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David Victor Quoted on Government Support of Clean Energy

Energy Secy Chu faces showdown on Solyndra

11/16/2011
Roberta Rampton and Ayesha Rascoe, Reuters

(Reuters) - U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said it may take similar skills to navigate Washington politics as it does to make advances in physics research, a field in which he won a Nobel Prize in 1997.

"You have to keep your wits about you, you have to dispassionately analyze what's the best path to go forward," Chu said this month at a Washington Post energy conference. "Breakthroughs will happen, setbacks will happen. You use those breakthroughs to work around those setbacks to go forward."

Chu's ability to rise above political setbacks will be put to the test on Thursday, when he will face the toughest grilling to date in his Washington career.

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee want to know why he and his department gave a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, a California solar panel company that went bankrupt in September and is being investigated by the FBI.

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David G. Victor is a professor at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and the director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation (ILAR). Looking across a wide array of issues from environment and energy to human rights, trade and security, the Laboratory explores when (and why) international laws actually work.

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