Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) is raising new questions about what the Department of Energy knew about technology challenges facing the now-bankrupt Abound Solar company before approving a $400 million loan guarantee for it in 2010.

The renewed congressional scrutiny of DOE's loan guarantee program comes as the Weld County, Colo., District Attorney's Office confirmed today that it has launched a criminal probe into the bankrupt Loveland, Colo., company.

Abound, which made a cadmium telluride thin-film solar module, burned through $68 million of its federal loan by the time it shut its doors and laid off 125 employees this summer.

When Abound announced its shutdown, DOE quickly pointed out that federal losses had been kept to a minimum because department officials, who were concerned about the company's future as early as last fall, froze the company's loan in September 2011 (Greenwire, June 28).

The move to freeze Abound's loan came at a time when DOE was under scrutiny for the failure of Solyndra, another loan guarantee recipient that had spent $527 million of its $535 million loan before it went bankrupt in August 2011.

But Gardner said in an interview today he's concerned that DOE knew there were problems with the company's products when it finalized the Abound loan in December 2010.

Ever since Abound's financial problems were made public in February, Republicans have complained that DOE's loan to the company was simply too risky. A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report from March indicated that one global credit rating agency that looked into the company in November 2010 had assigned it a junk credit rating.

Gardner today also referenced a report last week by the Daily Caller that indicated that a company engineer expressed concern to management about the quality of the company's solar panels in October 2010.

"Between the time the credit committee issued a conditional approval and the time they finalized the loan, there was an engineering report that stated significant problems with the product," Gardner said. "Why would they even approve the loan if they knew there was such big problems? That's what we're trying to find out."

Gardner, who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said a formal request for information could be issued to DOE from the panel as soon as today.

"We're going to be looking at all those evaluations and trying to find out what exactly the conversation was at the Department of Energy," he said.

As far as the criminal investigation into Abound, a spokesman for the Weld County District Attorney's Office would not discuss any details about the nature of the investigation.

"I can confirm there is a criminal investigation," spokesman Heath Montgomery said. "I'm hoping to be able to release details about the investigation in the near future, but I can't say whether that's in a day or a week or a month."

A DOE spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment by press time.