A White House-commissioned review of the Department of Energy's embattled loan program will be the subject of a Senate hearing next month, Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) announced today.

The hearing, which will take place March 13, will feature the report's author, former Treasury official Herb Allison, along with Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

The hearing comes nearly 13 months after House Republicans opened their investigation into the Solyndra solar energy company, which went bankrupt last year after receiving more than half-a-billion dollars in federal loan guarantees. Allison's report was commissioned during the height of the Solyndra controversy last fall as the White House sought to take control of the expanding controversy.

Allison's report, which was released Feb. 10, offered suggestions for how DOE can improve its efforts to monitor the loan program and stay on top of its existing portfolio to ensure other loans do not go the way of Solyndra.

Since the Allison review was announced, one loan recipient, the energy storage company Beacon Power Corp., has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the parent company of another loan recipient, EnerDel, has also gone under. The government is not expected to lose anywhere near as much on its investments in those companies as it will when the Solyndra bankruptcy is finalized. Most insiders are not optimistic that the government will be able to recoup any of the more than half-billion-dollar loan guarantee funding it provided to Solyndra.

"Many people have told us over the years the loan programs at the Department of Energy are vital to maintaining U.S. competitiveness in advanced energy technology," Bingaman said in a statement today. "I think Mr. Allison has published a careful and thoughtful analysis of the DOE's loan programs, with some useful recommendations for managing the program going forward."

A spokesman for panel ranking member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has pushed Bingaman to hold hearings on the loan program, applauded the announcement today.

"Her goal here is to make sure the program works as intended and if there's any problems with it that we as the oversight committee correct them so that the program continues to exist," said Murkowski spokesman Robert Dillon.