John Podesta Cited A Major Investment Bank’s Solar Projections. There’s Just One Problem …

Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation John Podesta cited analysis by Credit Suisse about the American solar panel supply chain, despite the bank nearly collapsing earlier this year for poor investment decisions and corporate governance.

Podesta cited Credit Suisse’s analysis to highlight the Biden administration’s goal of building up a domestic solar panel supply chain and manufacturing capacity during a speech touting the administration’s massive green agenda on Wednesday, the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) passage. Credit Suisse gradually lost the confidence of clients and investors in large part because it took substantial losses on bad investments, a situation which spurred rumors of an impending failure and sent customers into a panic earlier this year, according to CNBC.

“Credit Suisse did an analysis that suggested that 90% of solar deployment in the U.S. will be supplied by solar manufactured in the United States,” Podesta said during his remarks.

President Joe Biden brought Podesta, a longtime Democratic Party power broker, into the White House in September 2022 to assist with implementation of the IRA. The Biden administration’s signature pieces of legislation have so far unlocked billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize the American solar panel industry and supply chain, which China currently dominates, according to NPR.

UBS, a rival Swiss bank, eventually acquired Credit Suisse for $2 billion in March in a government-backed sale, an extremely low price that reflected the market’s loss of confidence in its ability to operate soundly, let alone profitably. The Swiss central bank had to extend an emergency $54 billion to the embattled firm before the sale to UBS occurred to ensure that it could maintain liquidity as its troubles intensified in March.

It is unclear whether Podesta was aware of the bank’s troubles when he cited its analysis during his speech.

Beyond poor investment decisions, Credit Suisse also has been involved in numerous inquiries pertaining to alleged fraud and regulatory noncompliance in recent years, according to Reuters. The bank allegedly helped some of its wealthy clients to evade U.S. tax enforcement, even after agreeing in a 2014 settlement with the Department of Justice that it would not do so again, according to Politico.

The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.