. There 

are actually—there is actually an extended period of due diligence 

that takes place here. The Credit Committee—the first Credit Committee met; then there was a several-month period before it met 

again and I need to make sure this is clear because I don’t think 

it is because I don’t—— 

Mr. GARDNER. It didn’t meet when they made their decision to 

move forward? 

Mr. SILVER. What gets approved at that juncture, Congressman, 

is a conditional commitment, not the final close of the loan. The 

loan itself didn’t close until September and so additional due diligence takes place from the conditional commitment through the 

close of the loan, as is true in every transaction. 

Mr. GARDNER. What changed, then, between January 9 when 

they needed that information and January 26, 10 days later, when 

they evidently didn’t need that information. 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know what the January 26 date is that you 

are referring to. 

Mr. GARDNER. The January 26 email was right there. It says, ‘‘a 

DOE staff member states that we are approaching the beginning 

of the approval process for Solyndra again.’’ The Credit Committee 

met and said they didn’t do it because they needed this information. 

Mr. SILVER. Why do you assume that language says we are beginning—approaching the beginning of an approval process necessarily means anything about the time frame for which due— 

under which due diligence took place? 

Mr. GARDNER. Well, I am assuming that the Credit Committee, 

their observations were taken into account, were they not? 

88 

Mr. SILVER. Absolutely, but the beginning—as I read it as you 

are now showing it to me, we are approaching the beginning of the 

approval process, that suggests a pretty open-ended period of time 

during which due diligence was—— 

Mr. GARDNER. So the Credit Committee then at that point, it 

doesn’t matter what the Credit Committee is concerned—— 

Mr. SILVER. No, the Credit Committee met again in March. 

Mr. GARDNER. Because they said we are going to end this. 

Mr. SILVER. No, they said that we were—they were going to meet 

again in March, which they did. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, where are all—— 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, where are—— 

Mr. STEARNS. We are on the first round—— 

Mr. DINGELL. I have a unanimous consent request—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Yes, you are recognized. 

Mr. DINGELL. Can we put all of these emails into the record? I 

am sitting here, I am seeing a wee bit of information carefully yellow-lined that is supposed to tell me what has happened here. I 

don’t think there is any lawyer that would tell you that that would 

be sufficient evidence of anything. The whole document should be 

placed before us so we know—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Well—— 

Mr. DINGELL. If there is wrongdoing here, by golly, let us dig it 

out. But let us see the whole thing. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. 

Mr. DINGELL. So far we are getting a lot of assumptions and understandings and comments from the other side in which they are 

saying oh, this is terrible. What has happened here? But I don’t 

know what has happened and to speak perfectly frank with you, I 

don’t see anything up there which tells me that we have a clear 

picture of the problems to which we are inquiring. So if we are 

going to inquire, let us inquire fairly. Let us let everybody see 

them. Is it possible that my Republican colleagues have seen these 

papers and the rest of us have not? 

Mr. STEARNS. We will take the constructive criticism under advisement. We have unanimous consent in which all the documents 

will be made available and a part. 

Mr. STEARNS. And I ask my side, the counsel, to provide the gentleman and your side all these documents, which we have. And 

they have been produced, I am told, so I guess the question is they 

haven’t got to you. Is that a fair assumption? 

Ms. DEGETTE. Well, if the gentleman will yield? 

Mr. DINGELL. I want them in the record, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STEARNS. Oh, OK. So you have the same documents we do, 

you just want to make sure they are part of the record? 

Mr. DINGELL. I want—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. If the gentleman will yield? 

Mr. DINGELL [continuing]. To see them—— 

Mr. STEARNS. And we pass the unanimous consent—— 

Mr. DINGELL [continuing]. I want to know what they said—— 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. 

Mr. DINGELL [continuing]. And I want them in the record. 

89 

Mr. STEARNS. They will be put in the record. We had unanimous 

consent to do so. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Yes, and if the gentleman would yield? 

Mr. STEARNS. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. We were told that the documents were produced 

under an agreement with the majority that they were to be confidential and were not to be copied or in any way disseminated. 

We—— 

Mr. STEARNS. At the request of OMB, right? 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. But—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE [continuing]. What happened was in between yesterday when I found this out at about 7:00 p.m. last night and 

today, it turned out that lo, number one, the majority released a 

number of these documents to the press and, number two, the majority apparently took some of these documents and excerpted them 

in the way that the chairman emeritus is saying and put them on 

slides, which we have never been provided. I am going to tell you, 

Mr. Chairman, I have been on this subcommittee for 15 years and 

I am just as much concerned about this Solyndra loan as everybody 

else is, but the way that the information has just been parceled 

out, the witnesses don’t have the full copies of the emails in front 

of them, the minority doesn’t have the full copies of the emails in 

front of them until we asked for them, that is not in the grand tradition of this subcommittee. 

Mr. STEARNS. We have heard your argument in your opening 

statement and we made a unanimous consent that you all be part 

of the document. I am told that you were given, your staff was 

given all these documents. OMB—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. We were told we couldn’t copy it. 

Mr. STEARNS. OMB is the one that specified that. We have now 

agreed that we are going to make them all public. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Mr. Chairman, they were subpoenaed from OMB. 

OMB doesn’t have the right to tell us whether we can copy—— 

Mr. STEARNS. I understand that. 

Ms. DEGETTE [continuing]. The documents or not. 

Mr. STEARNS. I understand that but we have all agreed that 

OMB can’t tell us and we are going to make these public. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. STEARNS. And so I appreciate your concern. We have a unanimous consent from a member who is on the committee but not on 

the subcommittee, the gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Pompeo. Is 

there any objection to allowing him in the first round—we are 

going to go for a second round—— 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well—— 

Mr. STEARNS [continuing]. Is there any objection to allow him to 

ask questions? 

Mr. DINGELL. I have no objection but I would like to understand 

if we are going to get those documents and if we are going to have 

a second—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Your point is you have the documents but you 

want to make sure the documents are available to—— 

Mr. DINGELL. No, I want to see them. 

90 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. Well, as I understand from my counsel, we 

have provided all the documents to you. They were produced to 

both sides. You have them. Now, is it possible your staff has not 

made them available to you? 

Mr. DINGELL. I understand that it is the committee staff to make 

these available to all members of the committee and I understand 

this committee staff works for all of us. 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, I think that—— 

Mr. DINGELL. And if I am in error—— 

Mr. STEARNS. My staff has told me that we have—— 

Mr. DINGELL [continuing]. Tell me so. 

Mr. STEARNS [continuing]. Provided you—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Mr. Chairman, what happened was we were told 

we could look at the documents but we couldn’t copy them and that 

under some kind of agreement the majority made with the OMB 

that the documents could not be disseminated in any way, which 

is frankly a ridiculous agreement—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, no, I think you made that—— 

Ms. DEGETTE [continuing]. If the majority made that, but in addition, always in the past in this subcommittee, if we questioned 

on documents, we had the full document available for everybody 

and for the witnesses so that they could review those and give their 

answers. Instead, what we have had today is these slides which 

were made taking quotes out of the documents without providing 

the documents to anybody. 

Mr. STEARNS. In conclusion, I think the fact that you and Mr. 

Dingell’s point is that these documents should have been made 

available in a tab so that they can go to the tab. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman, if I can ask a 

question? 

Mr. STEARNS. Sure. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think from everything I am hearing, the emails 

that are in question are emails from Department of Energy staff. 

Doesn’t Mr. Silver already have access to all of that? 

Mr. STEARNS. He doesn’t necessarily have access—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Chairman, those are people that work under him 

in his agency who communicated back and forth that we had to 

subpoena, but I don’t think he has to subpoena to get his own internal documents from—— 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, we are not complaining about 

whether Mr. Silver has these emails or not. I am complaining that 

we do not have the emails. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Well, and also—— 

Mr. DINGELL. And I find myself affronted that I am reading 

about these things in the newspaper and am not having them presented to me. That is a most curious way—— 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. All right. 

Mr. DINGELL. —to proceed about a congressional investigation. 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, we have a little disagreement here but out 

of deference to you, I will take your criticism under advisement. 

And let us continue on. 

Mr. DINGELL. That does not comfort—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. May we have a 2-minute break? 

91 

Mr. DINGELL [continuing]. Me when you take it under advisement. That means I might hear about it—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, I think—— 

Mr. DINGELL [continuing]. Sometime before the end of the session if I am lucky. 

Mr. STEARNS. All right. 

Mr. DINGELL. I do not view that as being an adequate answer for 

my concerns. I don’t like the precedent which I see being set here 

that I am going to read about these things in the press. And I don’t 

like at all the fact that we are having all manners of inferences 

drawn by the majority while the minority has not seen the documents. And so I am not comforted by these matters being taken 

under advisement. 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, the gentleman has done this job much more 

than—— 

Mr. DINGELL. They should be addressed now—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL [continuing]. Not at some future—— 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. The gentleman—— 

Mr. DINGELL [continuing]. Time. 

Mr. STEARNS [continuing]. Has done this job more years than I 

have ever done it or will do. I respect his opinion. We have a little 

disagreement and the fact is we say we have given you all the documents. The fact that you don’t have it in front of you is not necessarily our fault because your staff—— 

Mr. DINGELL. Maybe I have to raise the question of whose staff 

we are going to fire. Are we going to fire the majority staff or the 

minority staff? 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, I think there is a—— 

Mr. DINGELL. If the majority staff is making this kind of a decision, they are going well beyond their powers—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Well—— 

Mr. DINGELL [continuing]. And well beyond their authorities. If 

the minority staff is doing it, we are going to thrash this out inside 

the minority and find out why in the hell they are doing it this 

way. 

Mr. STEARNS. I suggest you do that and then you and I talk. 

Mr. DINGELL. Well, I suggest that we talk now because this is 

the business of the committee and I find the business of the committee being conducted in a curious way. 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, the curious way is that you don’t recognize 

that you have all the documents when my staff has provided all the 

documents to you. So we are a little puzzled why we are discussing 

why you don’t have all the documents when you do. 

Ms. DEGETTE. No, the problem is—— 

Mr. DINGELL. Where are the documents—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Let Mr. Dingell finish. 

Mr. DINGELL [continuing]. Then—— 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. 

Mr. DINGELL [continuing]. If I have had them presented to me, 

I am anxious to see them. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. Well, I think what we are going to do is continue this discussion, but I want to let the gentleman from Kansas—I recognize him for 5 minutes. 

92 

Mr. POMPEO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to the 

minority for allowing me to participate in the hearing today. 

You know, Mr. Waxman started this hearing an awful long time 

ago talking about the fact that the Solyndra folks came in his office 

in July, told him everything was great and then filed bankruptcy 

shortly thereafter and he couldn’t understand why. There is a simple reason. Nobody in that room had any skin in the game. This 

is exactly what we get when the Federal Government tries to put 

money into businesses and try to pick winners and losers. And in 

fact because I have heard Mr. Zients speak, your task is really to 

pick just amongst losers. Every one of these has a credit subsidy, 

right? Is that correct? The Federal Credit Reform Act, you are out 

there looking at every one of these loans and deciding how much 

of a loser this guarantee is going to be. 

Mr. ZIENTS. No, I mean the point is to put a credit allowance—— 

Mr. POMPEO. A score, a cost to the taxpayer. 

Mr. ZIENTS. That is the purpose of the program—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Right. 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. Is the 1705 program—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Right. 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. Does loans with credit subsidies. 

Mr. POMPEO. Right. Look, I am very familiar with FCRA. I actually, oddly enough, wrote about this when I was in law school and 

was published so I know a fair amount about the process that you 

go through there. And you talked about your score having changed. 

What were the 2 scores that were given both in 2009 and then I 

guess twice in 2011? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Well, the score in 2009, I don’t know the exact percent of the score—— 

Mr. POMPEO. And you got that—— 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. But it increased—— 

Mr. POMPEO. If you can get me the 2 scores, what the original 

scoring was and what the subsequent scoring was? 

Mr. ZIENTS. I am sorry? 

Mr. POMPEO. Can you provide to me and to this committee the 

original score and the subsequent score? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Yes, we can follow up on that request. 

Mr. POMPEO. OK. So you will provide that information to the 

committee? 

Mr. ZIENTS. We will work with staff to make sure that that information is provided. 

Mr. POMPEO. Right. And then you will give us also the score in 

2011 during the restructuring? You decided this was how much additional subsidy will need to be provided. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Well, in 2011 as part of the restructuring, the determination was that it was a workout based on the fact that the loan 

was in imminent default and that a workout or a restructuring was 

in the best interest of taxpayers. That would be reflected, the cost 

of that, in the budget. 

Mr. POMPEO. So it was a negative score. It was good for the taxpayers that this restructuring was taking place? 

Mr. ZIENTS. No. 

Mr. POMPEO. It was going to cost them less? 

93 

Mr. ZIENTS. No, the restructuring in the budget—in the annual 

budget it will be reflected that the loan—the condition of the 

loan—— 

Mr. POMPEO. This is exactly what happens when folks without 

skin in the game get involved in trying to do credit analysis. Let 

me go back, Mr. Silver, I want to ask you. Mr. Markey spoke about 

Carnac, that no one could have known what was going to happen 

to the price of photovoltaic cells, PV cells, that this was just unimaginable that Solyndra’s sales price would fall below its cost of 

production. Do you agree with that? And he said in 2008 who could 

have known? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, I think many, many analysts and observers 

have been surprised by the speed and rate of the decline in cell 

prices, yes. 

Mr. POMPEO. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to place 

into the record an article. It is from August 4, 2008. It appeared 

in Xconomy. It is written by a man named Mark Modzelewski, the 

technology commentator. In August of 2008 he wrote, ‘‘the cost of 

PVs, you hear a lot about companies working toward price parity 

and grid parity—and here is the potentially really bad news for investors. Some big players in the private equity and research side 

have hypothesized that the price of solar cells is about to plummet 

so quickly that manufacturers will enter a netherworld where their 

cost of production exceeds their sales price.’’ So it didn’t take 

Carnac. It just took Mark. Is that correct? 

Mr. DINGELL. What is the status of—— 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman will—does he have a point of information? 

Mr. DINGELL. No, I don’t. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. 

Mr. DINGELL. I have a reservation to a unanimous consent request just made. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. The gentleman from Michigan objects and it 

will not be put in the record. 

Mr. DINGELL. I don’t object. I just want to know are the papers, 

the emails and other things that I have been discussing with the 

chair going to be put in the record and are they going to be made 

available to us? 

Mr. STEARNS. Yes, they are. 

Mr. DINGELL. I want to make sure everybody is treated alike. 

Mr. STEARNS. Absolutely. 

Mr. DINGELL. If the gentleman wants to put something in, I 

probably won’t object, but I just want to make sure that I am getting what I—— 

Mr. STEARNS. With that understanding, do you still object? 

Mr. DINGELL. I don’t object. 

Mr. STEARNS. All right. 

Mr. POMPEO. Thank you. 

Mr. STEARNS. With unanimous consent, so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 

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74404.033
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74404.034
96 


74404.035
97 


74404.036
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Mr. POMPEO. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, 

Mr. Dingell. Mr. Silver, was DOE aware of these concerns? I know 

you weren’t there at the time but you said there are files. Were 

they aware of the concerns about the pricing of these cells which 

were central to Solyndra’s ability to repay the government’s 

money? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, Solyndra’s cylindrical thin film cells were always more expensive than conventional matters, but the issue is 

total cost of ownership and you have to combine the cost of the cell 

with the installation, the balance of systems payments to understand the total cost of ownership. And at that time and in that 

place, that was a very competitive opportunity. 

Mr. POMPEO. I understand. You know, you have said you have 

gone from 35 to 180 folks or so in your organization. 

Mr. SILVER. Approximately. 

Mr. POMPEO. You said that proudly. It troubles me a great deal 

that the Federal Government has an agency that has grown by almost 6 times. I hope you hired Mark as one of those folks that you 

brought on board going from 30 to 180. 

Mr. SILVER. Actually, we have hired an enormously large and talented pool of former private sector, public finance experts and executives, so I think we have built a very good team. And it was designed simply to exist to put out monies—— 

Mr. POMPEO. I appreciate that. You talked about this loss of market share, that we have lost this market share because these prices 

have fallen. Isn’t that precisely what these programs are intended 

to do, to develop products so that the cost of production will come 

down and solar can compete with all of the other great energies in 

the world? 

Mr. SILVER. That—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Shouldn’t you be thrilled that the price has come 

down? Instead, you act as if it is sad because we lost half a billion 

dollars of taxpayer money. 

Mr. SILVER. No, it is—you are completely correct. It is our collective effort to try to find innovative technology to in fact do that. We 

issued—just as an example, we issued a different solar manufacturing loan guarantee just recently to a company whose improvement is a process improvement rather than a product improvement—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Right. 

Mr. SILVER [continuing]. And allows it to cut the cost of solar 

panel manufacturing by 50 percent. 

Mr. POMPEO. Right. So the globe succeeded in reducing the price 

but the American taxpayers lost half a billion dollars by us trying 

to pick a particular business that was going to benefit from that 

price reduction. Isn’t that precisely what happened here? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, what is happening is that we are putting together a portfolio of innovation—— 

Mr. POMPEO. This was a bad outcome. I have listened. I have 

been here for the entire hearing today save for about 2 minutes, 

and I have heard not a single person stand up and take any accountability for a single dollar of taxpayer money that is gone. We 

ask who made decisions, we asked who was responsible, and the 

two of you stand here and point to other people and take no acVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:35 Jun 10, 2013 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00102 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\PROGRA~1\WS_FTP\74404.TXT WAYNE
99 

countability to the taxpayers in America and in Kansas for having 

lost half a billion of their dollars. And for me, that is unacceptable. 

I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The witnesses 

have indicated a request—personal request of 5-minute break, so 

we will recess our subcommittee and come back at 12:30. 

Mr. SILVER. Thank you. 

Mr. STEARNS. And we appreciate your support. I remind all members we are going to have a second round. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. STEARNS. The Committee on Oversight and Investigation will 

reconvene and we will start our second round. And if the witnesses 

will have forbearance here, we will try and wrap up very soon. 

There are a couple on my side and just I think one at this side if 

Mr. Dingell doesn’t show up. 

I will start with my questions here and I need someone in counsel here to take care of the clock so that I keep myself on schedule. 

Mr. Silver, I was just going back to when I asked you questions 

in the beginning. In response to my question about Department of 

Energy conducting due diligence back in 2006, you testified under 

oath—we are reading exactly what you said. We got the exact transcript. ‘‘Actually, I didn’t say that it was conducted in 2006. I said 

the application was received in 2006 and due diligence began and 

continued from late 2007 through 2008.’’ But this is at odds and 

opposite with the written testimony that you submitted to the committee where you state, ‘‘extensive due diligence on the transaction 

was conducted between 2006 and the end of 2008.’’ Did the ‘‘extensive due diligence’’ that you referred to beginning at the end of 

2000, as you stated in your verbal testimony, or the 2006, as you 

submitted in your written testimony? I am giving you an opportunity to correct it. 

Mr. SILVER. Thank you. I don’t think those statements are incompatible. The solicitation was issued in 2006 and pre-applications were received at that time. The Loan Program Office received 

143, began reviews of those—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Do you stand by your written testimony or your 

oral testimony? 

Mr. SILVER. There is due diligence that takes place in order to 

ensure eligibility and then there is further due diligence that takes 

place in order to—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, you said to me that due diligence was not 

conducted in 2006 but yet in your written testimony it says it was. 

So which is which? Just yes or no. Is it your written testimony or 

your oral testimony this morning? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, it is both, Congressman. There are certain 

kinds of—— 

Mr. STEARNS. You can’t have due diligence in 2006 because in 

one you said it wasn’t and the other you said it was. 

Mr. SILVER. The due diligence done in 2006 was to ensure the 

eligibility of the project and—— 

Mr. STEARNS. So it was 2 different types of due diligence is what 

you are saying. 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir, exactly. 

Mr. STEARNS. And what are these 2 different types? 

100 

Mr. SILVER. Well, the—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Due diligence to me means due diligence. Are you 

saying due diligence has two different meanings? 

Mr. SILVER. I am. Due diligence here—I am exactly saying that. 

Due diligence here was to decide whether or not an application was 

in fact eligible, and therefore, the due diligence was around technical and financial issues only. Once it was deemed eligible, it 

was—the company was invited to submit a full application and full 

due diligence began. That would include substantially greater 

kinds of due diligence than what was done to ensure eligibility. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. I certainly give you an opportunity to correct 

that. 

Mr. Zients, you testified that OMB did ‘‘a thorough examination 

and analysis.’’ And Mr. Silver, you also testified that DOE conducted months of rigorous and comprehensive due diligence and 

documentation. I think both of you have indicated that. Is that correct? 

Mr. ZIENTS. I assume this is around the credit subsidy? 

Mr. STEARNS. Well—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. It is hard to react to that—— 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. Out of context. If you give me the full 

context—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Yes. Well, the full context is whether Solyndra 

itself would be a viable company and that doing this due diligence 

we are talking about, both of you had performed due diligence in 

that respect. So—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. Just to be clear, OMB’s statutory responsibilities 

around FCRA and the credit subsidy—— 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. And around the credit subsidy score, 

yes, it was a thorough analysis. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. So when I am alluding to the fact we had 2 

government agencies doing what they are supposed to do under the 

law and both of you testified that you did your thorough analysis, 

examination, rigorous and comprehensive due diligence and documentation. So the question I think for me on this committee and 

I think for both Democrats and Republicans, this creates some very 

serious questions about each of your abilities to put aside the administration’s what appears to be—and I still stand by this—a political agenda. And you should have protected the taxpayers and 

made some forceful actions here after this analysis because you 

should have seen the problems and you should have said taxpayers 

need to be protected and this has got to stop. And I think what, 

in the larger sense, we are worried about is with this project and 

others that are stimulus projects is the comprehensive analysis 

done by both your agencies sufficient so the taxpayers can feel a 

good deal of comfort that you will protect taxpayers in the future 

and we won’t see these out-of-control stimulus projects like 

Solyndra continue. So that is my basic concern, and I think anybody that watches this hearing will have the same concern that 

you folks did your due diligence, did the comprehensive, and yet 

this thing not only went into bankruptcy but now we have the FBI 

101 

investigating. And that is what I would like to move to, Mr. Silver, 

with you. 

You said you are a venture capitalist. This company Solyndra raised $1.5 billion. As I understand it, roughly a billion dollars 

from venture capitalists plus the taxpayers at half a billion plus 

the hedge funds came in for $75 million. Is that correct? 

Mr. SILVER. Approximately, yes. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK, approximately. So let us say 1.5 billion, and 

they did a burn rate of 1.5 billion in less than 2 years, is that correct? 

Mr. SILVER. Not—a burn rate would be the amount of money 

they go through per month—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, let us say they went through a significant 

cash burn, is that a correct statement? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, they did. 

Mr. STEARNS. Now, with all your experience on the private sector 

and in hedge funds that you talked about, don’t you think that to 

look at that kind of cash burn rate would send some alarms to you 

and to others at the Department of Energy, something is seriously 

wrong here, and you have got to protect taxpayers? 

Mr. SILVER. I think you have to put this in context, Congressman. The company’s revenues actually were—grew very dramatically during this period. They had $6 million of revenue in 2008. 

They had $100 million in revenue of 2009, $140 million in revenue 

in 2010, and so that is what you would expect a burn rate—— 

Mr. STEARNS. But even the emails we have shown you said that 

they are going to run out of money by September 2011. So I guess 

the problem we have is what was Solyndra burning all this money 

on? Do you know? Can you tell me today? Of this 1.5 billion, where 

was it all going? 

Mr. SILVER. In the most general terms—and I can’t give you dollars and cents sitting here today—but they built this brand new 

huge fabrication facility, which was approximately a 700-andchange-million-dollar facility equipped with advanced-state robotics. They had a smaller prototype plant if you will called Fab 1, 

and they had hired—which was also part of the set of objectives— 

they had hired hundreds of additional people. There were 3,000 

people who were involved in the construction of the—— 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. I will accept what you are saying. I am just 

saying with your experience as a venture capitalist, I am surprised 

that you didn’t see this cash burn rate as a serious flag—— 

Mr. SILVER. We did, Congressman, and we talked with the company about it regularly, but I need to underscore something I said 

before. As lenders and particularly with lender liability issues, we 

are not actually in a position to force a company—— 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. 

Mr. SILVER [continuing]. To do anything. So there were regular—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Let me just close by this question. In your mind’s 

eye, why did the FBI raid Solyndra? 

Mr. SILVER. I have no idea, sir. 

Mr. STEARNS. Was it a surprise to you? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes. 

Mr. STEARNS. Was it a surprise to you? 

102 

Mr. ZIENTS. Yes. 

Mr. STEARNS. And all your colleagues have no idea why the FBI 

raided it? And you had no advanced warning? 

Mr. SILVER. I can’t speak for all my colleagues but I was not 

aware of any investigation. 

Mr. STEARNS. Do you suspect there is a reason why? 

Mr. SILVER. I wouldn’t even hazard a guess, sir. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. My time has expired. The ranking member is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I guess, Mr. Silver, I would ask you what were the main reasons 

DOE concluded Solyndra was worth the government’s investment? 

Mr. SILVER. In 2008 and 2009, as the due diligence was being 

done, the price of polysilicon, which is the fundamental component 

for building out conventional solar panels, was very high and had 

been high for an extended period. It was expected to remain high. 

In addition, the cost of installation, as I have indicated, called balance-of-systems costs for installing conventional solar paneling is 

very expensive. That is because the panels themselves are flat, 

they need to penetrate the roof, there are air uplift issues and the 

like. The cylindrical thin film technology obviates all of that, and 

while the cylinders themselves are more expensive than the panels, 

the total cost of ownership, particularly absent the price of the expensive polysilicon was very attractive. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So what happened in the market or with technology that caused those 2 things to not pan out basically? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, a number of different things. First, the price 

of poly silicon actually came down more dramatically than expected 

as plants came on quickly to ramp up production. China began 

flooding the world market with increasingly inexpensive conventional solar panels because, as we have discussed earlier, the Chinese Government through both the China Development Bank and 

other smaller banks has provided multiple tens of billions of dollars 

of credit and credit subsidies plus other forms of support to their 

solar manufacturing industry. In addition, other countries have become actively involved in supporting those areas as well. So all of 

that drove the price curve down in a very significant fashion. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And here is my question. Why didn’t DOE predict 

those events? 

Mr. SILVER. I think we did understand that there were challenges in the marketplace. The fundamental responsibility and objective of this program is to identify innovative technologies that 

can be built out at scale and therefore leapfrog the traditional price 

curves that these technologies are on. But if the slope of the curve 

is more dramatic than anticipated, you will have this kind of event. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So you did predict it in a way but you didn’t think 

it would be this dramatic or what? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, we have—as you know, we have a large number of solar experts and solar industry experts at the Department. 

In addition, on this particular project, a number of different analysts and independent advisors were brought on board to analyze 

this as well. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Do you think there are things DOE could have 

done to prevent really this whole debacle with the Solyndra loan? 

103 

Was there more due diligence that could have been done? Was it 

rushed too fast to approval? What could have been done? 

Mr. SILVER. It clearly wasn’t rushed too fast because there were 

several years of due diligence that went on. There are always going 

to be changes and shifts in market dynamics. I remind the committee that the loan which was to build out the plant actually built 

out the plant on time and on budget and at the same time revenues were dramatically increasing. There was a significant—as I— 

again, I—there was a significant customer base as well. But I guess 

the fundamental challenge is to ensure that we are doing everything we can to de-risk these projects, and that is why we build 

in—the terms and conditions of these things are, you know, dozens 

and dozens and dozens of pages long to do everything we can to 

de-risk these projects. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So you don’t think there is anything else that 

could have been done here? Is that your bottom line? 

Mr. SILVER. By the time of the restructuring, the plant was built 

but had not been fitted out, and so one might conceivably, you 

know, have identified a different plant configuration. But again, I 

hesitate to second-guess because it is the private sector that 

brought this project forward. I want to remind the committee—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Yes. I don’t have much time left. Mr. Zients, what 

is your opinion? Is there anything we could have done to predict 

this or to stop this? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Well, I think it is the nature of backing innovative 

technologies, that there are technology risks in some situations, 

market risks—we are competing in a global market so I think the 

lesson learned here is that marketplaces can change even more 

rapidly than one would have anticipated in terms of the cost curve 

that we talked about before. I don’t think anyone would have 

thought that the cost could decrease and the price could decrease 

so dramatically. Going forward, we need to make sure that we understand those types of market shifts can occur. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I just want to reiterate my request for unanimous 

consent that the documents that have been referred to in the hearing today by the members be included in the record. And in addition, there is a document that I have which I think would help 

complete the record. It is the Credit Committee paper request for 

loan guarantee approval dated March 11, 2009. And I think that 

would help answer some of the follow-up questions about what happened after this January 9 meeting. My only one concern is at the 

top of this document it does say ‘‘restricted distribution, privileged 

business information,’’ and as I flip through it, it does look like 

there might be business information. So the caveat I would have 

is to look and see if there is privileged business information in here 

before we make the whole thing part of the record. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. By unanimous consent, so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. STEARNS. And also we want to put our supplemental report 

by unanimous consent also. 

[The information follows:] 

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Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. STEARNS. With that, we will move to Mr. Griffith. The gentleman from Virginia is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Silver, we talked earlier about other companies in similar 

circumstances, and I am not sure that I asked the question on observers. I asked others that had been subordinated, whether the 

taxpayers’ money had been subordinated. Are there observers on 

any other boards as a part of this Loan Guarantee Program? 

Mr. SILVER. No, sir. Nor would there typically be. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And in regard to the observer, I am concerned. 

You indicated to me that they told you that bankruptcy was most 

likely by the end of July. Is that not what you told me earlier? 

Mr. SILVER. That the company was, you know, facing imminent 

troubles. I don’t know that I would describe it as bankruptcy because, of course—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Because I asked bankruptcy before and you said 

end of July. 

Mr. SILVER. Well, they were clearly having financial troubles 

again and we are going to need to figure out what to do or would 

face a bankruptcy. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right. Because that raises a real concern for 

me that I think every member of this committee is concerned 

about. Apparently they—not you all—Solyndra was here on Capitol 

Hill speaking to Members of Congress indicating everything was on 

track at the same time that your observer was telling you all that 

there was a problem. Again, I am not saying that you all knew 

they were up here telling fibs, but I am concerned that they were 

up here telling fibs. That being said, what was your observer’s role, 

because clearly they were in trouble, and what recommendations 

did he make to you all and did you all send word through him to 

the board on what they should do to protect the taxpayer dollars? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, first, Congressman, in this particular case, the 

observer is a woman—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you. 

Mr. SILVER [continuing]. But what she did—and she is also the 

head of our portfolio management group and a career civil servant 

who ran that express function at the Export Import Bank for 

many, many years. She is a highly—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. OK. 

Mr. SILVER [continuing]. Highly achieved—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. She is a great lady. 

Mr. SILVER. Great lady. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I am not going to dispute that. What did she say 

we should do? Did she give you all advice on what should be done? 

Did she take messages back to the board saying we want to protect 

the taxpayer dollars? I mean they laid off all the employees. Why 

couldn’t they have laid off half—those kind of questions. Was that 

going on? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, on a regular basis. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And can you provide us some kind of written documentation as to what was going on and what steps were being 

taken to try to protect the taxpayers’ dollars once you learned that 

136 

even after the restructuring, this company was going to fail or was 

likely to fail? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know if there are any documents specifically 

related to that, but I do know that we have now turned over, as 

I said, close to—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I understand. I am asking you if you can—— 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t think there are any other documents. I mean 

I think we have—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I am asking you to create a document. Can somebody give us something in writing as to what was being done from 

July until the announcement that they were going bankrupt to try 

to protect the taxpayers’ dollars? 

Mr. SILVER. We can certainly work with you on that, yes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right. Thank you. And all the problems that 

you cite regarding Solyndra with maybe the exception of the cost 

of the polysilicon—I apologize if I got that wrong—dealing with the 

competition from China and the economic instability in Europe and 

so forth where they buy more of these things, on the other loans 

that you have, are those pressures not also present? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, as I said, the vast majority of our portfolio—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Or production. I am talking about the 4 manufacturing. 

Mr. SILVER. They are to a certain degree. The project that I made 

reference to earlier actually is a process project rather than a product product. So it produces a standard conventional panel, but it 

does it in a much more cost-effective way with about half the use 

of materials and about half the time. So it is a bit of a different 

configuration. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. So how much money do we have—that we have 

guaranteed a loan for that company? 

Mr. SILVER. I think—I will have to check the exact number but 

it is about $135 million. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. OK. So we gave 535 to the company that is riskier 

and 135 to one. And are they doing well? 

Mr. SILVER. So far. Again, these projects are only now just beginning construction most of them. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Will you tell us if these companies start to have 

problems so that we can anticipate this and try to figure out what 

we need to do as the folks who are ultimately responsible for the 

spending of the taxpayers’ money? 

Mr. SILVER. Happy to work with you on that, sir. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right. And then, you know, we act like sometimes—and I know there is no perfect world and maybe one guy 

or one gal got it right, but we act like, you know, we didn’t see this 

coming and yet, you know, there are indications that somebody on 

your team—and I know you weren’t there at the time the loan was 

made, but somebody on your team had it figured out and I am just 

wondering what steps have you taken knowing that someone on 

your team raised a concern that the models wouldn’t work. What 

steps are you taking to make sure that even it is a minority viewpoint, when it comes to spending half a billion dollars of the taxpayers’ money, that maybe you will pay attention to every warning 

sign. 

137 

Mr. SILVER. Well, as a matter of practice, with every transaction 

we do, we run a series of sensitivity analyses which change variables in the assumptions and therefore—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Is that different now than it was in August of 

2009 when somebody raised the warning flag and nobody seemed 

to pay attention? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know for sure but I doubt it. I doubt that it 

was different. I mean it—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. You are using the same model? 

Mr. SILVER. It is standard practice to run sensitivity analyses. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And now that we have had this hearing, are you 

going to go back and take a look at it and see if you can come up 

with a better-tuned or finer-tuned model? 

Mr. SILVER. We will continue to work with OMB to improve the 

models, yes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right. I yield back my time. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman yields back his time and the gentleman emeritus of the Energy and Commerce Committee is recognized for 5 minutes, Mr. Dingell of Michigan. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your courtesy. 

I got a few little questions here to ask. I have been looking sort 

of at how these events occurred and perhaps, Mr. Silver, you could 

help me with this. On January 9, Solyndra transaction was reviewed by a DOE Credit Committee and remanded for further 

analysis, right? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. It was not rejected. 

Mr. SILVER. I am sorry? 

Mr. DINGELL. It was not rejected. It just—— 

Mr. SILVER. It was not formally rejected. It was remanded back. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. Then, on the 15th of January, loan program 

staff notified DOE Credit Review Board that it had developed a 

schedule to complete Solyndra due diligence that would bring the 

project to approval in early March 2009 and final closing by early 

to mid-April 2009, is that right? 

Mr. SILVER. I think that was the original projection. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. Then, Obama came into office on January 20, 

2009, 5 days later. So then, if I look here I see on February, March 

2009, DOE continues to negotiate terms and conditions with 

Solyndra, is that right? 

Mr. SILVER. I believe so, yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. And then on March 12, DOE Credit Committee considers and approves Solyndra transaction. Is that right? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, a recommendation for—— 

Mr. DINGELL. Who was on that Credit Committee? 

Mr. SILVER. I would have to get you the specific names but it is 

the same group—— 

Mr. DINGELL. Please. 

Mr. SILVER [continuing]. Of career professionals that were on the 

first committee. 

Mr. DINGELL. No political appointees? 

Mr. SILVER. No political appointees, no, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. All right. So then, on the 20th of March, DOE 

issued a conditional commitment to Solyndra, is that right? 

138 

Mr. SILVER. That is correct. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, what were the conditions in that conditional 

commitment? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, there were a number of them. Conditions 

precedent are simply things that company, the applicant, needs to 

do in order to complete its responsibilities before we can close. 

Mr. DINGELL. And what you say is if you do those things, we will 

make—— 

Mr. SILVER. Right. Among them, for example, was the raise of an 

additional several hundred million dollars of capital, which they 

did. And during the time they were doing their CP work, we were 

continuing to do additional due diligence. It is important to remember that due diligence continues post-conditional commitment all 

the way to final close. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. Now, then, on the 27th of April, independent 

market consultant report was submitted, is that right? 

Mr. SILVER. I believe so, yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, what did that report contain? 

Mr. SILVER. Well, the market—and independent market report 

generally describes the market for the product, examines the competitive landscape, looks at relative cost attributes, and the kind of 

classic documentation you would describe around that. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. Now, my colleagues on the other side of the 

aisle appear to be of the view that at some point, the Department 

of Energy denied the loan to Solyndra on January 9 of 2009. Now, 

isn’t it true that at that time the Department’s Credit Review 

Board simply asked for further information and did not reject the 

request? 

Mr. SILVER. The Credit Committee, sir, not the Credit Review 

Board. But yes, the Credit Committee. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. And then in your comments you have indicated shortly after the request for more information, the Loan Program Office outlined a timeline to complete the due diligence on 

the Solyndra request. Is that right? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. When did that occur? What date or approximately 

what time? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know the exact date but they came back rather quickly and said we will be in a position to bring this back some 

time in the March time frame. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. Now, when was that timeline developed? Before or after President Obama came into office? 

Mr. SILVER. Before the Obama administration took office. 

Mr. DINGELL. It was, OK. So what I am seeing here, then, this 

was followed up by the bankruptcy of Solyndra. When was that 

bankruptcy filed? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know the specific date but sometime in early 

September. 

Mr. DINGELL. All right. Now—— 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman—it is September 6 of this year is 

the bankruptcy. 

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would note that the 

bankruptcy, though, is not complete. It is going to throw Solyndra 

into reorganization. Is that right? 

139 

Mr. SILVER. I believe so. 

Mr. DINGELL. So the end result of that will be that the United 

States will be a creditor, right? 

Mr. SILVER. I am sorry, will be what? 

Mr. DINGELL. The United States will be a creditor? 

Mr. SILVER. A creditor, yes. I am sorry. Um-hum. 

Mr. DINGELL. And now, the practical result of that is that, first 

of all, we have done things to get ourselves in a position where we 

see that Solyndra had a chance, at least during this, to provide 

jobs, put forward a new technology in the United States. Is that 

right? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir. The value—the analysis that produced the 

going concern valuation suggested that it was a 2 to 4x greater recovery likely to the taxpayer than a liquidation analysis. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. And during that time, the buildings and so 

forth were completed? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Is that right? And I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your courtesy here, but I just got just a couple more small 

questions. 

I would note that the government’s chance of recovery from that 

reorganization are better both in amount and certainty than if we 

had seen Solyndra go into bankruptcy earlier, is that right? 

Mr. SILVER. We expect so. We will have to see what happens actually in the bankruptcy process, but we have a completed and operating plant fully fitted out, inventory and all kinds of things that 

did not exist during the first restructuring. 

Mr. DINGELL. Very good. 

Mr. Chairman, you are very kind. Thank you for your courtesy. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. Then we recognize the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, I appreciate your perseverance and endurance in the 

hearing today. 

This morning’s Washington Post references an email exchange 

between an assistant to Rahm Emanuel, then the White House 

Chief of Staff, August 31 of 2009, to the Office of Management and 

Budget about the upcoming announcement where we talked about 

this before. This was the groundbreaking where Secretary Chu was 

going to be at the company on September 4 and Vice President 

Biden was going to appear by satellite. And this staffer was concerned about the upcoming Biden announcement on Solyndra and 

asked whether there is anything we can do to help speed along the 

OMB side? And an OMB staffer responded, ‘‘I would prefer this announcement be postponed. This is the first loan guarantee that we 

should have full review with all hands on deck and make sure we 

get it right.’’ I mean that seems pretty reasonable from OMB. 

Now, when the OMB staff briefed committee staff last spring, 

well, there was, as you know, quite a lot of difficulty in getting any 

of these documents to the committee staff from OMB. It took 4 

months to get any emails or communications in reviewing 

Solyndra’s loan guarantee. And in fact this committee in July had 

a business meeting to subpoena those documents because we were 

having no success in acquiring those. And now we have them and 

140 

we see that the White House scheduled announcement date before 

the OMB even began reviewing the deal in August 2009, we also 

see that OMB was aware that the groundbreaking event and it felt 

time pressures to do their work possibly resulting in the use of a 

wrong financial model. Is this why the committee had to subpoena 

the documents? Was there something here that you didn’t want us 

to see? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Can I see the email that you are referring to? 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, actually, it is a Washington Post article from 

this morning, but I am sure we have the same emails in the document binder that can be provided. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Mr. Chairman, give him the email. 

Mr. STEARNS. Gentlemen, continue. The gentleman has the time. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, they are looking for the emails and we will 

come back to that. Let me just ask for both of you, would you be 

able to provide to this committee, not today but get back to us and 

provide the names to the committee of every career and political 

appointee at both Department of Energy and Office of Management 

and Budget and the West Wing who worked on the project or inquired about the project and provide access to committee staff to 

any of those individuals that the committee believes is necessary 

to question for this investigation. 

Mr. ZIENTS. OMB has been cooperating with the committee—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Sir, we subpoenaed the documents in July. You 

can’t characterize that as cooperation. 

Mr. ZIENTS. A few days before the subpoena, which we thought 

was unnecessary, we turned over—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Unnecessary? We had this hearing—— 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. 1,000 pages—— 

Mr. BURGESS [continuing]. And your chair was empty in July. 

Your chair was empty. There was no one there. No one responded. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Well, as to that, I was given less than 4 days’ notice. 

I had a personal reason why I could not be here. I expressed to 

Chairman Stearns directly on the telephone that I was willing to 

come if there could have been an alternative time. The decision 

was made there was no alternative time but I want to be clear that 

I was willing to come to the committee as long as I had either sufficient notice—— 

Mr. BURGESS. In the sense of time, I mean this has been going 

on for a long time. 

Mr. ZIENTS. So in—— 

Mr. BURGESS. And here is the thing that is really concerning a 

lot of us. Had you responded to the committee staff, had you responded to the committee’s request, could we perhaps have preserved some of those taxpayer dollars that have now been lost in 

a bankruptcy proceeding and subordinated to a venture capital 

firm? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Prior to—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Had there been cooperation from your office, would 

this loss to the taxpayer have been as great? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Prior to the subpoena, which I believe was mid-July, 

OMB worked with committee staff, turned over 1,000 pages of documents, did numerous meetings. Since mid-July OMB has turned 

over over 9,000 pages of documents. There have been—— 

141 

Mr. BURGESS. Yes, sir, I have got to interrupt you because I am 

going to run out of time. That letter was in March and it took a 

long time to get anything back. 

Mr. ZIENTS. I am sorry? 

Mr. BURGESS. I have a couple of things—and you have gotten 

now the emails. I am going to ask you to take those and we will 

get you the question in writing, and I would appreciate a response 

to that question—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. I am sorry, can you repeat the question? 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, I am going to submit the question to you in 

writing regarding those emails so we are all clear about what we 

are asking and what we are answering. And then I also have a 

memo from October 25 of 2010 to the President from Carol Browner, Ron Klain, and Larry Summers. And I have a series of questions that I want to ask you about this memo as well, and because 

of time constraints, obviously, I can’t get to them. We will provide 

you this memo and we will provide you the questions. And I would 

appreciate a timely response to those interrogatories. Thank you. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Thank you. 

Mr. BURGESS. And I will yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman yields back. 

Mr. Scalise is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to ask Mr. Zients—is that the proper way to say it? I 

want to get that right. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Thank you. 

Mr. SCALISE. Sure. You were at OMB throughout this whole 

process with Solyndra from when they got the original loan? 

Mr. ZIENTS. No. 

Mr. SCALISE. When did you come into OMB? 

Mr. ZIENTS. When I came into OMB I was confirmed by the Senate in late June of 2009. So the conditional commitment period, the 

earlier administration period I was not at OMB. 

Mr. SCALISE. And when was the loan to Solyndra finalized? 

Mr. ZIENTS. In September so I was there—— 

Mr. SCALISE. So you were there at OMB—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. I was at OMB at the time. I was not—— 

Mr. SCALISE. At the time that Solyndra first got the loan, first 

was approved—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. When it closed, yes. 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. For and got the loan. 

Mr. ZIENTS. When it closed. 

Mr. SCALISE. Following up on some of the questions that Dr. Burgess had—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. Just to clarify, I was not personally involved in—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Well, and these are the questions that I am going 

to ask you about because there is involvement between OMB and 

the Department of Energy and the White House, and what we have 

been trying to establish is just exactly what was that relationship 

between OMB, the Department of Energy, and the White House relating to the Solyndra loan? And of course, we did start asking for 

this information months ago. Prior to the restructuring—and your 

office was not complying and getting us some of the information we 

were requesting to the point we did have to subpoena. And there 

142 

is a timeline issue that a lot of us have concerns with, too, because 

if we were able to stop the restructuring from happening, for example, then the taxpayers would not have been pushed in the back 

of the line to where now they are subordinated in bankruptcy—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. Just so we have our timelines correct, I believe that 

the restructuring was completed in February. 

Mr. SCALISE. And our staff started asking for some of this documentation prior to that time. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Is that—that is not my understanding. 

Mr. SCALISE. That is the timeline I have. But regardless of that, 

I want to get to some of these specific emails because these emails 

span throughout the entire length of the Solyndra loan and restructuring, and it seems to indicate a pattern. Starting going back in 

Slide 7 if we can put that up and that way you can see it—and by 

the way, these emails were all provided to the minority as soon as 

we got them. So everybody had access to these emails on this committee and subcommittee. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Does the witness have these emails that Mr. 

Scalise is referring to? 

Mr. SCALISE. I think they just gave him these emails. Some of 

these came from—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. I don’t think that—— 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. His own agency, of course. Some of 

these are from OMB. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Talking about specific emails, I agree with the Congresswoman—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Well, and I want to ask you a question about this 

email. I think it does show though—what I want to do is show that 

there was a pattern of expediency, of rushing—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Does the witness have this email? 

Mr. STEARNS. Point of order? What is your point of order? 

Mr. ZIENTS. I do—if I am going to respond to an email, I need 

to make sure I have it. 

Mr. STEARNS. Does Mr. Zients have that? 

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Chairman, is the clock still running? If we can 

just get the clock to stop while—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, we gave you about 2 minutes before you even 

started the clock, so you are well into it. But now the witness has 

the emails, is that correct? 

Mr. ZIENTS. I am going to need to absorb this. What he has just 

handed me is not what is on the screen. I can look through and 

see—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Page 7, I will read the quote. ‘‘In congressional testimony’’—and by the way this is congressional testimony. This isn’t 

some email that we just got. This was testimony going back to 

March of 2009, a senior Department of Energy official said that 

Secretary Chu ‘‘has directed us to accelerate the process significantly’’ talking about the loan process. And I will go to some OMB 

emails. Of course, on page 9 on Slide 9—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. The email I have in front of me to the best of my 

knowledge—and again, I wasn’t actually in seat on March 17, 2009, 

but to the best of my knowledge doesn’t have any OMB people on 

it, so it is very difficult—— 

143 

Mr. SCALISE. Right, but there is a March of 2009 email on Slide 

9, ‘‘this deal is not ready for prime time.’’ Go to the next slide. 

‘‘Given the time pressure we are under to sign off on Solyndra, we 

don’t have time to change the model’’—that is an OMB staff email 

from August of 2009 after you came on board. Another quote from 

that same email, ‘‘but we also need to make sure they don’t jam 

us on later deals so there is a time to negotiate those, too.’’ Next 

page—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. So—— 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. More OMB emails. And I will ask if I 

want to get all of these into record. Again, they are available to 

both committee staffs. ‘‘If there is anything we can help speed 

along on the OMB side’’—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. If I am going to respond, then I need to—we need 

to as we go case by case, I need to understand what email you are 

referring to, I need to have that email in front of me—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Sure. There is a communication on Slide 11, for example, August 31, 2009, the special assistant noted the Vice President’s announcement at Solyndra on September 4 and whether 

‘‘there is anything we can help speed along on OMB side.’’ So were 

you involved? And forget about the emails. Were you involved in 

any communications with the White House to push the Department 

of Energy to speed this thing along? 

Mr. ZIENTS. No. 

Mr. SCALISE. You were not? 

Mr. ZIENTS. No. 

Mr. SCALISE. Were you aware that anyone else at OMB was involved—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. I am now aware in my preparation for the hearing 

that there was a request from the Vice President’s office about 

scheduling logistics for a potential event. This again has nothing to 

do with the decision to give the loan or not give the loan to the 

company. This process has to do with OMB’s statutory responsibility to determine the right credit subsidy. The right—the credit 

subsidy was actually increased during—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Well, then I don’t know if that was credit subsidies. 

I will go to Slide 12 because this is specifically an OMB email and 

I will read it and you can look at it. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Well, OMB—— 

Mr. SCALISE. This is an OMB email that specifically talks about 

the approval. ‘‘We have ended up with a situation of having to do 

rushed approvals on a couple of occasions, and we are worried 

about Solyndra at the end of the week. We would prefer to have 

sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews and have the approval set the date for the announcement rather than the other 

way around.’’ This was a communication between OMB and Terrell 

McSweeny at the office of the Vice President. 

Mr. ZIENTS. This does have to do with the credit subsidy score. 

This does not have to do with the yes/no on the loan. This has to 

do with the credit subsidy score. As I mentioned before, the credit 

subsidy score was actually increased—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Right. And so the question, then—and I am almost 

out of time—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. Let me just say one thing. 

144 

Mr. SCALISE. There is clear—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. In my preparation for this hearing—— 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. Communication between OMB and the 

White House and Department of Energy regarding all this, whether it was just about a ribbon cutting, but I think it shows that 

crony capitalism is running amok relating to this program. And I 

think this is a classic example. And there was a 

PricewaterhouseCoopers study that was done back in 2010. USA 

Today writes about it in an article, in an editorial today when they 

talk about PricewaterhouseCoopers saying there is substantial 

doubt about its ability to continue going as a concern, Solyndra. 

And so this was over a year ago they reported a serious concern 

about Solyndra going forward and obviously—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. That is—— 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. That was pushed back from the administration somewhere to push this thing along. 

Mr. ZIENTS. I am sorry. The chronology of events is not consistent. You are asking about a period of time in August/September 

of 2009. You are now referencing—— 

Mr. SCALISE. I am going throughout the whole process. I am not 

just focusing—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. You are now referencing—— 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. On one area because there was a loan, 

there was a restructuring. There has continued to be—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. To respond to your question about—— 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. Advancements of plenty and yet there 

were warning signs at every level, and yet it seems like crony capitalism was trumping the smart decision-making process and due 

diligence that should have been going on and a lot of these emails 

show that out to be the case. And yet $535 million of taxpayer 

money are now at risk. And so I hope you can understand and 

maybe you weren’t directly involved but somebody at your agency 

was—— 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. In that chain. I yield back. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman from—Mr. Griffith is recognized for 

5 minutes. Oh, Mr. Markey. Mr. Markey, do you wish to ask questions in the second round? Yes, I mean you are up if you want to 

go right now. 

Mr. MARKEY. May I reserve this time? 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. You can reserve, yes. Mr. Griffith from Virginia is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Chairman, I already had a second round. I am 

glad to take a third round. 

Mr. STEARNS. OK. Then we can go to the gentleman who is not 

on the subcommittee but he is on the full committee, the gentleman from Kansas is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. POMPEO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Zients, following up on Representative Scalise, were you not 

aware that the staff was being jammed, that they were being 

rushed? Were you at any time aware that they were being hurried 

and that they felt hurried or were you just oblivious to that? 

Mr. ZIENTS. What period of time are we talking about? 

Mr. POMPEO. At any. How about we will start at any—— 

145 

Mr. ZIENTS. No. 

Mr. POMPEO [continuing]. Period of time. 

Mr. ZIENTS. So I was not involved so I would not have been 

aware at the time. In my preparation for this hearing—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Um-hum. 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. I talked to OMB staff, and again, what 

we are talking about here is the credit subsidy. 

Mr. POMPEO. I understand. 

Mr. ZIENTS. And on the credit subsidy, the OMB staff has presented to me that they had no hesitation as to the final decision, 

and the final decision of the credit subsidy actually increased the 

credit subsidy—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Right. 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. Which made it more conservative. 

Mr. POMPEO. Right, they could still have been wrong because 

they were hurried. Do you think these emails, they were just 

wrong, they were making this stuff, they weren’t hurried? When 

they—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. At the end of the day, the OMB career staff, which 

has deep expertise in credit scoring, felt comfortable—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Yes. 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. With the credit subsidy score. 

Mr. POMPEO. That expertise is very apparent in a half a billion 

dollars being lost by the American taxpayer. It is readily apparent 

to us. 

Mr. Zients, there is a January 4 memorandum I want to just 

read to you. It is an OMB memorandum prepared by the OMB 

staff. It says, ‘‘even under DOE’s proposed restructuring, we are 

skeptical about the long-term viability of the company. Bankruptcy 

or default are real possibilities and Solyndra’s product is priced at 

a premium in the market with rapidly declining prices and the 

company’s cost structure does not cover operating margins. It is not 

clear that Solyndra would be able to achieve the scale and efficiency improvements necessary to improve margins.’’ This was during the restructuring time. Why did OMB not stop the restructuring from going forward? 

Mr. ZIENTS. OMB—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Or recommend that? 

Mr. ZIENTS. OMB pressure-tested DOE’s analysis. OMB determined that the company was in imminent default, and then OMB 

determined that DOE’s recommendation that the company be restructured was preferable to liquidation, that that was a reasonable outcome that DOE had reached. 

Mr. POMPEO. Would you please provide the witness, there is a series of emails in and around that same time, January 4, 2011, one 

of them at 2:08 p.m.? Can you just make sure he has got a copy 

of that? Thank you. 

I will summarize but this is an email chain where it is very clear 

that the data are suggesting to staff at this moment in time that 

liquidation will cost the taxpayers a lower loss than will restructuring. Do you see, it says liquidation—it is underlined, it has got 

some analysis for expected recovery, and then it shows ‘‘restructured, expected loss.’’ The difference under bankruptcy at the time 

they expected losses estimated by this person on your staff to be 

146 

$141 million, and it says if we do the restructuring, your staff says 

it will be about $385 million loss. Do you see what I am referring 

to there? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Yes. I am not on this email chain but—— 

Mr. POMPEO. No, sir, you are not, but they work for you. 

Mr. ZIENTS. I am sorry? 

Mr. POMPEO. You are not on the chain but they work for you. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Right. So, you know, our staff is obviously pressuretesting and understanding an evolving situation, the restructuring 

was actually done in February—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Right. 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. Off of DOE’s recommendation. OMB decided that that was reasonable. At this point in time, there was information that the staff was looking at. The information obviously 

evolved across that period of time. As OMB got more information, 

the DOE made its final recommendation. OMB determined that 

DOE’s recommendation was reasonable to restructure the loan. 

Mr. POMPEO. Can you show me that evolution because there is 

no evidence in the documents I have reviewed of any evolution. 

This is what your agency though on January 4 of 2011, and I have 

seen no data that would suggest there was an evolution other than 

your testimony here this morning. 

Mr. ZIENTS. Well, first of all, this is an email from one analyst—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Multiple emails. 

Mr. ZIENTS. I would not represent—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Read the whole—— 

Mr. ZIENTS [continuing]. That that is to what the agency—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Read the whole chain, sir. These folks think this is 

a horrible idea to go forward with this restructuring. They think 

the taxpayers will lose. And these are the only government officials 

in the entire process that seem to me to have demonstrated to have 

concern for taxpayer finances. 

Mr. ZIENTS. OMB’s role here is to make sure that this budgeted 

for correctly. Ultimately, DOE has—is ultimately responsible for 

the decision as to whether or not to restructure or liquidate. 

Mr. POMPEO. Yes. 

Mr. ZIENTS. OMB determined that that was a reasonable conclusion. 

Mr. POMPEO. Do you think it was a reasonable conclusion today, 

sitting here today? Do you think it was a reasonable conclusion? 

Mr. ZIENTS. It is unclear—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Well, what is your opinion, sir? Do you think it was 

a reasonable conclusion? 

Mr. ZIENTS. To restructure the loan when it does? 

Mr. POMPEO. Um-hum. 

Mr. ZIENTS. I think that there is reason to believe that that was 

reasonable at that point in time. 

Mr. POMPEO. Reason to believe it was reasonable and you are not 

a lawyer? I mean an answer like that—— 

Mr. ZIENTS. It was a reasonable conclusion at that point in time. 

Mr. POMPEO. Mr. Silver, do you think it was a reasonable conclusion to do the restructuring at this time? 

147 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, I do, Congressman. We did a detailed liquidation analysis, which suggested that the returns would be 2 to 4x 

below what they would be as a going concern. And to do that, we 

evaluated the price of the buildings and the land. We also evaluated the value of inventory on a going concern basis. What you do 

on a going concern basis, just to be clear, is you match it with what 

are called IBA—— 

Mr. POMPEO. I am very familiar with that—— 

Mr. SILVER. So you use—and since you are, you will know that 

we scour the market for comparables. We took the low end of the 

comparables, and then we measured that against the liquidation. 

Mr. POMPEO. So you were just wrong? But you still believe you 

might be right because—— 

Mr. SILVER. Well, you don’t know what will happen—— 

Mr. POMPEO. Right. So what do you think? Do you think we did 

a good deal? 

Mr. SILVER. I think that when you are called on to make a judgment at the time with the best available information you have, you 

go with the probabilistic return. 

Mr. POMPEO. Right. And so you think it was realistic to subordinate the taxpayer at that time as well as part of that restructuring? 

Mr. SILVER. Every piece of data that we had from independent 

analysts about the technology at that time—which we reunderwrote the technology and the market space. We had another 

market report done—all seemed to suggest that that could happen. 

Mr. POMPEO. I appreciate it. I just want to ask one more question. My time is up. I have listened to you for several hours now, 

just yes or no, do you both just treat this as just the normal cost 

of doing business? Is that how you think this failure at Solyndra— 

you just think this was the normal cost of doing business? You talk 

about portfolio theory, this stuff happens, bad things happen. 

Would you both just say yes or no? This is just the way things go? 

Yes or no. 

Mr. SILVER. I think that while it is very regrettable, the loss was 

anticipated and when Congress set out the credit—appropriated 

credit subsidy—— 

Mr. POMPEO. You think it is very normal. Mr. Zients? 

Mr. ZIENTS. It is not normal. It is a very disappointing outcome, 

but it comes with the terrain of backing innovative technologies. 

Mr. POMPEO. Yes, it is part of what happens when the government gets involved in things like this. I agree. 

Mr. SILVER. Well, it is also what is required in order to compete 

successfully with what is happening around the world, particularly 

in China. 

Mr. POMPEO. Solyndra certainly wasn’t capable of competing 

even in spite of all of this government assistance, were they? 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. POMPEO. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STEARNS. I think we are ready to close—— 

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. STEARNS. —end the committee unless the gentleman from 

Massachusetts wishes to participate in the second round. 

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman. 

148 

Mr. STEARNS. Oh, Mr. Bilbray, too. So Mr. Bilbray, you will be 

after the gentleman from Massachusetts. We have recognized Mr. 

Markey for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have to compliment my Republican colleagues on their discipline, but after weighing these relentless and very serious allegations of lawbreaking and inappropriate politicization of the loan 

guarantee process, I am unconvinced. Three years of due diligence 

was exercised in considering this application. OMB completed their 

review process, albeit in expedited manner due to the nature of a 

Recovery Act that needed to get money out the door as quickly as 

possible. I would add that the chairman of the subcommittee and 

the full committee expressed a need to get Recovery Act money out 

the door quickly after that law was passed. 

Mr. Silver, do you believe that the Department cut corners in 

considering this loan guarantee in the months and years leading up 

to its finalization in September of 2009? 

Mr. SILVER. Again, with a review of the record—I wasn’t there, 

but with a review of the record, no, I don’t believe so. 

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Zients, was OMB able to do and exercise their 

oversight role to complete a comprehensive review of the Department of Energy’s loan package to Solyndra? 

Mr. ZIENTS. Yes. My belief is yes. 

Mr. MARKEY. When you pulled thousands of pages of emails, can 

you tell whatever story you would like when you look back retrospectively? You know, we live life forwards but we understand it 

backwards. Is it possible to—— 

Mr. SILVER. I believe that—— 

Mr. MARKEY [continuing]. Create any storyline? 

Mr. SILVER. I believe that can happen, yes, sir. 

Mr. MARKEY. The majority has chosen to politicize this program 

and it is attempting to discredit clean energy the same way they 

have tried to do to climate science. It is that simple. That simple. 

What this really reminds me of, to be honest with you, is the late 

1990s after this committee had passed the Telecommunications Act 

of 1990 and there was a boom on broadband. And many companies 

failed. Pets.com., the list is long. On the other hand, there were 

companies that, in the new environment that we had created, were 

successful. EBay, Amazon, Google, YouTube, the list goes on. There 

were many successes, many failures because we created a paranoia-inducing Darwinian marketplace. What is different here, of 

course, and what no one anticipated in 2009—although we were in 

a competition with the Chinese—and by the way, when we passed 

the Telecommunications Act, we were trying to make sure we 

branded it Made in the USA, which we did. That is how people 

view that internet revolution in Egypt and Tunisia and countries 

around the world. But here, the Chinese have now decided to dump 

$20 billion into 4 companies. Can you talk about that, Mr. Silver? 

Can you talk about this environment now within which American 

solar companies, wind companies are now competing against a 

state-run set of corporations against our private-sector companies? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes, Congressman, I would be happy to. Not only, 

as you pointed out, has China underwritten its solar manufacturing industry with tens and tens of billions of dollars, they have, 

149 

as I indicated earlier, produced and provided a wide array of additional support facilities including free land and other kinds of 

things. There are also mechanisms in place for the purchase of 

those panels in the domestic market that don’t exist here. 

But I don’t think we should limit our focus to China alone. Countries around the world understand the importance and the viability 

of this space, and it is important that we take this as a global challenge. There will only be one opportunity for us to become a winner 

here and if we miss that window, we will have missed a multitrillion-dollar market. 

Mr. MARKEY. I thank you. I think if we keep China here as the 

headline and we understand what we were trying to do in putting 

together a plan, we had a plan for telecom. China and the United 

States are pretty much starting at the same point in solar and 

wind. We were trying to put together a plan, batteries as well. 

Let me also say this. You can look back and I can right now say 

there is an NRC senior scientist who has a memo to all the NRC 

commissioners saying that the AP1000, which is the reactor the 

Southern Company wants to build, will crack like a glass cup if 

there is an earthquake. Now, you can keep that memo and you can 

say that is the reason we should give no loan guarantees to the 

Southern Company or other companies. We can just say we waited 

in the totality of all the evidence. 

I am hearing my Republican colleagues expressing a great deal of angst about whether or not a $535 million loan guarantee should 

have been given to Solyndra when there is no evidence that they 

have expressed any concerns about far larger guarantees that have 

been given to the Southern Company, to other companies that 

could in fact wind up with billions of dollars ultimately being put 

on the shoulders of the taxpayers in our country. And I am talking 

specifically about the nuclear sector. There is a fundamental crisis 

happening in Japan and Germany and other countries. We are part 

of a global story and it is impacting the domestic nuclear industry. 

Those loan guarantees could come back to haunt the taxpayers in 

our country and I hope that we see a similar interest in that subject, because that is happening right now. And now is the time for 

this committee to exercise the due diligence to protect the taxpayer. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired and the gentleman from California, Mr. Bilbray, is recognized. 

Mr. BILBRAY. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Let me join with my colleague 

from Massachusetts and call for a hearing on the nuclear issue because I think, you know, the gentleman from Massachusetts has to 

remember that like just last week in San Diego, the plants shut 

down exactly as planned during a blackout exactly as posed to get 

the facts from Japan. And as somebody who has a nuclear facility 

in his county, I am more confident now of the safety of our technology than I was beforehand and remind the gentleman from Massachusetts that the beautiful bay of San Diego Bay is full of nuclear reactors being run by 20-something-year-old kids. And it is 

safer and cleaner because we have those reactors in San Diego Bay. 

But getting back to the issue here is that the technology was not 

keeping up with the hype. And as somebody that still feels strongly 

about the opportunity of clean technology, I think the inappropriate 

150 

application of political influence or perception—and I don’t think 

this was an intentional misdeed. I think it is a much deeper problem that this was a prejudiced for a broad definition of technology 

as if somehow this was going to be the answer for everything. 

First of all, let me clarify the gentleman from Massachusetts 

pointed out that China has been aggressive on this, I will remind 

you that this plant was cited where the electricity was 22 cents a 

kilowatt, twice of what it is in Ohio and where China is producing 

them in an area where there is 6 cents a kilowatt is what they are 

charging. So, Mr. Silver, all of this does relate to the productivity 

and the ability to compete in a world market, doesn’t it? 

Mr. SILVER. Yes. Certainly, citing issues are relevant. 

Mr. BILBRAY. And shouldn’t these things be considered along 

with the specific technology that is being proposed to provide a certain product by asking for the grant? 

Mr. SILVER. Once again, Congressman, we don’t provide grants, 

but I think what you mean is—— 

Mr. BILBRAY. The loan guarantee. 

Mr. SILVER. The technologies that we underwrite are those that 

are spelled out in the legislation. We don’t search out those that 

aren’t. 

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. I have a question for you specifically. This part 

of the stimulus bill, San Diego we are siting a French facility to 

build solar panels specifically because we have a stationary source. 

First thing we do is not try to build a new facility. California, as 

everyone knows, has had businesses fleeing. We have huge open 

warehouses, and the logic our mayor is making and we are making 

working with him is why don’t we go ahead and retrofit existing 

structures rather than building one? The fact that this was proposing to take virgin farmland and go from the ground up and 

build all the construction of a whole new building with all the related so-called stimulus of building on virgin land on the ground 

up, did that have any influence in the fact that this was included 

in the stimulus bill, not just the green part of it, of the hope that 

all solar was going to be good, but the fact that you had a whole 

new factory being build in California, probably the only one even 

being considered? Do you think that had any influence on the approval of this process that the fact that they were capitalizing a 

whole new facility rather than retrofitting an existing one? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know how to answer that. The applications 

that we receive come in from the sponsors themselves, so the proposal, the project has already been put together by private sector 

actors, including the investors in whatever project it is. 

Mr. BILBRAY. But that is in the prospectus. 

Mr. SILVER. No, they are making—they are actually filing an application for a specific—funding for a specific project. 

Mr. BILBRAY. But the technical review had that in consideration. 

Mr. SILVER. Well, the technical review—— 

Mr. BILBRAY. That was part of the documentation they gave the 

Technical Review Board. 

Mr. SILVER. The technical review is intended to ensure that the 

technology works, which clearly it did—they sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of product—and to ensure that the plant will 

be built in such a way as to produce them appropriately. 

151 

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. So in other words, do you or do you not feel 

that the fact that they had a major capital improvement proposed 

in this package helped sell it as part of the stimulus package? 

Mr. SILVER. I don’t know the answer to that. We don’t evaluate 

projects on the basis of their impact for non-project-specific activities. We manage them against a criteria and objectives of the program. 

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. I am going to ask you again because you had 

time to talk to your staff about it. Are you aware or has anybody 

made you aware of your agency actually intervening about the 

siting of where production sites should be placed as a condition of 

getting the loan guarantee? 

Mr. SILVER. I am not aware of that, no. 

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. I would ask you to specifically ask that question and investigate that question. 

Mr. SILVER. I am happy to do so. 

Mr. BILBRAY. Because I have good information that that specifically has been made a condition of some grants, at least one, that 

the production line needs to built in a certain area and not in another area and that is something that has been documented to me 

very strongly. And I think it is real critical. 

My biggest problem here, again, is that the perception that solar 

is good means all solar proposals are good and why don’t we move 

it? 

Mr. SILVER. Congressman, if I may, we received literally hundreds and hundreds of applications, dozens and dozens of solar—— 

Mr. BILBRAY. Let me just say that this was a half-a-billion-dollar 

mistake and I would ask that we point out that there was an action taken by your body under a justification of a legal definition 

that I think is a threat to both Democrats and Republicans that 

the word ‘‘is’’ is, and that for somebody to sit there and ignore the 

law and redefine the word ‘‘is’’ I think the American people are outraged that a half-a-billion-dollar issue was raised while legal jargon 

was ignoring the fact that the law is in there. And I don’t think 

Democrat or Republican wants to have to add in every law that it 

will never happen. 

I yield back to the gentleman. 

Mr. STEARNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. I think we have 

finished and we have had a very good discussion. I want to thank 

the witnesses. 

Does the ranking gentlelady have any concluding comments before I wrap up? 

Ms. DEGETTE. I want to thank the witnesses for coming today. 

I think we had a very spirited and interesting discussion about 

both the specifics of this deal and also the future of Federal Government’s role in solar energy. I am very much looking forward to 

the testimony of the executives of Solyndra next week and I would 

hope, Mr. Chairman, that we can have a more orderly way of presenting documents. 

Mr. MARKEY. Would the gentlelady yield? 

Ms. DEGETTE. I yield, sure. 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, we are just trying to conclude this—— 

Mr. MARKEY. Through the gentlelady I would like to urge that 

we have a hearing on the risk premium which DOE and OMB are 

152 

charging to the nuclear industry for loan guarantees postFukushima and post the Wall Street reassessment. This is happening right now. We should get ahead of this issue and hold these 

hearings. 

Mr. STEARNS. I will take that under advisement. 

Let me conclude by just saying to both of you that I think you 

should, based upon what I hear today, go back and look at all solar 

panel projects of stimulus package. I think when you realize that 

the solar industry is truly dependent on subsidies and the government pays about 30 percent of the cost of businesses to invest, consumers get a federal tax credit of $2,000 for their renewables, 

States are throwing in a hefty portion of additional incentives, and 

they are offering a subsidy of residential solar as much as $2.50 

per installed watt, and you look at all of this and you do the analysis, even at $140 a barrel, the idea that solar panels are going to 

break even is questionable. So I think with that, particularly in 

light of what is happening in China, I think your office would be 

well to look at all the other stimulus package dealing with photovoltaic cells. 

And with that, the subcommittee is adjourned. 

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. STEARNS. Yes? 

Mr. BURGESS. May I just ask a question before adjourning? Our 

written questions will be permitted and they will be responded to 

and included in the record? 

Mr. STEARNS. They will. They will be. And the witnesses will be 

responsible for answering these questions under the order of the 

House. 

Mr. BURGESS. And further, Mr. Chairman, I am grateful we have 

the CEO and CFO of Solyndra coming in. I think it is very important that we have the Secretary of Energy and the chairman—— 

Mr. STEARNS. I think Secretary Chu should be invited, I think 

he should attend, and because the questions both sides have 

brought up, I think his credibility on this project should be part of 

the witness process. And so I think—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Secretary Lew as well? 

Mr. STEARNS. Secretary Lew as well, yes. 

Mr. BURGESS. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you. Subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:38 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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