Members of Congress Voice their Support for the Department of Energy Loan Program Office

Vice Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee Joe Barton, Subcommittee on Energy Ranking Member Bobby Rush recently wrote a letter to House and Senate Appropriations Committee leadership asking them to keep $100-$200 million in funding for the Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Program Office (LPO) in an FY 2018 Continuing Resolution.

The DOE LPO was created in 2005 to manage and provide loans to private sector industry to assist in bolstering innovation and “bringing new technologies to commercial deployment.” The LPO currently has $41 billion in available distributable funds. In their letter, Representatives Barton and Rush highlight some of the successful projects LPO supported in the past, including a $465 million ATVM loan to Tesla Motors to “transform a closed GM-Toyota plant in California into a full-scale manufacturing factory, creating more than 3000 full-time jobs in the process.”

From the start of the program to December 2016, the LPO disbursed over $36 billion in loans for various initiatives. In return, these projects have generated over $50 billion in investment returns, and employed 56,000 Americans. This isn’t the first time Members of Congress have received letters in support of the program. Last August, industry leaders wrote to leadership voicing their support for Energy-related LPO programs.

To read the full letter, visit: https://rush.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rush-and-barton-send-letter-to-appropriations-committees-requesting-they