The Center for Public Integrity

Escalating its exploration of a loan guarantee benefiting a politically connected solar panel maker, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce subpoenaed the Office of Management and Budget Thursday for records revealing how it vetted the first energy loan guarantee under the Obama administration.

The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, in a 14-8 vote on party lines, ordered the subpoena after a majority of lawmakers accused OMB of stonewalling an investigation into a loan guarantee that was announced with fanfare but has since drawn questions from government auditors and analysts. The committee seeks memos to or from the White House involving the loan guarantee.

The $535 million loan guarantee, awarded in 2009 to California-based Solyndra Inc., has become a flashpoint amid larger scrutiny over how well, and how fairly, the Department of Energy has doled out taxpayer dollars to bankroll green energy projects.

In all, DOE has announced 20 conditional commitments and completed 11 loan guarantees, infusing projects across the country with $11 billion in taxpayer backing. Several Energy Department guarantees, loans and grants have bankrolled companies whose financial backers include major supporters of the president, iWatch News and ABC News reported earlier this year.

Solyndra’s prime financiers include Oklahoma oil billionaire George Kaiser, a “bundler” of campaign donations who raised at least $50,000 for the president’s 2008 election effort and has often visited the White House. Kaiser has declined interview requests about the Solyndra loan guarantee. The company said politics played no role in its award, and Energy Department officials said each loan guarantee was awarded after careful review.

A congressional subcommittee investigating a $535 million loan guarantee to a politically-connected California solar panel maker sought answers Friday from the Office of Management and Budget—but the sole witness didn’t show up.

The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations has pressed for internal documents from OMB that could shed light on the loan guarantee for Solyndra Inc. The guarantee, the first issued by the Obama administration, was announced with fanfare in March 2009. Yet questions surfaced as the California firm laid off workers and cancelled a planned initial public offering after it had secured the government’s backing.

Solyndra’s prime financial backers include Obama bundler George Kaiser, an Oklahoma oil billionaire. iWatch News and ABC reported in May the Obama administration bypassed steps meant to protect taxpayers as it hurried to approve the energy loan guarantee.

Stearns says OMB has refused to turn over internal emails written as the government weighed whether to grant the financial support to a company then just four years old. Jeffrey Zients, OMB’s deputy director, was asked to testify at Friday’s hearing.

Zients wrote to the committee that his schedule precluded his appearance, and Democrats contended the hearing was little more than political theater.

OMB’s absence could signal increased tensions between the Obama administration and the Republican House, which is aggressively investigating the stimulus-funded loan guarantee to Solyndra.

Subcommittee Chair Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., said that if the budget office refuses to comply in the coming weeks, he might seek a subpoena to force disclosure.

A politically-connected California producer of solar panels is again benefitting from a fast-tracked U.S. government-backed loan guarantee despite an ongoing congressional investigation and concerns about the company’s finances, iWatch News has learned.

Solyndra, based in Fremont, Calif., and backed by Obama bundler George Kaiser, is a company heralded as a prime example of the Obama administration’s efforts to create so-called “green” energy and manufacturing jobs. The solar panel manufacturer received a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009 from the Energy Department—and then, a year later, closed a plant, laid off workers and had to renegotiate terms of the loan, calling into question whether the government did due diligence before backing such a sizeable loan.

iWatch News and ABC reported in May that the Department of Energy bypassed important steps meant to protect taxpayers in awarding that loan guarantee to Solyndra.

On Friday, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing on Solyndra’s loan guarantee and the Office of Management and Budget’s role in approving it. In a document, the committee says OMB has not released internal emails they have asked for.

The company’s new loan guarantee, approved after just 41 days, comes by way of the U.S. Export-Import Bank under a new program called “Renewable Express,” meant to spur exports in that industry through a streamlined process. 

Telecom executive Donald H. Gips raised a big bundle of cash to help finance his friend Barack Obama’s run for the presidency.

Gips, a vice president of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications LLC, delivered more than $500,000 in contributions for the Obama war chest, while two fellow senior company executives collected at least $150,000 more.

After the election, Gips was put in charge of hiring in the Obama White House, helping to place loyalists and fundraisers in many key positions. Then in mid-2009, the new president named him ambassador to South Africa. Level 3 Communications, in which Gips retained stock, meanwhile received millions of dollars of government stimulus contracts for broadband projects in six states—though Gips said he was "completely unaware" of the stimulus money.

More than two years after President Obama took office vowing to banish “special interests” from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events, an investigation by iWatch News has found.

These “bundlers” raised at least $50,000 and sometimes more than $500,000 in campaign donations for Obama’s campaign. Many of those in the “Class of 2008” are now being asked to bundle contributions for Obama’s re-election, an effort that could cost $1 billion.

As a candidate, Obama spoke passionately about diminishing the clout of moneyed interests and making the White House more accessible to everyday Americans. In kicking off his presidential run on Feb. 10, 2007, he blasted “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests,” who he said had “turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.”

Limousines, the very symbol of wealth and excess, are usually the domain of corporate executives and the rich. But the number of limos owned by Uncle Sam increased by 73 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration, according to an analysis of records by iWatch News.

Most of the increase was recorded in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Obama administration officials said most of the increase reflects an enhanced effort to protect diplomats and other government officials in a dangerous world. But a watchdog group says the abundance of limos sends the wrong message in the midst of a budget crisis. The increase in limos comes to light on the heels of an executive order from President Obama last week that charges agencies to increase the fuel efficiency of their fleets.

According to General Services Administration data, the number of limousines in the federal fleet increased from 238 in fiscal 2008, the last year of the George W. Bush administration, to 412 in 2010. Much of the 73 percent increase—111 of the 174 additional limos—took place in fiscal 2009, more than eight months of which corresponded with Obama’s first year in office.  However, some of those purchases could reflect requests made by the Bush administration during an appropriations process that would have begun in the spring of 2008. 

The $61.45 billion reconstruction program in Iraq will undergo a wholesale transition when most U.S. troops depart at the end of the year. Many reconstruction projects currently under the responsibility of the military will be administered by the State Department once troops leave. The latest report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reveals daunting transition tasks for State: closing reconstruction teams in provincial areas, opening diplomatic posts in volatile regions of Iraq, taking over the police force development and doubling civilian personnel from 8,000 to 17,000.

The increasing dependence on the State Department and contractors comes at a time when the IG has been critical of the Pentagon and State for being incapable of tracking where reconstruction dollars go currently.

These ambitious efforts coincide with a period of instability, in Iraq and across the Middle East. In recent months thousands of Iraqis have protested corruption and lack of services. In addition, the Iraqi Security Forces personnel have also been targeted more often than usual.

State intends to set up Embassy branch offices across the country, which usually have temporary mission spans of three to five years. The branch offices’ priority, according to State, is to mitigate Arab-Kurd, Sunni- Shia, and provincial tensions. These branches will face centuries-old conflicts and ambivalent attitudes towards the U.S. coupled with the challenges of short-mission length and low staffing levels.

An October 2010 report by the State inspector general noted that “it appears that provincial staffing is now being driven by budget constraints, rather than an appraisal of what is needed to accomplish the mission; certainly there is no indication that the missions have been redefined or reduced as funding and staffing projections shrink.”

After months of boasting about releasing the names of all visitors to the White House, the Obama administration now concedes the visitor logs are incomplete.

Responding to the Center for Public Integrity’s findings earlier this week, spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday that the visitor logs aren’t intended to be a complete record of who enters the building. “They’re not designed for public release. They’re designed for security reasons,” he said. Jake Tapper of ABC News put the question to Carney at the daily White House media briefing.

A Center investigation revealed the logs are incomplete for thousands of visitors to the White House, including lobbyists, government employees, campaign donors, policy experts, friends of the first family, and even celebrities like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. The analysis showed the logs routinely omit or cloud key details about the identity of visitors, who they met with, the nature of the visit, and even includes the names of people who never showed up

Yet the White House website proudly describes “over 1,000,000 records of everyone who's come through the doors of the White House” via a searchable database.

Carney defended the administration and said the president had “made extraordinary efforts to demonstrate the transparency that he thinks is vitally important.”

“So the fact that it’s incomplete is not a reflection of any effort to withhold information. We release the information that we have in ways that have never been done before by any administration of any party. And we continue to work on ways to enhance the transparency that we’ve achieved already,” he said.

Carney said the official logs kept by the White House are primarily a security system to protect the first family and the people who work in the White House.

A foot of snow couldn’t keep Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Jennifer Hudson and other celebrities away from a star-studded celebration of civil rights era music hosted by President Barack Obama and the First Lady at the White House on Feb. 9, 2010.

Dylan’s haunting rendition of “The Times They are A-Changin” was a highlight of the dazzling evening. The digitally friendly White House even posted the video of his performance on its website.

But you won’t find Dylan (or Robert Zimmerman, his birth name) listed in the White House visitor logs — the official record of who comes to call at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, maintained by the Secret Service.

Ditto Joan Baez.

The logs are similarly incomplete for thousands of other visitors to the White House, including lobbyists, government employees, campaign donors, policy experts, and friends of the first family, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity.

The White House website proudly boasts of making available “over 1,000,000 records of everyone who's come through the doors of the White House” via a searchable database.

Yet the Center’s analysis shows that the logs routinely omit or cloud key details about the identity of visitors, who they met with, the nature of the visit, and even includes the names of people who never showed up. These are critical gaps that raise doubts about their historical accuracy and utility in helping the public understand White House operations from social events to meetings on key policy debates.

“If this is transparency, who needs it?” said Steven Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. He called the White House visitor logs “very thin gruel.”