“I was stunned to find out that Komen announced it had decided to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, which is the largest provider of women’s health care in the country,” DeGette said. “I was pleased when they reversed that decision. But I am concerned about how Komen is making its decisions.”

DeGette explained that she has had concerns about Komen decision-making for a while and that its perilous up-and-down journey through some of the murkier reaches of the abortion-politics swamp this week demonstrated confusion at the heart of the organization.

“As the attacks on Planned Parenthood [in Congress] revved up last year, Komen was touting the fact that it didn’t support stem cell research, even though they know stem cell research shows great potential to treat breast cancer.”

DeGette elaborated that thought in a release sent out minutes ago.

I have grave concerns that last fall, seemingly during the same time they decided to change [the funding policy to cut off Planned Parenthood], Komen also enacted a new policy of refusing to fund the pursuit of lifesaving ethical embryonic stem cell research (ESC), despite a history of recognizing its great potential. Given the massive resources of their organization and the great potential of ESC [to bolster] breast cancer treatment and [the search for] cures, it is deeply disturbing that Komen has turned its back on this research because of the same political pressures that led them to the original Planned Parenthood decision.

A politically-motivated grant process has no place in the pursuit of life-saving screenings, treatments, and research.

DeGette has long been an advocate for stem cell research and re-introduced her Stem Cell Research Advancement Act last year. The act passed the House and Senate years ago but fell victim to a George W. Bush veto. The legislation would establish a more permanent legal framework in which scientists could conduct stem cell research without being subject to the start-and-stop political pressures that shape life on Capitol Hill.

DeGette said she was “very glad” that Colorado’s Komen affiliates “stood up for science-based care” when they asked to be excluded from — and when Aspen Komen rejected altogether– the ban on funding Planned Parenthood and did so based on the statistically proven vital work Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains has done over the years to detect and head-off breast cancer among thousands of Coloradans with severely limited health care options.

DeGette said the Komen story this week was a wake-up call.

“I can’t tell you, we had such an outcry. My website and Facebook accounts were just full of messages,” she said.

“My daughter is 22 and she said this was the first time in her life she donated to Planned Parenthood. People need to be assured this major organization [Komen] is making science-based decisions.

DeGette said it was clear this week’s funding flap was part of a larger messaging battle.

“You know I sit on the Stearns committee doing the investigation into Planned Parenthood,” DeGette said, referring to the Planned Parenthood audit called by Florida anti-abortion Rep. Cliff Stearns and based on a mostly debunked Americans United for Life report on alleged Planned Parenthood misdeeds and corruption. The Stearns investigation was the reason Komen initially gave for throwing Planned Parenthood off its funding rolls.

“Listen, some Republicans in Congress have had a vendetta against Planned Parenthood for years, but 97 percent of what that organization does is well-women visits. For many of those women all over the country these are the only type of annual checkups they receive. There is no public tax money being spent on abortion and abortion is a small part of Planned Parenthood’s mission.

“I have been saying for years that these lawmakers don’t just oppose abortion. They oppose birth control and disease prevention for women. It’s the 21st century and we’re arguing about birth control?

“A lot of Americans woke up this week and said, ‘wow, the GOP agenda really is extreme. It’s about opposing contraception and mammography.’

“We want Komen to get back to science-based funding decisions”

DeGette is the head of the congressional Pro-Choice Caucus and has been a lead critic of the attacks on Planned Parenthood launched on Capitol Hill this year. Together with California Rep. Henry Waxman, she denounced the Stearns investigation as “unwarranted” and as a legalistic cover to “harass and shut down an organization simply because Republicans disagree with the work that it does.”

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The letter comes on the heels of news that roughly two dozen of Udall and Bennet’s colleagues in the Senate have signed on to a letter strongly urging Komen, the high-profile marketing firm behind the breast-cancer pink-ribbon campaign, to reverse the decision it announced this week to cease funding Planned Parenthood breast cancer screening and education efforts.

The Senate letter has reportedly drawn support from a wide spectrum of Democrats, including moderates like Montana’s John Tester. It decried the Komen decision as the latest front in the partisan political battle launched against Planned Parenthood this year that has driven moves inside and outside of government to strip funds from the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider.

“It would be tragic if any woman– let alone thousands of women– lost access to these potentially life-saving screenings because of a politically motivated attack,” the letter reads.

The support the letter has garnered reflects the increasingly high-level pushback Komen has received this week. News outlets have reported the intense back-and-forth that erupted in the wake of the announcement as it unfolded and as it played out on the internet, where supporters and detractors have waged furious social media messaging battles.

Denver Komen is one of select foundation affiliates across the nation that have asked for a waiver from the controversial decision to cut Planned Parenthood funds and has made the case in its public statements for its continuing to fund Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM), pointing to the vital role the embattled organization plays in fighting breast cancer here.

PPRM provides distinctly cost-effective service for Komen. Its Front Range clinics were responsible for 19 percent of all the breast cancer detected through Denver Komen funding last year and it received only $125,000 or 4.3 percent of the $3 million Denver Komen awarded to nonprofits spread across the region, from Douglas County just south of Denver north to the Wyoming border.

Komen also notes that the state budget this year was slashed for the Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program provided by the Women’s Wellness Connection Program, leaving nearly 5,500 women in Colorado without access to services and opening the door to nearly 90 cases of cancer. In such an environment, Komen suggested, cutting off Planned Parenthood funding would be irresponsible.

There is no word yet on whether members of the U.S. House will weigh in formally on the Komen funding question. Calls to members of Colorado’s delegation were not immediately returned.

Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette is the head of the Pro-Choice Caucus and has been a lead critic of the often specious attacks on Planned Parenthood launched on Capitol Hill this year.

Indeed, although Komen has said its decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood was not motivated by abortion politics, it cited as the cause a controversial congressional investigation launched by Florida Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns into twenty years of Planned Parenthood finances. Komen said that its new grantee criteria preclude funding any organizations under investigation.

Yet the Stearns audit of Planned Parenthood was spurred mainly by anti-abortion activists working off of a largely discredited Americans United for Life report brimming with lurid accusations that, for example, Planned Parenthood abetted human trafficking and child prostitution operations.

DeGette, together with California Rep. Henry Waxman, denounced the congressional investigation as “unwarranted” and as a legalistic cover to “harass and shut down an organization simply because Republicans disagree with the work that it does.”

“We are aware of no predicate that would justify this sweeping and invasive request to Planned Parenthood,” Waxman and DeGette wrote in a letter to Stearns last September as the investigation was being proposed. “It would be an abuse of the oversight process if you are now using the Committee’s investigative powers to harass Planned Parenthood again. Your fervent ideological opposition to Planned Parenthood does not justify launching this intrusive investigation.”

In a Thursday call with reporters, Komen CEO Nancy Brinker walked back reference to the Stearns investigation. The Washington Post reports Brinker said the decision not to continue funding Planned Parenthood “had very little to do with the ongoing congressional probe” but was based primarily on the fact that some Planned Parenthood clinics do not provide mammograms.

“We have decided not to fund, wherever possible, pass-through grants. We were giving them money, they were sending women out for mammograms. What we would like to have are clinics where we can directly fund mammograms.”

Northern Colorado Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains clinics will continue to draw funds, as will clinics in Texas and Southern California, Binker said, because “they are the only provider” of breast health services in the areas they serve.

News outlets and blogs have pointed to the fact that national Komen leadership has been tilted recently by a growing number of hardcore pro-life executives and board members, such as Senior Vice President Karen Handel, who came on last April after running as an anti-Planned Parenthood candidate for governor in Georgia’s Republican primary, and prominent Komen Advocacy Alliance board member Jane Abraham, who is also general chairman of the anti-abortion lobbying organization Susan B. Anthony List.

Leadership at Susan B. Anthony includes former arch-social conservative Colorado Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave. The group has played a key role in the effort to “defund” Planned Parenthood nationwide. This year it kept a running state-by-state scorecard tracking the roughly $60,399,000 in federal and state funding stripped from Planned Parenthood affiliates in eight states.

“Our efforts during the federal budget fight gave Planned Parenthood a black eye,” the organization boasted.

The Atlantic reported today that sources inside Komen are beginning to confirm that the new policy cited to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood– whether ultimately tied to on-site mammogram services, congressional investigations or something else– was adopted specifically to cut off Planned Parenthood and that that effort was spearheaded by anti-abortion personnel led by Handel.

Ties among Komen executives and Congressional Republicans are sure to be scrutinized in the coming days.

Komen board member Jane Abraham’s husband, Spencer Abraham, for example, may draw looks. He was Energy Secretary under George W. Bush and last year joined Republicans in the House, including House Energy Committee member and Planned Parenthood investigator Cliff Stearns, in denouncing the government program that guaranteed loans to Solyndra solar panel company. Abraham’s law firm recently teamed with Florida law firm Roetzel & Andress to form DC-based lobby shop Abraham & Roetzel, which has offices in Columbus, Ohio and Tallahassee, Florida.

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains told the Colorado Independent this week that the Denver Komen affiliate has been a “strong advocate” for the work Planned Parenthood does in Colorado.

More than 80 percent of PPRM patients have no health insurance and 62 percent live at or below the federal poverty line.

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The report, commissioned by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Howard Berman, D-Calif., notes that, as of Dec. 15, the Republican-led 112th Congress voted a record 191 times on legislation that would undermine environmental protections.

The House averaged more than one anti-environmental vote for every day Congress was in session during 2011, which equates to more than one out of every five of all roll call votes, the report found.

Rep. Cory Gardner

Gardner was one of at least a dozen Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee who made public statements indicating that they question or reject the scientific consensus that climate change is predominantly human caused.

“Rep. Cory Gardner admitted that the climate is changing but said that he does not ‘believe humans are causing that change to the extent that’s been in the news,’” according to the report (pdf), which notes that House Republicans also voted to block the EPA from regulating carbon pollution from power plants and oil refineries, and they voted to prevent the EPA from working with the Department of Transportation and the automobile industry to develop fuel economy standards for vehicles.

The report also calls out Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., who introduced the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, which seeks to overturn the EPA’s finding that climate change endangers human welfare and to upend the Supreme Court’s decision that the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The bill also prohibits the EPA from enforcing existing greenhouse gas reporting requirements to collect emissions information.

“During the floor debate about the Upton bill, the House Republicans voted against several Democratic amendments to restore [the] EPA’s authority to address climate change. Only one Republican supported an amendment offered by Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., to allow the EPA Administrator to suspend the bill’s prohibitions if impacts from climate change affect public health.”

The attacks on climate science aren’t exactly a surprise.

In 2010, Gardner and fellow Colorado Republican U.S. Reps. Scott Tipton, Doug Lamborn and Mike Coffman signed a “No Climate Tax Pledge” in which they promised to oppose “any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.”

That same year, Native Alaskans and environmental groups successfully appealed to the Environmental Appeals Board to overturn a permit the EPA issued to Shell Oil Co. for exploratory drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off the coast of Alaska. During an appropriations debate, the House obstructed the Appeals Board from using government funds to invalidate the permit.

“Rep. Cory Gardner then introduced H.R. 2021, the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act, which makes significant revisions to Clean Air Act provisions relating to [Outer Continental Shelf] activities,” the Waxman, Markey and Berman report states. “The bill limits EPA review of a permit application to six months; it eliminates any appeal to the Board, forcing all appeals to be brought in federal court in Washington, D.C.; it blocks EPA from requiring pollution reductions from support vessels, which often comprise the bulk of emissions from a drilling operation; and it provides that the impact of emissions from [Outer Continental Shelf] sources must be measured at the shoreline, where the emissions are diluted, rather than at the source, as current law provides.”

At the time, House Republicans said the purpose of H.R. 2021 was to accelerate the permitting process in the Arctic Ocean. But the bill was drafted so that it also applied to both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts despite objections from officials in California, Delaware and other states.

“This bill will create tens of thousands of jobs, increase energy security, and lessen our dependence on foreign oil,” Gardner said in a press release at the time. “It will add billions of dollars in salary to Alaska and other states over the next several decades, bringing good paying jobs to our country.”

The EPA isn’t the only agency in the GOP’s crosshairs. The House targeted the Department of the Interior with 35 votes meant to weaken its authority and the Department of Energy with 31 of them.

The report goes on to detail how the House proposed to slash funding for the Fish and Wildlife Service, cut clean-energy programs, curtail reviews of the Keystone XL pipeline, allow unsafe disposal of toxic coal ash, transfer public lands to a mining company, remove protections for forests and wetlands, repeal water quality standards, and promote loopholes for polluters.

On Dec. 7, the House passed the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, or H.R. 10, which requires approval from both houses of Congress before federal agencies can implement any significant rule, including those to protect the environment and public health. “In effect, this bill would force Congress to re-legislate provisions in the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other laws that require the agencies to conduct significant rulemakings. If Congress fails to act on a rule, the new rule would not go into effect, delaying important safeguards and wasting years of scientific inquiry, stakeholder comment, and agency staff resources,” the report contends.

Among the 191 votes highlighted in the report, 94 percent of Republican members voted for the anti-environment position, while 86 percent of Democrats voted for the pro-environment position.

Rachel Boxer, the spokeswoman for Gardner, and Joanna Burgos, spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, did not return messages seeking comment for this story.

Rep. Diana DeGette

The seven-member SEAB panel released a draft in August that called for more industry transparency and disclosure of the chemicals used in the controversial drilling practice sometimes referred to as “fracking.” Critics say it can contaminate groundwater, which industry officials deny. The makeup of the panel previously had been criticized by scientists who felt it leaned too heavily toward industry interests.

DeGette and Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey want to hear more about the findings in an open committee hearing.

“To date, the committee has not held a single hearing on the topic of hydraulic fracturing and natural gas development, despite the importance of natural gas to our energy future and widespread public concern about air and water pollution from natural gas production,” the three Dems wrote (pdf) Upton today. “The SEAB report is a good place to start. We request that you schedule a hearing on this issue as soon as possible.”

Fracking is mostly regulated by state agencies, including the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), which is holding a hearing on proposed new chemical disclosure rules next month.

Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala (Pic via stearns.house.gov)

An attorney for the group partially responsible for a recent congressional investigation into Planned Parenthood says the group has targeted the chain of health clinics as part of a strategy to end abortion.

Kellie Fiedorek, a staff attorney for Americans United for Life, tells The Florida Independent the group is pleased that a report she helped craft about Planned Parenthood has led to congressional action. The report was given to members of Congress in the hopes that lawmakers vote to defund Planned Parenthood. Fiedorek says Americans United sought to “document fraud and abuse” in Planned Parenthood as a tool for Congress to look into a possible investigation.

Planned Parenthood is frequently under attack by anti-abortion groups because some of the clinics provide legal abortions. Planned Parenthood has called Americans United’s report “ideologically driven.” The group has also said that many of the claims are either misleading or inaccurate.

Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-FL, who chairs a subcommittee on oversight and investigations, recently followed through with Americans United’s request and launched an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s finances and policies.

Women’s health advocates and members of Congress are condemning his actions. This week, Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz “accused Republican colleagues on Wednesday of launching a ‘burdensome and politically motivated, big-government investigation’ of Planned Parenthood.” Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., a ranking member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee and Henry Waxman, D-Calif., have stated that the investigation is part of a “Republican vendetta.”

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., issued a press release calling the investigation “needless and politically motivated.” She said that “instead of attacking unemployment, Republicans are waging a war against women.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called the investigation an “abusive witch hunt by Republicans” that is “an unconscionable waste of taxpayer dollars, and harassment of a trusted healthcare provider for millions of women and families in Connecticut and across the country,” in a recent press release.

Americans United’s Fiedorek says these abuses “have been going on for 20 years,” and that Planned Parenthood is “ridden with abuse.” She claims the group has been “over-billing the government” for years.

“There are so many red flags,” she says.

In a recent email to supporters, Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards called the investigation “harassment and intimidation.” Richards said the investigation is “an effort to undercut Planned Parenthood and undermine Planned Parenthood health centers’ ability to provide essential care to the women, men, and teens who rely on them.”

This week, Planned Parenthood recieved another blow from Congress. The House GOP unveiled a spending bill on Thursday that would “eliminate the Title X family-planning program, ban federal funding to Planned Parenthood Federation of America (unless the organization ends its abortion services), redirect teen-pregnancy-prevention programming funds to abstinence-only sex-education programs and ban private insurance companies from covering abortion,” The American Independent reports.

Fiedorek attended the Care Net conference this week in Orlando, where she was among several voices expressing excitement over the recent anti-Planned Parenthood measures. Abby Johnson, also an attendee, even went as far to say that Planned Parenthood was “working with the devil.”

U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican and chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, is moving forward with plans to launch an investigation of Planned Parenthood, a national chain of women’s health clinics.

Stearns told our sister site, The Florida Independent, back in July that such an investigation was possible, after the release a report arguing that lawmakers should defund Planned Parenthood. The report was written by Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group. As The Independent reported, Americans United called upon Congress to hold an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s finances and practices. While Planned Parenthood called the report false and “ideologically driven,” Stearns did not rule out launching an investigation.

Sarah Kliff of Politico reports that Stearns has already asked the president of Planned Parenthood to provide the committee with a range of documents.

According to the letter sent to Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, Stearn’s “committee has questions about the policies in place and actions undertaken by the [Planned Parenthood Federation of America] and its affiliates related to its use of federal funding and its compliance with federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.”

According to a recent statement from Planned Parenthood:

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) expressed disappointment that Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has put politics before lifesaving health care by launching what appears to be a politically motivated investigation and demanding an onerous amount of records from PPFA and its 83 affiliates, some going as far back as 13 years. …

“At a time when the American people need jobs, some members of Congress are instead misusing their political power to go after health care access for the most vulnerable women in the country,” said Richards. “We are certain that the millions of women and men who count on Planned Parenthood will make their voices heard and speak out, just as they did during the budget battle in the spring.” …

Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-CO), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in a letter to Congressman Stearns, wrote, “We are aware of no predicate that would justify this sweeping and invasive request to Planned Parenthood. The HHS Inspector General and state Medicaid programs regularly audit Planned Parenthood and report publicly on their findings. These audits have not identified any pattern of misuse of federal funds, illegal activity, or other abuse that would justify a broad and invasive congressional investigation.”

Stearns has asked Planned Parenthood for a host of documents, including auditing records and written policies.

Stearns has disapproved of Planned Parenthood for some time. This year he introduced the Informed Choice Act, which The Independent reported “would authorize grants ‘to nonprofit tax-exempt organizations for the purchase of ultrasound equipment to provide free examinations to pregnant women needing such services, and for other purposes.’” In essence, his bill would have given money to crisis pregnancy centers, which aim to discourage women from having abortions, so they could buy ultrasound equipment.

In their letter to Stearns, DeGette and Waxman note that they believe this investigation to be one more cog in an ongoing smear campaign against Planned Parenthood. They wrote, “This year, House Republicans have voted twice to strip Planned Parenthood of federal funding. You strongly supported these efforts, stating that ‘defunding Planned Parenthood should be a fiscal and moral priority for Congress.’ You also unfairly smeared the organization when you claimed that Planned Parenthood is ‘willing to use public funds to commit a federal crime’ and is ‘willing to ignore the law in promoting its service.’ … It would be an abuse of the oversight process if you are now using the Committee’s investigative powers to harass Planned Parenthood again. Your fervent ideological opposition to Planned Parenthood does not justify launching this intrusive investigation.”

Two House Democrats, including one from Colorado, are looking to question a pair of investors about solar panel manufacturer Solyndra’s financial flameout in Northern California.

U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., sent a letter Monday to Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns requesting that executives from two of Solyndra’s largest private investors, Argonaut Private Equity and Madrone Capital Partners, be called to testify at a hearing Friday or in the future.

“One important question for the Committee to examine is whether there were sound reasons to make an investment in Solyndra,” they wrote. “Some sophisticated and experienced private venture capital investors thought the answer was yes, and they invested over $1 billion in Solyndra – twice the support provided by the federal government. The Committee would benefit from hearing the views of these private investors as we assess the merits of federal decisions regarding the Solyndra loan guarantee.

“In particular, we ask that you seek testimony from Argonaut and Madrone, the two top private investors in the company,” they wrote. “Representatives of each, Argonaut Managing Director Steve Mitchell, and Madrone Founder and General Partner Jameson McJunkin, served on Solyndra’s board and should be well acquainted with the company. Mr. Mitchell and Mr. McJunkin could provide the Committee with perspective on why Solyndra attracted so much private capital, Solyndra’s representations about its economic prospects, and the external factors that have been affecting the U.S. solar industry.”

Solyndra’s bankruptcy and its laying off of 1,100 workers have left the solar industry with a black eye, and enflamed conservatives who are blasting the Obama administration over its $535 million loan guarantee to the Fremont, Calif., company. As Fortune magazine points out, Argonaut is among several firms that invested nearly $1 billion of equity in Solyndra, but most of it came before the Department of Energy provided Solyndra with loan guarantees. Argonaut Private Equity is funded through the George Kaiser Family Foundation, whose namesake is a major donor and political ally of President Obama.

“None of that $1 billion has been ‘reworked’ to the benefit of Solyndra’s equity investors,” Fortune Senior Editor Dan Primack wrote in a column posted online yesterday. “They all are subordinate to the federal loan, and will likely get wiped out. What Drudge and others are referring to, however, is $75 million in debt financing that Solyndra raised after the DoE loan. Basically, the company was floundering and this was a last-ditch effort to turn the company around. The primary debt providers were Argonaut and another existing Solyndra investor called Madrone Capital Partners. This is the money that has priority to the feds (assuming anyone ultimately buys Solyndra’s assets).”

Stoking the partisan flames are media misrepresentations engulfing the Solyndra story. It was a credit committee consisting of financially astute civil servants under the Bush administration that actually selected the solar manufacturing company for the loan guarantee program. Solyndra was one of 16 projects chosen out of 143 submissions. The same credit committee approved the loan guarantee in 2009, when Obama was in office, after the application worked its ways through the committee’s checks and balances.

Still, there are many questions to be asked and lessons to be learned from Solyndra’s collapse. Solyndra Chief Executive Brian Harrison and Chief Financial Officer W.G. Stover Jr. are expected to testify Friday before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, of which DeGette is a ranking member.

Whether Solyndra’s executives made misleading statements or omissions in their dealings with federal officials will be an area of focus. DeGette, according to the Los Angeles Times, is upset Solyndra executives told her this summer that the company would double its revenue this year. “I’m perplexed how they could be in my office in July telling me things were looking better and filing for bankruptcy two months later,” DeGette said.

Solyndra is the third solar company to file for bankruptcy in the last few months as a consequence of falling demand from European countries that have cut subsidies for the industry, worsening macroeconomic conditions, and excess capacity combined with low pricing from competition in China that have hit the sector hard.

Colorado U.S. Representative Diana DeGette on Thursday sent a letter to Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Cliff Stearns urging him to invite Brian Harrison, president and CEO of Solyndra, to testify before an investigative subcommittee of which she is a ranking member.

“Less than two months ago, Mr. Harrison met with us and other Committee members to assure us that Solyndra was in a strong financial position and in no danger of failing,” DeGette wrote with California Representative and Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman. “At that time, [Harrison] said the company was projected to double its revenues in 2011, there was ‘strong demand in the United States’ for its shipments, and the company was expected to double the megawatts of panel production shipped this year. These assurances appear to contrast starkly with his company’s decision to file for bankruptcy last week.”

Silicon Valley-based solar panel maker Solyndra was a new-energy darling of the Obama 2009 stimulus package. The company received roughly $530 million in government loans and yet went belly up last month.

The events seemed to confirm the worst fears and suspicions of green energy critics who see the sector as a money hole, a land of hyped hope and dreams that provides fertile ground for get-rich-quick schemes and government-business insider graft.

Stearns this week said he “smelled a rat” in Solyndra from the beginning and pointed to the fact that Solyndra investor George Kaiser was an Obama campaign donor. The Energy Department downplayed the accusations, saying that Solyndra support was in the pipeline during the Bush administration and the Obama team merely finished the deal.

More likely, Solyndra appears to have made the kind of business bets that can make or break a company and that broke Solyndra.

As the New York Times reported, the company’s panels don’t use silicon, which was a much more costly commodity in 2009 when the loan guarantee was approved than it is now. And the cylindrical design of the Solyndra panels was meant to cut installment costs and improve efficiency by more easily catching the sun. Manufacturing those special panels, however, proved too costly.

The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee will conduct its hearing on the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program and Solyndra on September 14th.

DeGette’s letter:

Dear Chairman Stearns:

We understand that you have scheduled a hearing on September 14, 2011, to examine the Department of Energy’s 2009 loan guarantee to Solyndra and the recent announcement by the company that it is planning to file for bankruptcy. We hope this hearing will help the Committee understand whether mistakes were made in the handling of this loan and how Congress can improve loan guarantee program and develop appropriate policies to promote clean energy technologies.

We are writing to request that you invite Brian Harrison, chief executive officer of Solyndra, to testify at the hearing. Less than two months ago, Mr. Harrison met with us and other Committee members to assure us that Solyndra was in a strong financial position and in no danger of failing. At that time, he said the company was projected to double its revenues in 2011, there was “strong demand in the United States” for its shipments, and the company was expected to double the megawatts of panel production shipped this year. These assurances appear to contrast starkly with his company’s decision to file for bankruptcy last week.

Any thorough examination of the Solyndra loan guarantee should include the opportunity to ask Mr. Harrison about his representations. He did not convey to us the perilous condition of the company and the Committee should know why.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman Diana DeGette
Ranking Member Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

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Freshman Republican Congressman Cory Gardner weathered a drawn out if ultimately not-close Tea Party caucus battle last year and rode the Republican wave to victory over Democrat Betsy Markey.* Less than a year later, he’s again navigating the increasingly rocky electoral waters of Colorado’s sprawling Fourth District.

Bipartisan participants in a town hall two weeks ago assailed him over free-trade job loss and GOP-proposed cuts to Medicare. And last week Fort Collins-based Clean Water Action launched a campaign arguing that Gardner’s brief voting record in Washington establishes him as perhaps the most anti-environmental member of Congress in the state’s history and therefore deeply out of step with the district he represents.

“This is a conservative district but not an anti-environment district,” Clean Water Action Director Gary Wockner told the Colorado Independent. Wockner says his group has knocked on 25,000 doors in the district since January to draw attention to Gardner’s “aggressively anti-environment” positions, he said, pointing in particular to Gardner’s repeat votes in favor of diluting the forty-year-old Clean Water Act.

“There is no outcry to attack the Clean Water Act,” Wockner said. “Nobody is talking about the Clean Water Act up here. It’s a well-established law that forces polluters to clean up after themselves. No business or organization or any other entity I know of here sees the Clean Water Act as causing trouble. This is coming from Gardner alone.”

Gardner’s office didn’t respond to attempts to contact him for comment.

‘Strong environmental safeguards’

The release sent out by Clean Water Action builds on a report brought out by Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, Democratic leaders of the congressional Energy and Commerce Committee, which details efforts by this year’s GOP-led Congress to dismantle longstanding efforts to curb pollution, protect public lands and address climate change.

Waxman and Markey looked at 110 votes taken since January in the House, including votes to “block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating mercury and other hazardous air pollutants emitted from cement plants; to relax emission requirements for offshore oil and gas activities; to stop the EPA from establishing new water quality standards or enforcing existing ones; and to prevent the EPA from protecting streams from the effects of mountaintop-removal mining.” 

Legislation targeting the Clean Water Act and supported by Gardner, sometimes on voice votes, include, for example, H.R. 1, the 2011 Continuing Appropriations Bill, which would block the EPA from revoking Clean Water Act permits for bad actors; H.R. 872, the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act, which would prevent the agency from requiring Clean Water Act permits for companies that spray pesticides into navigable waters; H.R. 2018, the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act, which would block the EPA from establishing new Clean Water Act standards; and H.R. 2018, the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act, which would limit government authority to establish water quality standards for chemical and other pollutants.

To be fair, Gardner voted with his Republican colleagues in the Colorado delegation on most all of these bills and the defense he makes of his record matches with arguments made by Republicans across the country– mainly that environmental regulations have become too burdensome on business.

It’s also not surprising that, given the partisan divide on energy that characterizes U.S. politics today, that in a recession marked by anemic job growth, Gardner champions the oil and gas sector as key to rebooting the economy. Most notably, he introduced the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act, which aims to open up water off the Alaska coastline to drilling.

“One thing I can attest to is that a majority of Coloradans support increased energy production,” Gardner said as a way to explain why a congressman from Colorado would spearhead the move to open up land in Alaska. “Yes, we expect and deserve strong environmental safeguards, but we don’t want those safeguards to be exploited into an excuse to shut down the energy industry.”

Rhetoric and reality

Gardner’s critics suggest he is at best misguided in these efforts. No one is looking to “shut down the energy industry,” they say, for instance. Oil and gas companies have leased land nationwide that they have yet to make productive and they hold thousands of unused drilling permits for sites all across the mountain west, for example. In that light, the push to open up vulnerable new territory seems premature.

Critics similarly point to lessons offered up in Gardner’s own district, where stiffer state regulations on oil and gas production put in place by Democratic Governor Bill Ritter three years ago and attacked repeatedly by Republicans as “job killers” have not discouraged major new oil and gas drilling. On the contrary, Larimer and Weld County, for example, have hosted a drilling boom atop the Niobrara formation that has dotted the northern reaches of the district with dozens of new oil and gas wells and will see a great deal more drilled in years to come.

Critics also say that, although Gardner boasts an “all of the above” approach to energy production, he seems intent not to seize upon the great long-term economic opportunity presented by Colorado’s burgeoning clean-energy sector, which the laws he has voted for would set back considerably.

In the release accompanying the Waxman report, Massachusetts Congressman Markey likens House Republicans like Gardner to new-energy assassins.

“President Theodore Roosevelt said ‘A vote is like a rifle,’ and House Republicans have one pointed right at the heart of America’s clean energy future.” (See the list of related legislation here, pdf.)

Campaign finances

Clean Water Action’s Wockner believes Gardner draws encouragement in his anti-environmental stances from his financial backers. Oil and gas companies gave nearly $180,000 to Gardner’s campaign in 2010, and a Greeley Tribune investigation found that donations from oil and gas and mining interests amount at this point to more than 10 percent of Gardner’s 2012 election funds.

“Mainstream citizens of the Fourth District are seeing the economy, the public’s health, and the environment endangered by Rep. Gardner’s votes, while the oil and gas industry – which is having record multi-billion dollar profits quarter after quarter – is getting richer and richer,” Wockner wrote in last week’s release.

The opposition

Dispatches from Washington like the Waxman report and campaigns in the Fourth District like that undertaken by Clean Water Action will feed the efforts of Gardner’s 2012 election opponent, Longmont resident and state Senate President Brandon Shaffer.

“Gardner has sided with anti-environmental radicals time and time again,” Shaffer told the Colorado Independent. “We’re all in favor of streamlining red tape, but people understand there has to be balance.”

Shaffer believes Gardner’s record in Congress demonstrates that he doesn’t weigh the upside and downside of individual bills but that he reacts instead according to ideological positions. He says Gardner is against regulation in an indiscriminate way simply because he has made up his mind that government regulation as a generalized concept is bad.

“Coloradans know that natural gas, for example, is key to the economy,” Shaffer said to make his point, “but there is also a strong desire here to maintain clean drinking water and clean rivers. Clean water is a top priority in this state. I’d say it’s the biggest environmental concern.”

Given that mining and drilling compete with major outdoor tourism in Colorado and that Centennial State culture has long been tied to appreciation for the majestic mountain landscape, Shaffer said lawmakers here are intensely aware of the push and pull between developing natural resources and protecting the environment. He said many of the regulations in place have been hammered out at the capitol in Denver and that effective Colorado legislators learn how to look for balance.

“In writing regulations, we have to work in a business-friendly way,” he said. “It’s the difference in working off of talking points and believing in what you say.”

[ Top image via Flickr user ColoradoFarmBureau ]

*Edit Note: In the end, Gardner’s would-be challengers for the GOP nomination in 2010 faded quickly for lack of money and experience. Throughout the spring and summer, though, Gardner appeared on stage and stumps alongside Tom Lucero, Diggs Brown and Dean Madere, all of the candidates testing Tea Party movement strength. Hat tip to R.M.

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Coming up with a definition of diesel fuel seems like a fairly straightforward task, but in the world of natural gas drilling and the process of hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – nothing ever comes easy.

Senior Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette on Monday joined fellow Democrats Henry Waxman, Edward Markey and Rush Holt in asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to write a much broader definition of diesel fuel than the industry seems willing to accept.

The Democrats produced a report in January showing Halliburton and other oil service providers may have illegally used millions of gallons of diesel fuel in the controversial but commonly used gas-drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing, which injects water, sand and undisclosed chemicals deep underground to crack open rocks and free up more gas.

Industry representatives, including the head of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, agreed that diesel fuel was not part of a Safe Drinking Water Act exemption for hydraulic fracturing that was granted during the Bush administration in 2005. But they countered that the EPA never engaged in an official rulemaking that defined the parameters for using diesel fuel in fracking. Now DeGette and other Dems want the EPA to do just that.

In a press release Monday announcing a formal letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson the Democrats asked her agency “to craft a definition of ‘diesel fuel’ for its upcoming guidance on permitting hydraulic fracturing activities that is broad enough to protect human health and require permitting for all diesel fuels, including those that contain benzene and other toxic components.”

The same Democrats produced a congressional report in April showing fracking fluids can contain up to 29 known human carcinogens, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX). The 2005 Energy Policy Act exempted fracking from the SDWA “unless the fluid injected contains diesel fuel,” primarily because it contains BTEX.

Tisha Schuller, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association (COGA), told the Colorado Independent in February that “EPA never went through the public rulemaking process, or even provided guidance to the states in this regard; thus, there was not a regulatory framework for permitting or reporting hydraulic fracturing with diesel through EPA. As a result, there wasn’t a regulation to be broken.”

For a full text of the DeGette, Waxman, Markey, Holt letter to Jackson, click here (pdf).