Jigar Shah

The goal is not to over-allocate money for losses and then not need it, right? Because that's sort of just money that could have been used to help other people. And I think we're really good at that today. In terms of the lesson learned, look, I would suggest to you that today... Both Republicans and Democrats have never been more bullish on America's ability to do big things.

When you look at just how aggressive Governor Lee is in Tennessee around pushing for nuclear supply chain and more nuclear plants, it's amazing. Or Governor Kemp in Georgia and all the wonderful stuff that's happening there, right?

Governors around the country recognize that this is something that is essential to take their best and brightest people that have decided to, you know, scale up a company in their state. This is the tool that they need. And it is so prudent because it doesn't really cost the federal government much compared to amount of loan authority and how much economic development it spurs.

Well, remember, it really is only an industrial strategy bill. It is not the rest of those things, right? The rest of those things are things that incentivize the private sector to do things.

Maybe, but look, I think that what matters is that these projects succeed. If we build a manufacturing facility and that manufacturing facility fails, well, then all the benefits that it provides to workers or to communities or other things go away, right? And so the central tenant to all of this has to be that these projects succeed, right?

I mean, that's how it provides the benefits to all of the other folks. And so that has to be the thing that is the thing that we're most focused on is that is this company going to succeed? Are the products that it's making in demand? Is the expertise required to stay ahead of its competitors something that DOE is working on? And so I would suggest to you that that has been the central tenet.

And when you think about the loan programs office's approach, our approach and our due diligence has been the golden ticket for all the companies that have gotten conditional commitments, every one of them to date. And what we've told people is... You have to make sure that labor is not something that is going to make your project fail.

Like, you need to hire people who are experts at their craft. You need to make sure that those people do the job right the first time. And people have done that because it has de-risked their project. And we've said, hey, it's great for you to talk to the community. We're not giving them a veto.

But we are saying that, like, if you don't have a good relationship with the community, we're not really sure how you're going to get the, you know, changes to your permit that you're going to need in five years or the expansion plans you want to do in five years, etc. So, like... You should talk to them. And when it's been scary, we've facilitated the conversation.

Yeah, it's a good question, right? I think we all first have to acknowledge where we were as a country when President Biden came into office, right? America was really doubting itself and doubting its ability to do these big things. Most investors were saying to their CEOs, I know you want to do things in America, but that's just too risky.

So now we had to go to these CEOs and say, how do we arm you with the information that you need to convince your investors that this is the place that we can do business? And along the way, people are like, well... You know, I don't want to have a great track record on megaprojects here in the United States. A lot of projects are over budget and take longer.

And so we had to say, well, what are the best practices on megaprojects? Oh, you should be spending 10% of your entire budget up front on planning before you start construction, right? Oh, you should have higher quality workforce, right? And all these things. And so a lot of the companies were like... wait, this isn't free money? This is not a grant? And I was like, no, it's not a grant.

And even if we were to give you a grant, which the Loan Programs Office doesn't do, we still want you to succeed. We don't want to just give you money and then have you fail and then for Chinese companies to buy all of your IP in bankruptcy.

Which is it? Too much process? Or is Jigar like pushing money out the door too fast? I think that when you do these billion dollar projects, there has to be a level of sobriety around how hard it is to do these things. And I think that a lot of the people that came into the loan programs office did not have that level of sobriety.

Now, it's not my job to, like, impose that on them, but it is my job to make them actually go through the checklist. And remember, if they thought that they could get private sector capital, they should. It is not the loan program's office's job to compete with the private sector.

So the only reason that they're going through the loan programs office is because they can't get a loan from the private sector, right? And so let's be clear about the risk profile that the loan programs office is expecting to take on, right? And so we want to make sure these things are successful.

Now, what I would suggest to you is that the amount of time it took to get people through the loan programs office in 2021 was a lot longer than today. Today, there are some people who come into loan programs office and are leaving with a conditional commitment within seven months. And so it is a lot faster. Why? Because they're amazingly better prepared.

They listened to some of the guidance that we've given people. They're like, oh, we can't just phone this in. We have to do real homework. Oh, okay. I guess we'll do that work. And now things are moving much faster than the loan programs office.

I'm not going to apologize for the fact that we've taught American entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors how to do big things, and they're finally listening and figuring out how to do that.

Well, to be clear, right, there were no requirements. I mean, the requirements for the loan program's office is you have to pay Davis-Bacon wages during construction, and you've got to, you know, meet some of the other statutory requirements around the Cargo Preference Act and some of that stuff, right? And so our projects were not required to use union. What we said to people is show us