Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon documents another Biden administration blunder.
The Department of Energy is set to give a $400 million loan to a financially troubled battery company that admitted to defrauding the federal government in 2022, according to court records.
Eos Energy—whose board includes a personal friend of Department of Energy loan czar Jigar Shah—was forced to pay a $1 million settlement to the government two years ago for evading tariffs on Chinese battery imports.
But the company is still on track to receive the nine-figure loan from Shah’s office, despite its past violation and other financial concerns.
Last August, Eos Energy’s stock plummeted after a report from short-seller operation Iceberg Research, which claimed the company was inflating its $500 million backlog of customer battery orders.
Iceberg’s report prompted a class action lawsuit, which is ongoing, against Eos for “wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the Company’s securities.”
The news could increase scrutiny of the DOE’s loan office, which is already facing pushback from Congress over multiple loan decisions. Lawmakers last year started probing the Loan Program Office’s $3 billion loan to Sunnova Energy, a solar company, after the Washington Free Beacon reported on allegations that it pressured elderly, dementia-ridden customers into entering long-term solar contracts.
KORE Power, another company set to receive an $850 million LPO loan, is co-owned by a Chinese battery-maker, the Free Beacon reported.
The DOE inspector general said last year that she was investigating Shah’s loan department for potential conflicts of interest with loan recipients. Before joining the Biden administration, Shah founded a trade organization that has helped connect loan-seekers with what is now his office.
Several companies that have received or are slated to receive LPO loans also have prior connections to Shah. One of Sunnova’s board members, Anne Slaughter Andrew, also served on the board of the trade group founded by Shah.