House to vote on No More Solyndras Act

The House meets at 9 a.m. to take up the No More Solyndras Act, which is meant to prevent approval of recent applications under a Department of Energy program that awarded a loan guarantee to California solar panel maker Solyndra. 

That guarantee allowed Solyndra to get a $535 million loan from an arm of the Treasury Department, after which Solyndra went bankrupt.

The House approved the rule for this bill, H.R. 6213, on Thursday, and now just has to debate it for 90 minutes and consider two amendments.

Republicans have sought to make Solyndra a theme of their fall campaign, arguing it is an example of President Obama’s failed economic record.

During Thursday debate on the rule, Republicans said Solyndra has become the poster child for wasted government funds, and worse, showed that politics allowed half a billion dollars to be loaned to a company that was not viable in the market.

“Despite warnings that the company was unsustainable and would surely fail, the administration was blinded by their political agenda and committed over half a billion dollars in taxpayer dollars to a privately held company,” Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said. “Given these practices, it’s no wonder that our current president has created budget deficits in excess of $1 trillion each year he has served as president.”

But Democrats said Republicans are needlessly attacking a program that has helped create jobs across the country.

“They’re attacking a Department of Energy loan guarantee program that allows private investors to invest billions of dollars in order to create thousands of jobs here in America,” Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) said.

Once the House passes the bill, its work will be done for the week.

The Senate adjourned Thursday night and is out until next week, and will hold a pro forma session on Monday. The Senate returns to work on Wednesday, when it will resume consideration of the Veterans Jobs Act, S. 3457.

{mosads}Also Wednesday, the Senate is expected to hold a procedural vote at 2:15 p.m. on the continuing spending resolution that the House approved Thursday.

On Thursday night, Senate Democrats abandoned their plan to hold a procedural vote on a substitute amendment to the veterans job bill in the very early hours of Friday morning. Democrats said they wanted that vote to help speed the process along, and charged Republicans with slowing the process.

On Thursday morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) threatened a series of votes over the weekend to move the bill along more quickly, but ended up abandoning that plan by the end of the day.

The delay indicates a failure to reach agreement on amendments to the bill. In addition, Senate Republicans said they would raise a budget point of order against the bill because it increases the budget of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

The bill would spend $1 billion over five years on a veterans’ job-training program.

— This story was updated at 8:06 a.m.