Alana Goodman writes for the Washington Free Beacon about another questionable Biden administration decision.
A whistleblower accused one of the Biden administration’s top energy loan recipients of maintaining a “hidden” set of financial records while defrauding investors and tax authorities. The Biden administration guaranteed a $3 billion loan to the company anyway, the Washington Free Beacon has learned through interviews and whistleblower reports.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the IRS received multiple reports about Sunnova Energy, a residential solar company, between 2018 and 2024. Even as the whistleblower sounded the alarm about the business’s misconduct, the Department of Energy (DOE) moved forward on a record-breaking loan guarantee to Sunnova in 2023, which the Biden administration billed as “the single largest commitment ever made by the Federal Government to solar power.”
The federal government ended up backing over $300 million in bonds issued by Sunnova under the terms of the deal before the Trump administration canceled the agreement. Sunnova filed for bankruptcy in June, months after warning investors that it had run out of money.
The news raises questions about whether the Biden administration ignored warning signs about the solar panel company while promoting it as a major partner in its green energy agenda.
The whistleblower, who told the Free Beacon he initially discovered discrepancies in Sunnova’s disclosure reports in 2018, is a longtime financial industry insider who has not worked directly with Sunnova but has accessed some of the company’s previously undisclosed financial records. He could also benefit monetarily under laws that allow whistleblowers to collect a percentage of recouped taxes and SEC fines.
The longtime financial executive told the Free Beacon in an interview that Sunnova had inflated its numbers and overstated the values of its solar systems in order to score “counterfeit” tax credits, which it then sold to other corporations.
