As he takes over what has been described as the toughest job in Washington, D.C., incoming White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew may simply be moving out of the frying pan and into the fire when it comes to the ongoing congressional investigation into Solyndra, the bankrupt California solar firm.

A day after Lew's selection to the post was announced, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee that has led the Solyndra investigation, said he expects the new chief of staff to do a better job than his predecessor in providing the panel with White House documents relating to the half-a-billion dollars in government loan guarantees that the company received.

Stearns said that outgoing Chief of Staff William Daley, whose resignation was announced yesterday, had led the Obama administration obstruction of the investigation and was a main reason why the committee was forced to subpoena the White House for documents late last year.

"Daley holds the keys to the gate at the White House and is failing to comply with the subpoena for the White House's documents and records related to Solyndra," Stearns said in his statement. "I understand his desire to leave the White House given the seriousness of this and other investigations marring the integrity and credibility of this Administration."

Stearns pointed out that since the subpoena that was sent to the White House in early November was addressed to Daley in his capacity as custodian of records, it will fall to Lew to respond to document requests as soon as he takes over.

It won't be the first subpoena relating to the investigation that Lew has had to deal with.

Lew, who has served as director the Office of Management and Budget since November 2010, was embroiled in the congressional investigation of the Solyndra well before the company became a household name last fall after it filed for bankruptcy.

OMB is responsible for reviewing the loan guarantees that were awarded by the Department of Energy and a month after the Energy and Commerce Committee began its probe of Solyndra last February, investigators sent Lew a letter requesting documents relating to the office's efforts regarding Solyndra.

That request turned into a four-month dispute over what OMB could and could not release. In mid-July the committee finally voted to issue a subpoena to OMB to obtain the documents.

Subsequent emails released by the committee paint a picture of an OMB that was much more concerned about the Solyndra loan than the Department of Energy was.

An email dated just weeks before DOE decided to implement a controversial loan restructuring early last year in order to bail out the failing company indicates that DOE brass had, even by that late time, turned a deaf ear to those within OMB who were waving red flags about Solyndra.

One unnamed staffer at OMB noted in the email that while a decision had been made not to include the office in discussions about what to do with Solyndra, Lew should make the point to Energy Secretary Steven Chu that while "the company may avoid default with a restructuring, there is also a good chance it will not."

Last fall, in an attempt to take control of the expanding criticism over the loan program, Daley appointed former Treasury Department official Herb Allison to conduct an evaluation of the performance of DOE's loan portfolio. By the end of this month, Allison is expected to come up with recommendations for enhanced monitoring of the program and a plan for establishing an early-warning system to identify troubled loans before they go the way of Solyndra.

An administration source said today that that report will be completed before Daley leaves at the end of the month. But it seems likely that the implementation of any changes that Allison recommends will fall to Lew.