Solyndra Inc. might have survived if there had been a price on carbon emissions, Illinois Republican John Shimkus said yesterday.

Shimkus, who chairs the House Environment and Economy subcommittee, opposed both the legislation to put a price on heat-trapping emissions and the Obama administration's decision to grant the now-bankrupt solar company a loan guarantee. He linked the two yesterday at a briefing with reporters to discuss the State of the Union address.

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.

"He knows he has a Solyndra problem," Shimkus said. "Solyndra would have been more successful if you priced carbon."

Shimkus said President Obama mentioned climate change Tuesday night because he was trying to excuse the Energy Department's half-billion-dollar investment in the failed solar-equipment company.

He said that Obama is vulnerable because of Solyndra's collapse, and had mentioned Congress' failure to pass climate change legislation as political cover.

But renewable energy advocates say that a national carbon price would not have been a game changer for Solyndra.

"The company had some real management problems, and I think a blanket statement like that stretches the imagination," said Richard Bradshaw, CEO of biofuels firm Atlas Energy Technologies Inc.

Bradshaw noted that Solyndra's financial situation declined quickly before it filed for bankruptcy last September because of its fast expansion, a lack of firm financing and a market preference for low-cost solar equipment. The demise of the climate change bill played little or no role, he said.

"My own assessment is that Solyndra would have failed anyway," he said.

Carrie Cullen Hitt, president of the trade association Solar Alliance, of which Solyndra was a member, said that passage of a carbon bill would not have made solar companies immune from basic market principles like supply and demand.

"There are thousands of companies out there competing in this space," she said. "Some are going to make it; some aren't going to make it. That would have been true under cap and trade, too."

A national climate policy might have boosted demand overall for low-carbon technologies, she said, but solar would still have to compete for space within that new market.

It is also unlikely the bill would have had its full economic impact by last year, when Solyndra imploded. "We wouldn't have seen all the direct results in year two," she said.

The provisions of the cap-and-trade bill sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) would have taken effect in 2012.

Shimkus spokesman Steven Tomaszewski said today his boss "was just speculating that had the president's energy agenda, including a carbon tax or cap and trade, been implemented, companies the administration touted, like Solyndra, may have been regulated into survival."

Reporter Jeremy P. Jacobs contributed.