Washington (Platts)--4Nov2011/612 pm EDT/2212 GMT
The White House Friday rejected a subpoena issued by the House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee to produce internal communications and other documents related to now-bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra's $535 million loan guarantee. In a letter to the Republican leaders of the committee, White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler called the subpoena a partisan "vast fishing expedition" without legal justification. "The committee's extremely broad request for documents -- now a subpoena -- is a significant intrusion on Executive Branch interests, particularly given that you have not made any effort to tailor the request to the legitimate interests of the committee," Ruemmler wrote. "Moreover, responding to such an expansive request would require the devotion of substantial resources to gather and review many documents that are of no legitimate oversight interest," she continued. Aides to the committee's Republicans could not immediately be reached for comment, and it is unclear what their next move would be. The energy committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations voted along party lines Thursday to issue the subpoenas to the White House and the Office of the Vice President to turn over the documents. The subpoenas specifically requested communications from former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, former National Economic Council Director Larry Summers and Ron Klain, former chief of staff to Vice President Joseph Biden. Republicans, who have been investigating the Solyndra loan guarantee for months, have accused the Obama administration of exerting undue political influence in the loan approval process, and they have also said the Department of Energy may have violated the law in restructuring the financing earlier this year. Solyndra, the first recipient of a loan guarantee under the Obama administration, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September, shutting down operations and laying off 1,100 employees. In issuing the subpoena, Republicans said they were frustrated by the White House's refusal to fully cooperate with their investigation, with some administration officials not showing up at hearings despite being called to testify. And despite the White House turning over about 85,000 pages of internal documents related to the subpoena, Republicans have said the administration has not been responsive enough and that President Barack Obama has reneged on earlier promises of transparency. In her letter, Ruemmler said the White House has acted in "good faith" and said Republicans have overreached. "Such curiosity is not a sufficient justification for encroaching on longstanding and important Executive Branch confidentiality interests, particularly when none of the more than 85,000 pages of documents produced to date evidence any favoritism to political supporters or wrongdoing by the White House," Ruemmler wrote.--Herman Wang, herman_wang@platts.com