There’s plenty of blame to go around in the green-energy debacle of Solyndra, but the blame begins with the executives of the solar-panel company itself.
That’s a big takeaway from the Energy Department inspector general’s new report on Solyndra, a company once highly touted by the White House that collapsed in 2011 after getting a $535 million federal loan two years earlier.
The IG’s report finds that executives with the California company, ahead of winning the loan, repeatedly gave the Energy Department, the credit-rating agency Fitch, and outside analysts bad, overly rosy information about its sales contracts.
“Our investigation confirmed that during the loan guarantee application process and while drawing down loan proceeds, Solyndra provided the Department with statements, assertions, and certifications that were inaccurate and misleading, misrepresented known facts, and, in some instances, omitted information that was highly relevant to key decisions in the process to award and execute the $535 million loan guarantee,” the report states.
“In our view, the investigative record suggests that the actions of certain Solyndra officials were, at best, reckless and irresponsible or, at worst, an orchestrated effort to knowingly and intentionally deceive and mislead the Department,” it adds.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/oversight/2015/08/energy-report-solyndra-knowingly-ripped-government/119582/
