House Republicans are broadening their probe of the Department of Energy’s largest solar-loan guarantee.
Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent letters to the White House and BrightSource Energy Inc., the loan-guarantee recipient, asking for e-mails and other documents related to the $1.6 billion deal. The Wall Street Journal viewed copies of the letters, which are dated June 7.
The letters come after the Journal reported Wednesday on BrightSource’s intense lobbying push in the weeks before its loan closed in April 2011.
- Via Bloomberg
- BrightSource Energy Inc.’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, which would use tracking mirrors called heliostats to focus the sun’s energy on boilers, is seen in the Mojave Desert of California, in this rendering released in April 2011.
The company, which needed to close the loan that month or risk the entire deal going under, hired a former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden to lobby the administration and prepared a draft letter from its chairman to White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley asking for “a commitment from the WH [White House] to quarterback the loan closure,” according to federal records, e-mails viewed by the Journal, and people involved in the deal.
The company says it never sent the letter to Mr. Daley, but it did sent a letter to the head of the Department of Energy’s loan program on March 7, 2011, according to the e-mails. That official quickly reassured BrightSource the deal was on track.
BrightSource and the Department of Energy said the decision to close the loan deal was made on the merits. The company says the project, a large solar power plant called Ivanpah in the Mojave Desert, is on schedule.
Mr. Issa’s committee in March asked BrightSource and other loan guarantee recipients for communications with the Department of Energy prior to key announcement related to the deals. The June 7 letter broadens that request and asks for all communications between BrightSource’s officers and board members and the White House and federal agencies between February 2009 and June 2012.
A second letter from the committee asks the White House to turn over all internal communications related to BrightSource, including with the company’s investors and with utilities set to buy its electricity. It also asks for an explanation of how Commerce Secretary John Bryson, BrightSource’s former chairman, was vetted for his current post.
Asked about the letter, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said “given the challenges facing the country, we wish House Republicans showed as much zeal for creating jobs or growing the economy as they do for these tired partisan fights.”
A BrightSource spokesman said the company has received the letter and is reviewing it.
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