Energy Secretary Steven Chu Steps Up on Solyndra:

“There is always government bureaucracy. We are trying our best to cut that down to the bone, but there are statutes,” Chu said. “For example, the loans. Why does it take so long to get a loan out? Well, we are required by statute to do certain things. We have to protect the taxpayer interests. We have to make sure when we give a loan that there’s a reasonable probability of getting it back.”

[...]

“He [Chu] stacked the deck and either went around the general counsel’s office or stacked the deck before things got to the general counsel’s office,” the former Bush DOE official said. “It’s one thing to try to speed things up and make them more efficient. It’s another thing to say let’s expedite this at the cost of the substance of the law or regulation.”

[...]

“He [Chu] seemed determined to make changes to the program to, in his mind, make it more nimble and efficient,” Zelermyer said. “I’m sure he didn’t intend for those measures to result in an increased chance of a failed loan guarantee, but that’s for everybody else’s judgment to make.”

Influence peddling looking far less likely as the motivational driver than streamlining the bureaucracy. One is rather easy. The other, not so much.