# The Solyndra Scandal:Does It Have the Potential to Hurt Obama? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 15, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401 "2011-09-15T16:04:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/1 "2011-09-15T16:04:57Z")
$538 million down the drain. Link:[Solyndra bankruptcy was disaster waiting to happen - CNET](http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20102063-54/solyndra-bankruptcy-was-disaster-waiting-to-happen/) Since this was “stimulus” money, and Obama is trying to promote “green” jobs, I can see this disaster as a double edged sword- Obama looks like he was bamboozled, and the suspicion that principals of Solyndra (who were contributors to Obama) got their money out before the bankrupcey, looks bad. At the very least, it calls into question the government’s ability to pick winners-what happens if GM winds up writing off the oft-touted “Volt”? These errors keep on coming-are they enough to doom Obama’s reelection? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/2 "2011-09-15T16:27:37Z")
You think the government backed GM because it was a _winner_? ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/3 "2011-09-15T16:37:11Z")
I’ll be interested to see how the story develops. Right now, from the little I’ve read, it appears that Obama and/or “White House Staff” applied some degree of pressure to get a decision made on the loan prior to some public event Obama was a part of…it is not clear to me whether the “White House Staff” urged approval regardless of negatives, or whether they merely urged a quick decision one way or the other. The situation appears to have potential to hurt Obama, and if the story has legs, I expect it to be a campaign issue. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/4 "2011-09-15T16:47:25Z")
The story is dated the sixth. This is the fifteenth. Did I miss the massive tidal wave of outrage and fury? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/5 "2011-09-15T16:50:42Z")
Like pretty much all of \*\*ralphie’\*\*s posts, this is a non-story. Solyndra’s financing was [originally a Bush Administration pet project](http://www.seeingtheforest.com/archives/2011/09/the_phony_solyn.htm). The Department of Energy has backed loans to something like 500 “green tech” companies. Of course some of them are going to fail. Solyndra’s problem was trying to build stuff in the US, which made it uncompetitive on price. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/6 "2011-09-15T16:55:58Z")
I first heard about it while watching Anderson Cooper last night. It may be snowballing…here’s an [ABC story](http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/emails-obama-white-house-monitored-huge-loan-connected/story?id=14508865&fb_ref=abc-fb-recs) from September 13th. (Warning, autoplaying video with sound above the text). ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/7 "2011-09-15T17:50:07Z")
Here’s a timeline of the “scandal”, also from the 13th, detailing how Solyndra’s loan process began under Bush and how the Bush administration tried to rush approval through before Obama took office. [http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/13/317594/timeline-bush-administration-solyndra-loan-guarantee/](http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/13/317594/timeline-bush-administration-solyndra-loan-guarantee/) Summary: > [@](#): > > 1. The Bush team tried to conditionally approve the Solyndra loan just before President Obama took office. > > 2.The company’s backers included private investors who had diverse political interests. > > 1. The loan comprises just 1.3% of DOE’s overall loan portfolio. To date, Solyndra is the only loan that’s known to be troubled. Bottom line: There is no scandal but some people are hoping it will be the new Whitewater. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/8 "2011-09-15T18:25:47Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > Bottom line: There is no scandal but some people are hoping it will be the new Whitewater. Exactly. Right now, not even the most fanatical right-wing crackpot seriously thinks this will lead to impeachment. Instead, the hope is that, like Whitewater, this will be a persistent low-to-medium grade scandal that will somewhat hinder the effectiveness of the Obama Administration. Also, because this involves solar energy, I think there’s further hope among backers of old “dirty” energy sources like coal, oil, and nuclear that this will demonstrate that new “clean” energy sources like solar, wind, and others are nothing more than expensive pie-in-the-sky solutions proposed by people with fraudulent intentions. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/9 "2011-09-15T19:28:18Z")
You got us out of bed for a piddling $538 _million_? Stick a “b” or a “tr” on that illion if you expect anyone to give a hoot, these days. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/10 "2011-09-15T19:32:14Z")
This was not a fraudulent technology, or pie-in-the-sky project. It was simply a technology that couldn’t compete with quickly falling flat panel PV prices. There is no scandal here. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/11 "2011-09-15T20:10:43Z")
Just taking the surface here, the fact that this company failed is unfortunate. That the reason it failed is because the price to produce solar panels is dropping rapidly is fucking fabulous. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/12 "2011-09-15T20:17:26Z")
Chump change, for sure, but it does have the potential to be a campaign issue for Obama because he made such a big deal about this particular company by visiting it in person and saying how it was the wave of the future, yada, yada, yada. Juxtaposing his speech there with a BANKRUPT image and something like 1,000 people laid off with no severance will make a nice little ad for someone. Nobody is going to care what Bush did or did not do in 2007 or whatever. It also has the potential to tie up his jobs bill, as there is an investigation going on in the House right now. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/13 "2011-09-15T20:45:28Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > That the reason it failed is because the price to produce solar panels is dropping rapidly is fucking fabulous. It would be if the price reduction were not being driven by Chinese government subsidies to Chinese manufacturers. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/14 "2011-09-15T20:45:33Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Chump change, for sure, but it does have the potential to be a campaign issue for Obama because he made such a big deal about this particular company by visiting it in person and saying how it was the wave of the future, yada, yada, yada. Juxtaposing his speech there with a BANKRUPT image and something like 1,000 people laid off with no severance will make a nice little ad for someone. Nobody is going to care what Bush did or did not do in 2007 or whatever. Yeah, that’s pretty much what I meant by comparing this to Whitewater. There’s nothing to it but some people are hoping to use it as political ammunition with the kind of voters who get confused by facts. I guess they need something new now that the birth certificate thing has mostly petered out except for the diehard. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/15 "2011-09-15T21:23:04Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Solyndra’s financing was [originally a Bush Administration pet project](http://www.seeingtheforest.com/archives/2011/09/the_phony_solyn.htm). Per this [ABC news article](http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/solyndra-blame-bush-obama-officials/story?id=14513389), in Congressional testimony yesterday Republicans claimed to have evidence that the final action on this while Bush was president was a decision to shelve the loan application. If true, that would mean it was later action that moved it along. > [@](#): > > “By the time the Obama administration took office in late January 2009, the loan programs’ staff had already established a goal of, and timeline for, issuing the company a conditional loan guarantee commitment in March 2009,” said Jonathan Silver, who heads the Energy loan program. > > Republicans pushed back hard against this version of events, unearthing internal Energy Department emails that indicate the panel evaluating the loans had made the unanimous decision to shelve Solyndra’s application two weeks before Obama took office. > > Blaming the failed loan on the Bush administration marked an abrupt turn for the Energy Department, which had championed the Solyndra loan as a model for its efforts to build a so-called “green energy” industry that creates jobs and safeguards the environment. The Solyndra loan was so central to this strategy that the administration initially planned to have Obama personally announce it, and later sent the president to the company’s solar panel manufacturing facility in Fremont, California to celebrate its work. Back when Solyndra was looking good, was there any tendency to share credit with Bush for this? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/16 "2011-09-15T21:25:21Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > It would be if the price reduction were not being driven by Chinese government subsidies to Chinese manufacturers. If the Chinese want to subsidize my PV cells, that’s fine with me. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/17 "2011-09-15T22:05:11Z")
This is actually an example of why it is hard for government to act more like the private sector, because partisan fools prevent it. The firm looks like it was a perfectly good bet. A bet that did not pay off, but that’s the purpose of venture financing. Take risks. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/18 "2011-09-15T22:14:06Z")
_Cough_ Megan has the rundown here, and there no way Obama looks good here. > **[Solyndra Gets More Scandalous](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/solyndra-gets-more-scandalous/245130/)** > > The problem with Solyndra is that it represents a movement to enable politically favored technologies In your eagerness to rush to Dem talking points, a few board individuals may have lightly forgotten the look at facts. Megan has names, dates, and sources, and they don’t look very solid for Obama in any way. Corruption? Probably not, according to her (I don’t care, asuming it’s inevitable. But stupid, yes. And no, it was a terrible investment and this was balatantly obvious at the time. Note, too, that Megan isn’t exactly a conservative. She’s more or less libertarian, and I disagree with her on a great many things. And she voted for the Big O, as well as generally supporting more Dems than Reps as far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/19 "2011-09-15T23:07:58Z")
Yeah, it was a bad call. And, generally speaking, the government shouldn’t be in the business of venture capital. Any bad “optics” is deserved, as far as I can tell. The right answer for spurring innovation in clean energy is a carbon tax. Unfortunately there is neither political donations nor political hay to be made from pushing for that. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401/20 "2011-09-15T23:23:39Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > _Cough_ > > Megan has the rundown here, and there no way Obama looks good here. > [Solyndra Gets More Scandalous - The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/solyndra-gets-more-scandalous/245130/) > > In your eagerness to rush to Dem talking points, a few board individuals may have lightly forgotten the look at facts. Megan has names, dates, and sources, and they don’t look very solid for Obama in any way. Corruption? Probably not, according to her (I don’t care, asuming it’s inevitable. But stupid, yes. And no, it was a terrible investment and this was balatantly obvious at the time. > > Note, too, that Megan isn’t exactly a conservative. She’s more or less libertarian, and I disagree with her on a great many things. And she voted for the Big O, as well as generally supporting more Dems than Reps as far as I can tell. There’s nothing in Megan McCardell’s article that disputes what I wrote earlier or which makes Obama personally look bad. 1. There are emails dated 2009 from the Whitehouse asking when the decision to make the loan will be made because they want to talk about it in an upcoming engagement and need to know if they can put it on the schedule. This is not the same thing as emails saying “You must pass this loan and you must pass it by this date.” In point of fact, the current DeO loan officer just testified to congress: > [@](#): > > But at Wednesday’s hearing before the Energy and Commerce subcommittee, Jonathan Silver, executive director of DOE’s loan programs office, insisted he wasn’t under pressure to approve Solyndra’s financing, and Jeffrey Zients, deputy director for OMB’s management office, said, “Our analysis … reflected the information as it was understood at that time.” > > While Zients conceded that emails among the White House did seek to coordinate the Solyndra loan guarantee with Biden’s appearance, he reiterated at Wednesday’s hearing that such scheduling had “nothing to do with the decision to give the loan or not.” > [Solyndra: White House Pushes Back As House Republicans Probe Loan Guarantees | HuffPost Impact](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/14/solyndra-white-house-loan-guarantees_n_962712.html) (about half way down) 1. McCardell tries to make much of the fact that the Energy Department turned down Solyndra for a loan on January 9, 2009, before Obama’s inauguration in order to defuse the idea that Solyndra’s loan process started during the Bush administration. Actually the loan department didn’t _deny_ the loan to Solyndra on Jan. 9, they just said the application wasn’t ready to proceed. The loan was turned down without prejudice and Solyndra was eligible to reapply. Anybody who’s ever applied for a loan will recognize this sort of issue. McCardell skips lightly past the point that the whole program was created by the Bush administration in 2006, that it was the Bush Administration Department of Energy who initially declared Solyndra to be eligible for the loans in 2007 ([cite](http://fefwww.istockanalyst.com/article/viewnewspaged/articleid/2686855/pageid/1)) and that it was the Bush DoE which put Solyndra up for that review committee in the first place. As DoE loan official Jonathon Silver, who I quoted above says: > [@](#): > > In fact, the Energy Department began reviewing the deal during the Bush administration, advancing through the review and approval process between 2006 and 2009. A report submitted by the credit committee on Jan. 9, 2009, shows the committee decided to continue the due diligence process rather than to recommend the loan guarantee immediately proceed for further approvals. > > As Silver noted in his testimony, the Energy Department during the Bush administration rejected more than 100 other applications while inviting Solyndra and 15 other companies to continue their applications, and the Obama administration ultimately approved the Solyndra loan guarantee on “the exact schedule that had been developed during the Bush administration.” 1. Incidentally - you know who else put money into Solyndra besides Democratic supporter George Kaiser? The Waltons, of Walmart fame, and well known conservative darlings. Gosh - you don’t suppose that the Bush Administration’s original approval of Solyndra could indicate something fishy about the loan process because the Waltons support conservative fundraisers? (No, I’m not serious.) 1. McCardle tries to blow off the fact that many investors, not the just the government, thought they were a good investment. I don’t think I have to provide a cite for the fact the Waltons and George Kaiser do not make a habit of backing failing companies. 2. And McCardell prefers to ignore this point but it bears repeating. **Solyndra is just one of many programs which has received money under this DoE progam and it’s the only one which is in trouble.** The loan program as a whole is working just fine (unless you’re a libertarian and are just angry that the program exists at all.) 3. McCardell ends her article by saying that the problem is using government money for politically-backed private companies. Again, she’s vastly overstating the idea that Solyndra received its loan for political reasons while ignoring the politics of its conservative investors and loan instigators, as well as failing to mention that Solyndra is just one small piece of the loan program and the only one with a problem. So yeah. Not impressed by “Megan”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-solyndra-scandal-does-it-have-the-potential-to-hurt-obama/596401.md?page=2)