Congress, local authorities investigate Abound Solar

The Daily Caller ^ | October 8, 2012 | Michael Bastasch

[Uncle Chip]

On Friday, Republican Congressman Cory Gardner of Colorado announced he was signing on to a letter requesting that Energy Secretary Steven Chu provide documents and information regarding what the Energy Department knew about Abound Solar’s actions while giving it taxpayer dollars.

“We will be sending this letter to the Department of Energy, to Secretary Chu, demanding information on technical reports, engineering reports, marketing analysis, schematics, information they had on the failure rate, the technology flaws. This is an investigation that will be launching today,” Gardner said in an interview with 1310 KFKA’s Amy Oliver, “but we need to have answers, the American people deserve nothing less.”

Last week, The Daily Caller News Foundation published the results of an investigation of federal loan guarantee recipient Abound Solar and found that the company was knowingly selling a faulty, underperforming product, and may have mislead lenders at one point in order to keep itself afloat in order to get government funding.

“We need to know, did the Department of Energy — did they close on the loan when they knew there were technical problems with the product?” Gardner said. “The fact that we have taxpayers on the hook for $70 million means that we, in Congress, have a responsibility to make sure nothing was done improperly.”

Rep. Gardner is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee which oversees the Energy Department’s loan program, from which Abound — like Solyndra — received taxpayer dollars.

Gardner said that an investigation of potential criminal activity would be left to state and local authorities.

[Vehmgericht]

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