The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the White House have reached an agreement that will avert a scheduled vote tomorrow on whether to subpoena five White House staffers in the ongoing Solyndra investigation, panel Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said this afternoon.

According to a release from panel Republicans, the White House and Office of Management and Budget reached an agreement late this afternoon that would allow the staffers to speak to committee investigators.

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.

Republicans had said in a news release announcing the subpoena votes that they could be canceled if the White House made the staffers available.

The list of staffers includes Heather Zichal, the White House energy and climate change adviser; Aditya Kumar, an aide to former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel; and a trio of top Office of Management and Budget employees, Kevin Carroll, Kelly Colyar and Fouad Saad.

Kumar recently resigned from the White House and is no longer employed by the federal government, but the committee said it still wants to speak with him.

Republicans said in their release this week that the five were closely involved in events surrounding the downfall of the solar tube manufacturer, which received a half-billion-dollar loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

Republicans on the committee first asked the White House for access to the five staffers in a Feb. 9 letter.

“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,” Upton and his top investigator, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), said in a release this afternoon. “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 committee has already issued three subpoenas in its investigation, all of which were for access to documents relating to the Solyndra deal.

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the GOP probe into Solyndra.

“After 187,000 pages of documents, nine committee staff briefings and five congressional hearings, Republicans’ allegation of political favoritism is as unfounded today as it was a year ago when they started this investigation,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said this afternoon. “We have cooperated with the committee’s oversight requests for the past year and will continue to show good faith as they now demand more materials and want more meetings despite no real relevance to the Energy Department’s decision-making on the loan.”

Reporter Elana Schor contributed to this report.