President Joe Biden’s departing green energy loan czar this week finalized a controversial $1.6 billion federal loan to a green energy company with which he had prior financial ties—a farewell shot at federal investigators who have been probing conflicts of interest in his lending office.
The Department of Energy’s loan to Plug Power, a hydrogen fuel developer, comes months after Republican lawmakers raised concerns about the company’s past business relationship with DOE Loan Programs Office director Jigar Shah. Shortly before joining the Biden administration, Shah invested $100 million in Plug Power through a green financial firm he founded called Generate Capital, the Washington Free Beacon first reported last year.
The funding announcement comes just weeks after the department’s inspector general called on Shah to immediately halt all loans from the Loan Programs Office, citing a “significant risk of fraud” and conflict-of-interest concerns within the lending program. The LPO eschewed the warning and has pumped out billions to companies in the final weeks of the Biden administration.
The Plug Power announcement is likely to fuel Republican criticism of Shah’s tenure at the LPO, which ballooned from a near-dormant program during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term to a $400 billion spending powerhouse under Biden.
Securities and Exchange Commission records detail a long-standing financial relationship between Plug Power and Generate Capital, an investment firm that Shah founded before joining the Biden administration in 2021, the Free Beacon reported last January. Shah sold his shares in Generate when he entered the government, according to federal disclosure records.
Under Shah’s leadership, Generate loaned over $100 million to Plug Power, one of the firm’s most significant investments, according to its website. Plug Power described Generate as its “longstanding partner” in a 2020 press release, while Shah was running the investment firm. The loan was still active when Shah left Generate to become head of the DOE loan office.
One month after Shah joined the Biden administration, Plug Power applied for federal financing from his office.
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