In August, Solyndra, a California-based solar panel maker, announced it would file for bankruptcy. The collapse cost 1,100 workers their jobs and American taxpayers $535 million in loan guarantees that Solyndra had received under a Congressionally authorized program to encourage young companies to develop clean-energy technologies.
President Obama had hailed Solyndra as a model investment and the face of “a brighter and more prosperous future.” Republicans have now pounced on the bankruptcy as proof that the loan program is a bust, that the president’s signature green jobs program is a fraud, and that this country’s solar energy business is in terminal decline.
None of that is true. Solyndra made a bad bet, investing heavily in a new type of solar array just as the price of silicon, the main ingredient in competitors’ solar cells, was dropping. Its demise should not spell the end of federal investment in the alternative fuels and energy sources that are critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, easing this country’s dependence on fossil fuels and keeping it competitive in the race for clean-energy jobs.
The United States, which three years ago led the world in investments in clean energy, has now fallen behind China and Germany, which provide far more generous subsidies. The failure of a single company — and anyone who knows anything about transformative technologies knows there will be failures — is no reason to stop our efforts to catch up.
There are important issues here that need a hard look. The Justice Department is investigating whether Solyndra was upfront about its problems with investors. A House committee is asking whether the company’s loan application was hurried along by Obama officials so that the White House could trumpet its job creation efforts.
The administration claims to have exercised due diligence and seems to have been forthcoming in responding to Congress. The company has been decidedly less so; two senior executives, citing the Justice Department inquiry, took the Fifth Amendment when they appeared before a Congressional committee on Friday.
It is also important to note where some of the loudest criticism is coming from: House Republicans who want to undermine the president, belittle global warming and discredit clean fuels. Their agenda was on full display Thursday at a hearing led by Darrell Issa called “How Obama’s Green Energy Agenda Is Killing Jobs.”
The proceedings mainly consisted of Representative Issa and others asserting that money spent on environmentally friendly fuels and jobs would be much better spent on “domestic carbon-based resources” — that is, dirtier fuels like oil, gas and coal. What was not mentioned was that at least 10 of the 23 Republicans on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee — including Mr. Issa — have lobbied the Department of Energy to approve green projects in their own districts.
The truth of the matter is that when judged by its diverse portfolio, the loan program appears, at least so far, to have performed well. The Solyndra investment represents less than 2 percent of nearly $40 billion in loan guarantees for about three dozen innovative projects. Some of them — advanced automobile battery projects, for instance — have provided thousands of much-needed jobs in Michigan and other recession-battered states.
As for the supposedly doomed solar industry, Solyndra and three other smaller failed companies that were not part of the federal program represented about one-fifth of the nation’s manufacturing capacity for solar panels. But highly competitive companies remain, and in many sectors, including sales of silicon, the United States dominates. Mr. Issa to the contrary, jobs in the solar industry have doubled to roughly 100,000 since 2003.
Recent studies suggest that, globally, renewable energy will grow faster than any other energy source in the coming decades. The surest way to guarantee that America gets its fair share of that business and those jobs would be to enact a comprehensive energy strategy that raises the price of older, dirtier fuels. Failing that, continued government support is absolutely essential.
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