"It is," Frantz responded.
An Energy Department rule states a company can only submit one application using a particular technology, Republicans said.
'Unprecedented Size'
Dan Leistikow, an Energy Department spokesman, said on a blog posted on the department's website that Kim, who was responsible for judging a loan applicant's technical merit, found that Antelope as a whole met the innovation standard.
Kim said in an Aug. 4, 2010, e-mail released by the department that the technical team concluded Agua Caliente included "new and innovative components" and that Antelope was sufficiently different to be eligible for a loan guarantee.
The projects were "unprecedented in size and scale," according to Ted Meyer, a spokesman for First Solar, the world's largest maker of thin-film solar panels.
They can provide enough power for 175,000 homes and displace 360,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, the equivalent of taking 70,000 cars off the road, Meyer said in a statement.
Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the oversight committee, said the Republican-led investigation hasn't backed up allegations from Issa that the loan program was a "broad scandal."
"The committee has identified no evidence that the department's decisions were the result of political favoritism or corruption," Cummings wrote in letter to Issa yesterday.
'Freakish Missive'