White House Releases More E-Mails on Solyndra

The New York Times

Saturday, January 14, 2012

White House Releases More E-Mails on Solyndra

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — The White House has given House Republican investigators an additional 66 pages of internal correspondence relating to Solyndra, the solar equipment manufacturer that filed for bankruptcy after accepting a $535 million loan guarantee, and the e-mails reflect significant anxiety about the poor financial prospects of the administration’s flagship choice to demonstrate how federal help could add to building a clean energy economy.

But the new documents do not appear to support the Republicans’ contention that the White House steered the loan guarantee to Solyndra, a company whose investors included an Obama campaign donor.

In one e-mail, dated Oct. 27, 2010, Heather R. Zichal, the deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, told Carol M. Browner, the White House’s chief staff member on climate change: “Solyndra is going to announce that they are laying off 200 of their 1,200 workers. No es bueno.”

That announcement was postponed until the day after the midterm elections of Nov. 2, 2010, apparently at the urging of the Department of Energy. The newly released material, which was given to The New York Times by a government official, does not comment on the timing or include evidence to support the contention of some Republicans that the delay was requested by the White House.

Two days after the Oct. 27 e-mail, Ms. Zichal responded to one from Joe Aldy, then the special assistant to the president for energy and environment, who said, “Not a good start for the first closed loan guarantee.”

The e-mails and other documents were supplied to the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which has held several hearings on Solyndra. The Republicans leading the committee and subcommittee, Representatives Fred Upton of Michigan and Cliff Stearns of Florida, respectively, said in a statement that the White House had released only a “handful” of documents and reiterated the charge that the loan guarantee process was “tainted by stimulus politics from the outset.”

The committee also announced on Thursday that it was also seeking documents from SAIC, the parent company of a consulting firm that the Energy Department hired to evaluate Solyndra, and the Government Services Administration, which operates office buildings.

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Dozens of Power Plants Closing

The following is an excerpt from an article by The Hill.  I am not sure that imposing tough new environmental regulations in a fragile economy with high unemployment is the smartest thing that we could be doing as a nation. But no one asked me for my opinion.

Dozens of Power Plants Closing Due to New EPA Rules

December 21, 2011

The Hill

BRIAN KOENIG

Due to new federal air pollution regulations, more than 32 power plants across the country will be forced to close their doors, according to a recent Associated Press survey. Those plants, which are mostly coal-fired, discharge enough electricity to supply more than 22 million households, the survey notes, and their closure will lead to job layoffs, depleted tax revenues, and a considerable hike in electric bills. The areas that will be hit hardest are the Midwest and in the coal belt (Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky), where dozens of plants will likely be retired.

Two regulations are in question: One aims to curb air pollution in states downwind from pollutant-heavy power plants; and the second, which was finalized last week, would enact the first standards for mercury, acid gas, and other pollutants from plant smokestacks. In total, the new regulations could eliminate more than eight percent of coal-fired generation nationwide.

AP’s survey, the first of its kind, looked at the analyses by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of plant retirements and interviewed 55 power plant operators about the effects on power supply and about their plans to deal with the new regulations.

Basing their assertions on energy analyses, congressional reports, and government regulators, critics have predicted that the new EPA regulations will lead to widespread blackouts, and possibly the retirement of coal as a power source altogether. However, proponents of the rules claim that those studies inflate closure numbers by considering plants shutting down for reasons other than the EPA’s new restrictions.