Research

Here’s a quick review of the more notable and troubling moments from Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s testimony today before the House Energy & Commerce committee.

When asked if taxpayers will recover any of the $535 million taxpayers loaned to Solyndra, Secretary Chu responded that Americans won’t recovery “very much” at all.

Unfortunately, Secretary Chu (and presumably, the rest of the Obama administration including President Obama) refused to apologize for Solyndra’s failure. In other words, half a billion dollars lost isn’t exactly a big deal.

What is probably most troubling of all is that Secretary Chu testified today that he was NOT AWARE of Solyndra’s red flags, despite all of the warnings from various staff.

Secretary Of Energy Steven Chu said knowing what he knows now, he wouldn’t approve the Solyndra loan. But he did try to spin that it was impossible for him to know… guess he must have missed all the warning signs.

In a more troubling development, Secretary Chu said he only recently learned that someone in the White House or his own Department of Energy asked Solyndra to delay the firings until AFTER the 2010 elections. What’s more troubling – that Chu was unaware of what was going on or that the White House indeed was playing politics on Solyndra?

Secretary Chu testified that he didn’t know there was political pressure on Solyndra to avoid layoffs and agreed that it wasn’t a proper way to do business. Unfortunately, that’s what happened.