The Center for Public Integrity

The Recovery Act infused $35 billion and grand expectations to the Department of Energy – but the reality has been far more sober, the department’s inspector general said in a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Wednesday.

That reality: Few shovel ready projects and some 100 ongoing investigations.

Gregory Friedman, Energy’s Inspector General, said the DOE programs benefiting from the Recovery Act required so much additional planning, training and other organizational measures it was unrealistic to expect they would create jobs almost instantaneously.

“The concept of ‘shovel ready’ projects became a Recovery Act symbol of expeditiously stimulating the economy and creating jobs,” Friedman said in his testimony, which was released prior to the hearing. “In reality, few actual ‘shovel ready’ projects existed.”

Friedman said his office has more than 100 criminal investigations ongoing, the latest wave of scrutiny for a department already under fire for the failed $535 million investment in the now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. Questions about Solyndra are likely to escalate amid a San Jose Mercury News report Wednesday that some company executives pocketed bonuses from $37,000 to $60,000 in the months before Solyndra’s collapse and dismissal of 1,100 workers.

The fallout from the government’s failed $535 million bet in solar panel maker Solyndra expanded on Friday, with the Obama administration seeking an independent audit of Energy Department loans even as the Republican-led House Energy committee threatened a subpoena of the president.

White House officials said the audit would focus on the health of existing loans in the Energy Department’s multi-billion dollar portfolio of investments in clean tech firms.

Solyndra, the first recipient of Energy Department backing, collapsed in bankruptcy and is now the subject of multiple investigations. The Energy Department and White House backed the half billion dollar investment in Solyndra, government emails show, even as budget and Treasury officials were raising red flags.

“Today we are directing that an independent analysis be conducted of the current state of the Department of Energy loan portfolio, focusing on future loan monitoring and management,” White House chief of staff Bill Daley told the Associated Press. “While we continue to take steps to make sure the United States remains competitive in the 21^st century energy economy, we must also ensure that we are strong stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

The audit will be conducted by former Treasury official Herb Allison, who stepped down in September 2010 after overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program. A former investment banker, Allison has served on the boards of financial and educational institutions and contributed to both Republicans and Democrats over the years, according to federal contribution records in the CQ MoneyLine database. He was national finance chairman for John McCain’s 2000 campaign.

Republicans are calling on Congressional investigators to expand their probe of the Obama Administration’s “green energy” loan program to include Fisker, the start-up electric car company that received more than $500 million in federal support but is assembling its high-end sports sedan in Finland.

“We need to extend the investigation,” Rep. Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican who sits on the committee that has been investigating the government’s loan program, told ABC News in an interview for "World News" and "Nightline". “If they couldn’t find someone to build the car in the U.S., then don’t do it. Find another way. Find something else.”

Fisker is one of two start-up electric car companies that combined have been offered $1 billion in federal loans through an Energy Department program meant to create jobs and improve air quality through the fledgling alternative energy industry. The loan program has faced intense scrutiny from Congress since the first loan recipient, the solar manufacturing firm Solyndra, declared bankruptcy last month.

A House Energy and Commerce Committee panel has held a series of hearings and released thousands of pages of documents subpoenaed from the Obama administration that showed there were deep divisions about the wisdom of loaning Solyndra $535 million. ABC News reported Thursday that there are now emerging questions about the progress of Fisker Automotive, which has experienced delays with the production of its $97,000 hybrid electric sports sedan. The company has yet to make public even a picture of its next car — a more affordable family car that is supposed to be manufactured in Delaware.

Fallout over the collapse of Solyndra, whose bankruptcy may cost taxpayers $535 million in federal loan guarantees, has called into question the tax status of the foundation of a major investor in the solar company.

Named for George B. Kaiser, a wealthy Oklahoma oilman and generous donor to Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, the non-profit George Kaiser Family Foundation describes itself as “a charitable organization dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty.” This week, iWatch News reported that over the past five years the foundation has averaged more than $194 million in income annually, but it has issued grants equaling only about 1.7 percent of its net assets. Gifts to private foundations yield tax deductions for donors.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, raised questions Tuesday about Kaiser’s involvement.

“With Solyndra, the government didn’t just lose out on its investment through the $535 million loan guarantee,” Grassley said in a statement during a Senate Finance Committee hearing. “It also lost out on the tremendous subsidy it provided the George Kaiser Family Foundation through the charitable contribution deduction.”

The foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Solyndra’s implosion has launched three separate government investigations and raised questions about the government’s rushed handling of the half-billion-dollar loan guarantees.

As it scrambled to save the flagship company of the Obama administration's green energy program, the Energy Department ignored repeated warnings from top Treasury Department officials that it was not following guidelines in refinancing Solyndra's half-billion dollar federal loan, a Congressional hearing Friday revealed.

When the DOE refinanced the government's $535 million loan to the California solar panel manufacturer in February, it agreed to let investors, including a major Obama fundraiser, stand in line before the public to recoup the first $75 million of their investment should the company fail. Solyndra declared bankruptcy six weeks ago.

During a House Energy and Commerce hearing on the refinancing of the loan Friday, Rep. Cliff Stearns, R.-Fla., chairman of the Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, asked Treasury Department CFO Gary Burner if he had ever seen another case where taxpayer money was subordinated to that of investors.

"No sir, I have not," said Burner, who has been with the department for 28 years, becoming chief financial officer five years ago.

Internal Treasury Department documents released by the committee also show that officials warned DOE and the White House about the refinancing.

The Office of Management and Budget also raised questions, emails show. In December 2010, as DOE moved to restructure the loan, an OMB official wrote: “There are some questions at the staff level about how DOE is going about the restructuring for Solyndra. At least one involves the legal question of what [the statute] means for their plan to make some of the debt “junior” to the new debt. … I think they have stretched this definition beyond its limits.”