WASHINGTON — The director of the controversial Energy Department program that guaranteed a $535 million loan to now-bankrupt solar equipment maker Solyndra stepped down Thursday, hours after President Barack Obama defended the program at a news conference.
Obama asserted that the loan guarantees helped new technology companies compete with heavily subsidized rivals in Europe and China.
The Energy Department, meanwhile, said Jonathan Silver had told Secretary Steven Chu earlier in the year that he planned to leave when it became clear the program would be finished with its loan guarantees by the end of September.
Silver took his post in November 2009, soon after the program approved the loan guarantee to Solyndra, its first since the initiative began in 2006. By late 2010, Solyndra was faltering. Earlier this year, the company asked the Energy Department to restructure the terms of its loan guarantee. By early September, it had closed its doors, laid off almost all of its 1,100 workers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and become the focus of FBI and congressional investigations.
During congressional hearings, Silver took much of the heat for the program’s support of Solyndra and its subsequent decision to restructure the loan guarantee in a way that placed the federal government behind other investors in recouping its money in case of bankruptcy.
Reps. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. — the leaders of the congressional investigation into the Solyndra deal — said Silver’s departure does not repair the damaged program or return taxpayer money to the government.
“Mr. Silver’s resignation does not solve the problem,” they said in a statement. “We are in the midst of the Solyndra investigation and just days removed from Mr. Silver’s mad rush to finalize the last $4.7 billion in loans before the statutory deadline.”
Silver is leaving to join the Democratic-leaning think tank Third Way. Under Silver, the guarantee program backed loans “supporting 38 projects that are expected to create or save more than 60,000 jobs — including 44,000 that have already materialized,” the Energy Department said. Solyndra, so far, is the only recipient to fail.
