Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are asking the Department of Energy's (DOE) Green Technology Loan Office to stop issuing loans amid the prevalence of lame-duck loans. [emphasis, links added]
Republican Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, Jeff Duncan of South Carolina and H. Morgan Griffith of Virginia A letter was sent to Jigar Shah, director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), requesting During the final days of the Biden administration, LPOs stopped issuing any new conditional commitments, loans or loan guarantees.
LPOs – which provide support to emerging green technology companies that might otherwise struggle to obtain private sector financing – have significantly accelerated lending in recent months, and The office is reportedly busy locking in financing worth about $25 billion ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2025.
“On Election Day, the American people reject the Biden-Harris administration’s green agenda“, the MPs wrote in a letter to Shah.
“In order to respect the will of our constituents and facilitate an orderly transition, We insist that the Biden-Harris administration halt its rapid distribution of federal funds before the incoming administration takes office. We therefore ask the LPO to suspend the issuance of any additional conditional commitments, loans or loan guarantees during the final weeks of this administration.
The LPO has closed eight loans in the past two months or so, and the office also Four loans with a total value of $19.3 billion have been conditionally committed since Election Daythe legislators wrote.
Notably, the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a November report that identified several potential risks to LPO ratepayers, including the following concerns: The office was so eager to get the money out that it may have neglected to do adequate due diligence on the loan recipients.
Tuesday, LPO provides battery company Eos with $303.5 million loan program to help cover costs of up to four automated production lines at its factory outside PittsburghAccording to Politico.
The DOE insists the special loan will “create up to 1,000 high-quality union jobs.”
The LPO was active during the Obama administration, when the office provided a $535 million loan program to Solyndra, a green company that went bankrupt two years later.
The office hasn’t been particularly busy during the Trump administration, but Biden administration and Congress pour hundreds of billions into LPOs to fund green tech companies.
Read the break from The Daily Caller
