Following yesterday's subpoena battle in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, those addicted to the ongoing Solyndra saga on Capitol Hill will have to wait two weeks -- until Energy Secretary Steven Chu's Nov. 17 testimony -- for their next dose of hearing-room drama.

But before that much-anticipated appearance takes place, there is one more Solyndra-related act that will play out behind closed doors.

SPECIAL REPORT

Solyndra, a solar manufacturer that was given a $535 million loan guarantee and touted by the White House as a model for the clean energy economy, has filed for bankruptcy. E&E examines how it got there and what it means. Click here to read the report.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who is leading the committee's probe of the bankrupt energy company that received half-a-billion dollars in government loan guarantees, yesterday evening said that when Congress returns from next week's district work period he intends to bring Energy Department Loan Programs Office chief counsel Susan Richardson in for a deposition with committee legal counsel. He said that meeting would happen before Chu's appearance.

It was Richardson who wrote the six-page DOE legal opinion on Feb. 15 that lays out the department's justification for allowing the government's 2009 Solyndra loan to be subordinated behind new money that was put into the company by private investors. Committee Republicans have made the subordination issue the crux of the case they are building against the Obama administration about the Solyndra loan. They believe that Richardson's opinion was flawed and the effort to bail out Solyndra earlier this year was done in direct violation of the 2005 Energy Policy Act.

That memo was only released publicly at a committee hearing last month in which panel Democrats accused Stearns of trying to suppress its existence (Greenwire, Oct. 14).

"We have a little concern about her memos," Stearns said. "Were they written objectively or were they written as a fallback to explain their position."

Stearns had previously said he wanted to have a full committee hearing to allow Richardson to testify but yesterday said a deposition would suffice.