The subcommittee's top Democrat, Diana DeGette (Colo.), said, “None of us from this side of the aisle are here to defend the DOE.” But she noted, “Unfortunately, the [Republican] majority to date has focused on firing partisan broadsides at the Obama administration,” rather than conducting a methodical investigation.

Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.,) the full committee's ranking Democrat, stressed that “we need to put this investigation into context and ask the most important question: how do we make the transition to the clean-energy economy of the future?”

Chu contended that renewable-energy projects are crucial to U.S. economic security and competitiveness with nations such as China, Germany and Canada, which operate government-backed, clean-energy lending programs. “We are in a fierce global race to capture this market,” he said.

Chu also said that even Congress acknowledged that some renewables projects would fail, when it appropriated nearly $10 billion to cover potential losses in DOE's overall loan program at the time it was created.