As the White House prepares to release a review of the Department of Energy's much-maligned loan program, the Senate today rejected a Solyndra-inspired amendment to a bill currently on the floor that sought to prevent executive branch officials from granting loans to companies in which they have a financial interest.

The "Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act," or STOCK Act, which the Senate continues to debate this afternoon, is designed to prevent members of Congress or legislative branch employees from using for personal benefit nonpublic information gained through their work for the government.

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.

But Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sought to expand the legislation to expressly prohibit executive branch appointees or staff from holding positions that give them loan- or grant-making abilities over industries or companies in which they or their family members have a significant financial interest.

Paul said when he introduced the amendment that his bill was inspired by the ongoing controversy over whether political influence played a role in the more than half-billion-dollar loan guarantee that DOE awarded to the now-bankrupt Solyndra solar energy company.

"I think the idea that you should not make money off government is an important one, but it is not just Congress that this should apply to -- this should apply to the executive branch," Paul said in arguing for his amendment today on the Senate floor. "We should not have hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, even billions of dollars in loans, dispensed by people who used to work for that company or whose family still works for that company."

On Tuesday, Paul's office sent out a news release that specifically singled out Steven Spinner -- a fundraiser for President Obama and adviser for the loan guarantee program whose wife's law firm was representing Solyndra -- as an example of the type of influence he was concerned about.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) argued that Paul's amendment was one of several that had been offered that sought to apply the STOCK Act to the executive branch.

"The fact is that executive branch employees are already subject to an effective and in some ways a broader ethics regime than we face now [in Congress], and it's backed up by criminal sanctions," Lieberman said today.

Paul's amendment, which required 60 votes to be included in the bill, was defeated 48-51.

The rejection of Paul's amendment came as the White House announced that an independent review of the loan program -- which former White House chief of staff Bill Daley called for last fall as the Solyndra scandal was reaching a crescendo -- will be released late next week.

The White House appointed former Treasury official Herb Allison to conduct an evaluation of the performance of DOE's loan portfolio and tasked him with drawing up recommendations for enhanced monitoring of the loan program and a plan for establishing a system to identify troubled loans before they go the way of Solyndra.

"We have received Mr. Allison's report, and we thank him for his service," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said today. "We are reviewing the report's findings and look forward to releasing it by the end of the next week."

The release of the report, which the White House promised it would eventually carry out when it originally called for the study back in October, has been keenly anticipated on Capitol Hill.

"I look forward to reviewing the findings of the audit, but it is questionable how much we will learn as long as the administration picks the auditor and sets the scope of the audit," said Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who has been calling for a congressionally appointed independent audit of the loan program.

Also this afternoon, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, opened up about her efforts to get the Senate more involved in oversight of the DOE loan program in the wake of Solyndra.

Murkowski said she had asked committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) to schedule hearings last year in the wake of Solyndra's bankruptcy announcement at the end of August. Those hearings did not occur.

"I think the chairman wanted to avoid kind of a Solyndra-bashing type of a hearing. That was not my intention in asking him for that," Murkowski said. "I happen to be one who believes that loan guarantees do fulfill a role and a purpose. If the program is going to be threatened, let's have a real sense and understanding as to whether or not these loan guarantees are as effective as we hoped they would be."

Murkowski said she believes that Allison's review will help in that effort, but she also intends to ask Bingaman again for Senate hearings.

"I'm afraid that if we don't, if we just kind of ignore this and say it's not something we should look at, you're going to have a sufficient enthusiasm on the House side from some members that really don't like the DOE loan guarantee program to really push to eliminate them," she said. "I don't want to see that happen. I want to make sure that they're working the way that we hope they are working."

Reporter Hannah Northey contributed.