In his usual style, Joe Nocera is out today with a column filled with the supposed "facts" about the Solyndra debacle and why it is a "phony scandal" ginned up by Republicans who just want to embarrass the Obama administration.
Of course, the problem with Nocera's analysis is that, as usual, it makes no sense. Nocera basically reviews the reason for the Aerican government to subsidize green energy jobs. In his view, such subsidies are not criminal; it is a view with which most folks would agree. It is not the actual issue, however. Nocera completely ignores each of these points:
1) The program under which Solyndra got federal money was actually passed in during the Bush administration. In January 2009, right before Obama took office, the Bush administration rejected the funding of Solyndra after a thorough review of the Solyndra proposal. Solyndra was not considered at that time to be likely to succeed. Within six weeks of Obama taking office, the Solyndra loan guarantees were back alive and there was substantial pressure coming from the White House for quick approval of the loan. How did a loan which had been rejected as unlikely to succeed suddenly become a darling of the White House once Obama took office? Did this have anything to do with the massive campaign contributions that the Solyndra folks gave to the Obama campaign? Even if the pressure was unrelated to the campaign cash, why did the Obamacrats decide that this previously rejected loan now merited a full court press?
2) Nocera points out the the main killer of Solyndra was the drastic fall in the price of solar panels during 2010 and continuing until today. Assuming this is correct and that none of the federal funds were siphoned off to other uses, this price decline is not something that was unknown to Washington. Why did the Obamacrats continue to pour money into Solyndra for more than a year after its business model was shown to be a failure? Nocera can and does ignore that question, but the investigation into Solyndra cannot.
3) The law under which Solyndra got most of its cash from the federal government requires that the United States gets a first lien on all of the company's assets. In other words, if the company goes under, the taxpayers get paid back first out of what remains. Just a few months ago, long after the price of solar panels had collapsed, the Obamacrats made a new deal with Solyndra. In this new deal, the private investors in Solyndra were given priority over the government. In other words, the very statute under which the first loan was made was violated and the Solyndra investors (including some big Obama contributors) got a chance to get their money back before the taxpayers got a dime. Remember, Solyndra has buildings and land in California which are worth millions. It is not enough to repay the federal money sunk into the company, but it is enough to come close to repaying those investors who are now ahead of the USA in line for that cash.
4) During the last six months, the Obamacrats had a representative at the meetings of the board of directors of Solyndra. In other words, Obama's people knew that the company was failing. They knew that there was no turn around. They new that the federal funds were flowing out the door. Fut they did nothing! Why was that?
Solyndra is not a phony scandal except in the talking points world of Joe Nocera. It clearly merits a careful investigation. We do not yet know why the Obamacrats gave the Solyndra folks so much help when they clearly did not merit it. Was it incompetence? That certainly would not be surprising in an administration that has raised incompetence to an art form. Was it a pay off to a big contributor? We will soon see. Was there more here to explain the unexplainable? It has to be investigated.
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