Fisker, U.S. government grilled over loans to foun

By Deepa Seetharaman and Ayesha Rascoe (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers grilled top officials from Fisker Automotive Inc on Wednesday over what was termed "the U.S. Department of Energy's bad bet" when it backed the "green" car-maker with hundreds of millions of dollars in loans. A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing focused on the DOE's decision in 2009 to grant the company a $529 million loan only to see it veer toward bankruptcy - a chain of events with echoes of Solyndra, the government-backed, solar manufacturer that went out of business in 2011. ...