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<blockquote data-quote="John Roberts" data-source="post: 39417" data-attributes="member: 126">Re: Bad day for US solar industryWhile I am definitely not a fan of the government picking winners and losers (with my tax dollars), I am inclined to give the business executives the benefit of the doubt. We all have the right to take the 5th, and when speaking under oath in such a venue, you could easily end up in the gray-bar hotel for any false statements or faulty recollections. It&#039;s not just liability for previous illegal behavior, the testimony itself is an opportunity to screw up, and the interviewers will be working hard to catch them in something, and they are a target rich opportunity.&nbsp; There is more than a little political gamesmanship going on. I believe it was the House Energy and Commerce Committee? The senate, controlled by democrats so not inclined to stir up this hornet&#039;s nest. The executives gave advance notice that they would exercise their constitutional privileges to not self-incriminate themselves. The hearings were held anyhow, clearly to embarrass the administration. Perhaps I have been paying too much attention to this, but I felt this was all redundant for show, while many in the public will still not get it. If I were those executives I would be more concerned about past claims they made that everything was fine. :-(&nbsp; The FBI is already on this case, so we may get our pound of flesh eventually. We won&#039;t ever get the money back, or any green jobs from this group. It might be worth inspecting the rush of applications for this same program, that closes the end of this month. I think this extra publicity already killed one pending application.&nbsp;&nbsp; JR</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Roberts, post: 39417, member: 126"] Re: Bad day for US solar industry While I am definitely not a fan of the government picking winners and losers (with my tax dollars), I am inclined to give the business executives the benefit of the doubt. We all have the right to take the 5th, and when speaking under oath in such a venue, you could easily end up in the gray-bar hotel for any false statements or faulty recollections. It's not just liability for previous illegal behavior, the testimony itself is an opportunity to screw up, and the interviewers will be working hard to catch them in something, and they are a target rich opportunity. There is more than a little political gamesmanship going on. I believe it was the House Energy and Commerce Committee? The senate, controlled by democrats so not inclined to stir up this hornet's nest. The executives gave advance notice that they would exercise their constitutional privileges to not self-incriminate themselves. The hearings were held anyhow, clearly to embarrass the administration. Perhaps I have been paying too much attention to this, but I felt this was all redundant for show, while many in the public will still not get it. If I were those executives I would be more concerned about past claims they made that everything was fine. :-( The FBI is already on this case, so we may get our pound of flesh eventually. We won't ever get the money back, or any green jobs from this group. It might be worth inspecting the rush of applications for this same program, that closes the end of this month. I think this extra publicity already killed one pending application. JR [/QUOTE]

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