Obama goes on offense on Solyndra
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'For every success there may be one that does not work out as well,' President Obama said. | AP PhotoClose
By DAN BERMAN | 10/6/11 12:21 PM EDT
President Barack Obama took on the Solyndra affair directly Thursday morning, saying the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program is necessary to maintain American jobs and calling out a top House Republican for comments suggesting that the U.S. has already lost the solar energy battle to China.
At a White House press conference, Obama said he believed that the $535 million loan guarantee to the now-failed solar company Solyndra was on the up-and-up.
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“The process by which the decision was made was on the merits, it was straightforward,” Obama said. “I have confidence the decisions were made on what would be good for the American economy and the American people.”
Despite the high-profile Solyndra collapse, Obama said the overall portfolio of the DOE loan guarantee program “has been successful.”
“We knew from the start that the loan guarantee program was going to entail some risks, by definition,” Obama said, later adding that “for every success there may be one that does not work out as well. But that’s exactly what the loan guarantee program was designed by Congress to do.”
Obama was sure to note that the loan guarantee program was created before he came into the White House, but he also sold it as necessary to fight China, Europe and other competitors that subsidize clean energy initiatives.
“Solyndra — this is a loan guarantee program that predates me that historically has had support from Democrats and Republicans as well,” he said. “The idea is pretty straightforward: If we are going to compete in the 21st century, we’ve got to dominate cutting edge tech and cutting edge manufacturing.”
The president also called out Rep. Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican who is leading the Solyndra investigation as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight subcommittee. Although Obama didn’t mention Stearns by name, he referred to Stearns’s statement earlier this week to NPR that “we can't compete with China to make solar panels and wind turbines.”
“I don’t buy that,” Obama said. “I’m not going to surrender to other countries technical leads that could determine whether or not we’re going to have a strong middle class in this country.”
Obama added: “I’m not going to cave to the competition when they are heavily subsidizing” all of these competitors.
This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 12:15 p.m. on October 6, 2011.
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