More than four months after the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the White House reached an agreement to allow a handful of Obama administration staff members to be interviewed as part of the panel's ongoing Solyndra probe, the two most high-profile individuals that Republicans sought to question have yet to appear before investigators.

Neither Heather Zichal, who serves as President Obama's top energy and climate change adviser, nor Aditya Kumar, an aide to former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, has come in for questioning.

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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.

The reason, according to the man leading the probe, is that documents detailing high-level White House discussions about the Department of Energy loan guarantee program and Solyndra that investigators want to use as part of their questioning have not been provided to the committee.

"Although the White House has agreed to produce two employees for committee interviews, they continue to withhold specific documents critical for conducting these interviews," Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the chairman of the panel's investigations subcommittee, said yesterday.

Back in February, Republicans said that Zichal, Kumar and three Office of Management and Budget staff members were closely involved in events surrounding the downfall of the solar tube manufacturer, which received more than a half-a-billion dollars from DOE's controversial loan guarantee program.

Republicans first asked the White House for access to the five in a Feb. 9 letter, and a deal was struck a day before the committee planned to subpoena the White House for access to the staff members (Greenwire, Feb. 15).

"The committee is pleased that we will finally have a chance to talk to those administration officials who actually did the substantive work on the Solyndra loan guarantee," Stearns and panel Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said in a news release on Feb. 16. "Speaking to these key players is critical to learning the lessons of Solyndra as we work to ensure taxpayers are never again paying the price for the administration's risky bets."

The interviews with the three OMB officials have since occurred.

A White House spokesman said yesterday evening that he had "no comment" on the status of the Zichal and Kumar interviews.

Stearns' subcommittee has already issued three subpoenas in its investigation, including one for all White House documents relating to Solyndra. That subpoena has been the subject of months of squabbling between lawyers for the committee and the White House.

Earlier this month, Stearns said that he is ready to declare that the subpoena process is not working and begin proceedings to hold the White House in contempt of Congress. But, he said, House GOP leaders are not yet willing to take that step (Greenwire, June 6).