It looks as if Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are aiming to ring in 2013 with a renewed focus on the Department of Energy's controversial loan guarantee program, which provided more than $535 million to the ill-fated Solyndra LLC solar energy company.

Yesterday afternoon, Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and outgoing Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) sent Energy Secretary Steven Chu a letter requesting an update on the financial condition of each of the 26 projects that received loan guarantees through the stimulus-funded Section 1705 program.

Upton and Stearns said in their letter that they continue to be worried about DOE's 1705 portfolio.

"Recent reports have indicated that several other recipients remain in unstable financial condition," the lawmakers wrote. "The Committee is determined to continue its oversight of this program and ensure that taxpayer interests are prioritized."

Upton and Stearns gave Chu until Dec. 28 to provide the latest annual loan review by the agency, all loan progress and monitoring reports, and any loan disbursement requests DOE received from recipients.

The update would presumably include any new information DOE has on the bankrupt Solyndra and the two other companies -- Beacon Power and Abound Solar -- that went belly up after receiving funding through the 1705 program.

Abound has made headlines recently due to a recently launched criminal investigation by the Weld County, Colo., District Attorney's Office over possible fraud and financial misrepresentation at the company.

Unlike Solyndra, which blew through nearly its entire loan before it imploded, Abound used about $70 million of the $400 million in loans it qualified for before going bankrupt.

Last week, Colorado Rep. Cory Gardner (R), a member of the Energy and Commerce panel, said he believed the situation at Abound certainly warrants the committee's continued attention.

"Did they lie to the Department of Energy? I think that's the question," Gardner said.

A DOE representative did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.

A White House-commissioned review of DOE's entire loan program that was released earlier this year estimated that taxpayers are at risk of losing $2.7 billion on the government investment initiative. That estimate didn't include the $567 million that had already been lost because of Solyndra and Beacon Power (E&ENews PM, Feb. 10).

Supporters of the program have noted that the loan program was always designed to provide funding for promising projects that could not otherwise get money from the private sector. And, they note, even $3 billion in losses would wind up far below the $10 billion that Congress set aside to cover potential risks when it originally established the green energy loan initiative.

Reporter Nick Juliano contributed.