Dept. of Energy almost gave Solyndra another $469 million.
And they were laughing about it.
Solyndra e-mails: Dept. of Energy was poised to approve $469 million for firm
The Obama administration’s Department of Energy was poised last summer to give Solyndra a second major taxpayer loan of $469 million, even as the company’s financial situation was growing more dire.
The Energy Department was actively pushing to provide the second loan guarantee to the troubled solar-panel manufacturer in April and May 2010, when Solyndra’s auditors warned the company was in danger of closing due to its rapidly mounting debts and expenses, according to complete e-mails just released by a House committee investigating the original loan.
White House career staffers, who had first raised concerns in the fall of 2009 about the Department of Energy providing Solyndra with its first taxpayer-backed loan of $535 million , wrote e-mails in gallows humor in April 2010 about the prospect of giving Solyndra more money. That spring, industry analysts were publicly questioning how the Silicon Valley startup could so quickly be running out both the federal loan and $933 million in private capital.
‘Apparently the loan size for Phase II is $469 million,’ one Office of Management and Budget analyst wrote of DOE seeking a second loan for Solyndra. The analysts’s name was not released by the committee. ‘I’ve been told we should expect the see that project soon for conditional commitment.’
Another joked: ‘Possible to close and default on one before closing on a second??? Could be a new record.’
Nothing is funnier than wasting almost a billion dollars of tax payer’s money.
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