Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., who is leading the Republican investigation of the debacle surrounding failed solar company Solyndra, said he and his GOP colleagues are meeting this week to consider contempt charges against the White House over its sluggish response to last year’s subpoena for documents related to the fiasco,
The Hill reports.
“We are meeting this week to look at a very serious charge, which would be contempt of Congress, because they are slow walking,” Stearns told Fox Business Network on Monday. Stearns is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.
Republicans say the White House hasn’t forked over the documents the GOP needs for its investigation of Solyndra, the California solar panel maker that garnered a $535 million Energy Department loan guarantee in 2009 and went bankrupt in 2011.
As you might imagine, the White House wasn’t too happy to hear about the GOP action.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz called it a political ploy, linking it to the recent House GOP retreat in Baltimore, where Republican leaders vowed to make 2012 a “referendum” on President Barack Obama’s policies.
Republicans contend that Solyndra’s collapse raises questions about the White House’s clean energy policy.
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